The Space We Hold was awarded the Peabody Facebook Future of Media Award, 2017. I was honoured to be invited to contribute to this project, as the subject of the imprisonment and sexual slavery of the three grandmothers was heartbreaking, challenging, and presciently timely in the release of the documentary and the interactive website, just before the watershed of #metoo .
The Space We Hold is an interactive meditation on and mediation of the NFB documentary, The Apology, directed by Tiffany Hsiung. The feature documentary and interactive website challenge viewers and visitors with the challenge of listening to the stories of three elderly women who were held by the Japanese as ‘comfort women’ during World War II.
David Oppenheim (NFB Ontario Studio) who co-produced the project with Patricia Lee (Cult Leader), spoke of the challenges of the digital project:
“Tiffany’s feature film followed the incredible personal journeys of these three women, whether they were seeking a formal apology from the Japanese government or summoning the courage to finally share their secret with their families. We wanted to create an interactive documentary experience that engaged people in an act of listening that was unique in online spaces, where the challenges of reconciliation are so visible. And where we can begin to know what it means to listen to testimonies of sexual violence in a digital age.”
You can read more about the project in a Bell Fund case study here.
I am so honoured to have contributed and to be mentioned in the NFB announcement:
“We are so honoured and thrilled to win The #CdnScreenAward for Best Original Interactive Production with our co-producers The National Film Board of Canada.
Congratulations and thank-you to our stellar production team: Spence S& Kirk Clyne at Art & Science Digital Experience Design, Tiffany B, Matt Nish-Lapidus, Evelyne Au-Navioz, Roman Lifshitz, Dafydd Hughes, #StaceyMayFowles, Marjorie Chan, Siobhan O’Flynn, Milena Vujanovic, Priam Givord.”
The Space We Hold was also honoured with the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, Best Original Interactive Production 2017.
Text from the Peabody-Facebook Award website:
‘The Peabody Media Center at the University of Georgia has named six winners of this year’s Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Awards for outstanding digital storytelling released in 2017. This year’s winners mark innovative strides in VR storytelling, in mobile books, and in data-journalism, as well as an interactive documentary marked by technological innovation in “witnessing.”’
