The Virtual Reality (VR) Witness Blanket Project

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The objective of the Virtual Reality Witness Blanket Project is to create not only a true-to-life simulation of the physical installation, but to augment it and its elements in ways that would not otherwise be possible, to promote awareness, reconciliation, and healing. The Witness Blanket, created by artist Carey Newman, is comprised of more than 800 individual artifacts gathered from over seventy-seven communities across Canada: each artifact and the Witness Blanket as a whole stand as a silent witness to the atrocities of the Indian Residential School Era (IRSE). Beyond visiting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg, current avenues to view the Witness Blanket include visiting the witnessblanket.ca website, downloading the iOS app, or visiting one of the travelling replicas comprised of full-scale printouts. Unlike these alternatives, a virtual reality experience will faithfully replicate the imposing presence and emotional impact of the Witness Blanket, while also affording a voice to each of these silent witnesses by virtue of both user interaction and subtly guided narratives based on themes from Carey Newman's book "Picking up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket." Working with virtual reality in a context of cultural heritage, especially a contested heritage, "has the power to extend its capabilities of influencing users by capturing their attention, which are essential functionalities in multimedia VR systems designed for transferring historical information in a more enriched, immersive, and effective manner." [Chong, H.T., Lim, C.K., Rafi, A. et al. Comprehensive systematic review on virtual reality for cultural heritage practices: coherent taxonomy and motivations. Multimedia Systems (2021)]. Achieving that level of engagement, however, requires a sensitive braiding of history and artifact, narrative and sound, voice and vision, texture and technology. As co-stewards of the Witness Blanket, Carey Newman, Camosun Innovates, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights seek to make the virtual experience freely available on digital distribution platforms with the ultimate goal of providing the necessary hardware to remote Indigenous communities throughout Canada, bringing the Witness Blanket back to the communities who made it possible, so that those most effected may bear witness to this powerful monument to our shared history.