Launch of the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art Onsite Gallery, December 13th 2019, 2:30pm-5:30pm

On Friday, December 13th, the Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge and Onsite Gallery celebrated the launch of their prototype Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art (VPIA). The VPIA is a custom digital platform designed to facilitate Indigenous access and contributions to Indigenous artworks in museum and gallery collections around the world. Using a wiki-style approach, the VPIA allows institutional artwork records to be transformed into living documents that integrate Indigenous knowledge, language and protocols.

Following a knowledge crowdsourcing model popularized by Wikipedia, this public event brought together artists, scholars and digital developers in an edit-a-thon to begin populating content and protocols within the VPIA system. The event introduced and explained the prototype VPIA, showcased project milestones, and invited participants to contribute their knowledge of artworks through on-site engagement with the platform. Electronic music artist Geronimo Inutiq DJ’d the event with a multimedia show, and his signature blend of Arctic and urban style.