Saltwater InterMedia Lab explores the use of immersive media and extended reality as tools to foster belonging within multigenerational diasporic communities. Drawing from the lived experiences of Sunny Nestler and Janet Wang in diasporic Chinese-Canadian and Jewish-Canadian communities, we deploy two key ideas of thereness (Ahmed 121) and דאָיקייט [doikayt], meaning hereness in Yiddish, in the exploration of cultural belonging that is situated in practices of community rather than in geographic place.

Our research is focused in and with the community of Chinatown in Vancouver, BC, historically nicknamed Saltwater City by the early Chinese community, and the impact of urban development on this diasporic group, both historically and speculatively for the future. Within the Chinese diaspora in Canada, Chinatowns represent hereness as a nexus of cultural activation, resources and community care; however, Chinatowns are facing ‘cultural erasure’ from major urban centres (Mahieus, McCann, 2022). We work from an understanding that cultural belonging is located amongst the diaspora itself.

Saltwater InterMedia Lab creates pathways for new media research-creation, investigating multigenerational diasporic identity and placekeeping strategies. Our research project lab brings together an interdisciplinary and intergenerational team to prototype our research layering immersive iterations of the past and a future Chinatown, as the cultural erasure of Chinatowns in Canada and their embedded diasporic histories is a critical and immediate issue.