52 INTERNATIONAL
SHIFTING HOMES THIS AUSTRALIAN AND PACIFIC CONTRIBUTION AT THE 17TH VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE IS INFORMED BY THE PERILS OF CLIMATE CHANGE – SPOTLIGHTING RISING SEA LEVELS IN SAMOA AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THOSE AFFECTED.
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nder the curation of Tristan Wong and Jefa Greenaway, Shifting Homes is the creation of artists Daniel Stricker, from DP Immersive, and Vincent Heimann. The virtual reality (VR) piece was one of 10 Australian participants selected to represent Australia and the Pacific in the Architecture Biennale. All of these have been included in the INBETWEEN exhibition, which focuses on cultural diversity and the power of architecture to build connections between First Nations cultures in Australia and the Pacific region. A Shifting Homes NFT (non-fungible token) artwork was also launched concurrently for sale with half of the proceeds donated to the village of Poutasi (featured in the piece) and the other half to future DP Immersive social impact
THE BUSINESS OF ARCHITECTURE
projects. The artwork was powered by PoS blockchain, claimed to be the most environmentally friendly bitcoin, and carbon offset by Offsetra. Simultaneous global launches for Shifting Homes took place on 21 May 2021 in New York (NewLab with OVR Technology), Apia SAMOA (presented by the Australian High Commission to Samoa) and Melbourne, through the AIA, which also unveiled the INBETWEEN exhibition. As part of the project, DP Immersvie, in partnership with The Hub, SkyEye, the Ministry of Communication and Technology Samoa, and the National University of Samoa has also announced a remote learning program to empower and educate participants in the Pacific region (Samoa, Papua New Guinea and
Fiji) to create their own unique immersive experiences. The program teaches students VR, AR (augmented reality), NFT creation, photogrammetry, LiDar scanning and commercialisation in order to create a new ‘global village’ platform working with social impact experiences in new media.
THE ARTWORK The independent state of Samoa is a low-lying South Pacific country that is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Recent discoveries of ancient complex societies along the unprotected shorelines of the state are also being threatened by the rising sea levels. Shifting Homes presents a VR world of archeological features, vanishing cultural histories, and past, present
