In my project, I would like to begin my research from local people and local grocery stores, so local food would be a great point to begin with. As I originated from China, I always think about the relationship between food and cultural identity. Food plays a significant role in shaping our cultural and personal identities. The dishes we eat, the ingredients we favour, and the recipes we cherish are all integral to our sense of self. Our food choices reflect our heritage, traditions, and upbringing, acting as a culinary roadmap to our past. 

By exploring the connection between food and the local area, hopefully, I can discover ways of expressing myself and connecting with audiences on a deeper level. ​(Shoran Jiang)

Back in 2018 Pinghub UK, Pinghub Malaysia and Dreamstudio.io held an exhibition 'Silk Route through the Ages - Past Present and Future'  a livestreamed VR collaboration between artists at Winn's Gallery, Walthamstow and Keeni Kessler Gallery Penang.

This was the first time Maureen Kendal, Alan Hudson and Fion Gunn worked together on an event and their interest in blended art projects was informed that experience. (photo above at the exhibition in Winn's Gallery)

Subsequently, they have been written a number of papers about how artists' practices are affected by immersive and other new technologies.

Below is a description of the first paper presented at 
EVA London 2019, Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

• Mon, Jul 8, 2019 5:30 PM  Thu, Jul 11, 20196:30 PM

Presented the paper:
Kendall, M., Mulla, M., Thomazi-Freitas, E. (2019) How Artists Can Develop Their Artwork, Its Market and Deliver Their Creative Content for Virtual Reality Environments?
Held annually in July, EVA London is one of the international Electronic Visualisation & the Arts conferences. It focuses on the development and application of  visualisation technologies to various domains, including art, music, dance, theatre and the sciences, covering the burgeoning creative uses of digital media for works of art and creative productions. It is a networking event for groups and projects, including European projects. 

Details on the conference can be found at: 
​computer-arts-society.com/events/2019/07/eva-london-2019

More details on the project can be found at: 
http://www.thepinghub.com/virtual_reality.html
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This is a first sketch for 'Fleet' an interactive installation by Fion Gunn which will feature in the Boundless: Transitions Exhibition @ APT Gallery in October. The fleet of imagined ships, space vessels & aircraft will emerge from suspended clouds and feature all kinds of interactivity - lights sound and movement triggered by visitors as they move around it. Some of the vessels will carry spices so the smells of cloves, cinnamon and coriander will add to its immersive feel. Images of the work in progress will be posted over the coming months.

AMaze team: Artists - Fion Gunn, Maureen Kendal, Chen Mei-Tsen, Nazia Parvez, Terri M. Broughton, Cleon Grant.  

KEY WORDS: artificial imagination, VR, tool-kit, navigation, cartography, curatorial, public engagement, art, artists, virtual worlds, migration, lockdown, maze, storytelling, metaphor.
Virtual Cultural Heritage; Museums and Collections; Music, Performing arts, and Technologies; 2D and 3D Imaging, Display and Printing; 

This paper examines step-by-step construction of an artificial edifice, a navigational architecture which connects AMaze Artists’ world, related projects and development of tool-kits for artists to enhance their working practice.

The cross-generational culturally diverse AMaze artists use a transdisciplinary approach, mutual interviewing techniques, insights from online meetings, continuous evaluation, iterative design-decisions, critical challenges and questioning. AMaze artists, benefitting from inter-connectivity, investigate their working practices, share visual imagery and symbolic language, identify differences, shared interests or consensus.

Within these conversations, the artists have been reconsidering, shifting their ground and transforming their practice and vision in response to their co-collaborators.

AMaze have reached out to bring in artists from other regions e.g. Mei-Tsen in Paris, France & Taipei, Taiwan; Nazia in Texas, USA & Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

Previous research by AMaze artists explore virtual technologies by artist-practitioners, identifying issues around ideas of ‘natural’, ‘random’ and ‘uncanny’; access to technologies; ethical frameworks and digital regulation. Today AMaze includes artists with diverse skill-sets: architectural and service user design; 3D character animator; 3D developer; cartography; curatorial, public engagement animation and cyber/virtual eco-landscapes.

AMaze artists’ build on their histories of migration and lockdown, perceiving their role as ‘Artists-Makers and Breakers’, using virtual tools and/or visualisation to realise these interconnected immersive worlds to present: ‘Boundless: Worlds in Flux’. Within these worlds, visitors-audience-participants experience multiple perspectives and shifting perceptions as they visit interconnected immersive multiverses of visual imagery, sound and text.

Fion Gunn contemplates the impact on her own work from curating other artists in large-scale exhibitions, creative journeys experienced through migration, displacement and transformation. Through the AMaze and Freetown Heritage projects, Nazia Parvez  focuses on a process of dialogue and collaboration to create shared histories, evolving narratives, and a collective virtual cultural heritage. Chen Mei-Tsen experiences time, space and memory as an urban nomad, in resonance with the diverse architectural strata of her hometown, Taipei, which witnesses over time and under influences of different countries. Maureen Kendal offers a vision of migration, trauma and joy. Cleon Grant develops 3D structural, coherent and elegant virtual worlds. Terrri M Broughton explores the significance of community through the lens of aquatic food chains and species survival.

From our age of the Anthropocene, AMaze imagines Virtual Worlds. Transposing ideas from landscape to virtual-scape. Exploring narrative navigation through use of maze, game, cycle, metaphor and avatars. Evolving participants’ space to enable community engagement and out-reach. Embracing co-creation in a meaningful way through imaginative and  inventive curation.

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