Olivia McGilchrist

Olivia McGilchrist

A white French-Jamaican multimedia artist engaged in questions about identity, I have exhibited in the Caribbean, Europe, South and North America. I completed a Photography MA (London College of Communication, 2010). I’m pursuing the Individualized PhD at Concordia University, with Professors MJ Thompson, Lynn Hughes and Alice Ming Wai Jim.

Building on my experience as a white Euro-Caribbean, my arts and research practice explores how colonial legacies extend their reach to Virtual Reality (VR) technology. My current research-creation project entitled: "Virtual ISLANDs”  ties the relationship between Caribbean futures - as an alternative to Western techno-futurism (Lewis, 2014) and the possibility of submersion as a postcolonial stance within VR-making practice. Grounded in the violent histories of the Transatlantic slave trade my thesis juxtaposes Black Atlantic (Gilroy, 1993) art histories with a tidalectic (Brathwaite, 1999) formulation of water as a historical space in VR creation. This project invites a reading of VR practices towards aesthetic/artistic aims through the exploration of submersion as an alternative notion to describe VR’s immersive experience.