They Should Be Flowers

I’m drawn to VR’s proximity to the future and a new frontier that has yet to be discovered. It allows for a particular experiential confrontation that is an important element when dealing with the history of racism in Canada.

As a storyteller, a large part of my work is centred around who is telling the story and to whom. In its form, this documentary is inspired by an actual experience of a child.

Our intention was to create a piece that speaks to the effect that anti-Black racism has on Black children.

The little girl in this case has been given the pseudonym of Joy to protect her anonymity. This piece is about resistance through truth-telling. There is healing in telling your truth. Joy’s mother has worked closely with me throughout this process in an effort to give voice to how this incident has affected her daughter. But also to empower her.

Our goal is to create tools that provide Black children, parents, guardians and educators with a point of entry to speak to the trauma experienced through this interaction with the police and the long-lingering effects of a loss of trust induced by this trauma.

This VR experience and short film was born out of a deliberate intention to examine Canada’s deeply rooted history of systemic anti-Black racism through eyes and the voice of a child who experienced.

We would like to tell Joy’s complete account for the day so we’re going to expand the experience and the narrative of that day.

VR is a new medium for me as a storyteller and stepping into it felt very risky. But watching audience members become emotionally affected at the same moment in the experience repeatedly was incredible. Somewhere between our intention and the technology of the experience, people were genuinely moved. It was incredibly satisfying.

My favourite part of this experience was working with artists outside of my field to create an innovative and interactive story to go with Joy’s powerful narration.

I’m most excited about using our experience to continue exploring ways to centre Black children to tell their own stories of how they’re effected by anti-Black racism in schools.