George Sawchuk Media Room + GATHER⋮PLACE
UNINTERRUPTED-VR
Nettie Wild + Betsy Carson + Rae Hull + Michael Brockington
Virtual Reality Experience (runs FIVE times per day — click here for showtimes) + Immersive Installation + Interactive Station:
Enter a space where the heart of a river meets the heart of the city… on a bridge where surprising images, both surreal and very real, mingle to reveal a story older than time.
Uninterrupted-VR is a visual poem that unfolds in virtual reality. It interprets the homeward journey of Pacific salmon, heading upstream to perpetuate an ancient cycle of life, death and life again. Salmon face huge challenges as they return to their home waters — and human encroachment, including climate change, is now chief among them. Yet the cycle remains uninterrupted to this day.
Years in the making, the twenty-four minute experience was filmed underwater in three BC rivers and then set to an evocative original score. There is no narration. The only voice is the whisper of noted Secwepemc elder Dr. Mary Thomas, speaking in her Indigenous language — an acknowledgement of the First Peoples as the original stewards of salmon.
Uninterrupted-VR evolved from a site-specific work, developed for projection across the almost one-kilometre undercarriage of Vancouver’s Cambie Bridge. Presented in 2017, it ran nightly through the summer and was selected by the international art magazine Wallpaper* as one of the world’s top outdoor art installations that year.
Eons ago, the migration of Pacific Salmon helped to create the ecosystem of the Comox Valley and the Pacific Northwest. Even now it critically supports the flora and fauna that we all, in turn, depend on. Uninterrupted-VR interprets that connected destiny — as it encourages our reflection on the importance of preserving it.
ARTIST STATEMENT
In the same way that salmon travel together over thousands of miles and for many years, the four creators of Uninterrupted have worked together over a decade to bring two major iterations of this project to reality.
In 2010, director Nettie Wild stood on the banks of the Adams River in the BC interior and witnessed one of the biggest salmon migrations in living memory — millions of sockeye swirling in vast, ever changing, abstract patterns.
Nettie was deeply moved to create… something. Not a documentary film…something different and on a larger scale. Something that could capture the majesty of it all. A work of big art in a public space.
Nettie and editor Michael Brockington began the search for a location and in downtown Vancouver they spotted it: the perfect canvas. And it was big – very big. It was Vancouver’s Cambie Bridge.
But first, producers Betsy Carson and Rae Hull had to convince the City of Vancouver’s Engineering Department that turning the undercarriage of a bridge into an illuminated artwork was an inspired use of city infrastructure.
Then came the essential task of involving the many communities deeply connected to salmon in BC. In the years that followed Betsy and Rae worked with multiple levels of government, seven First Nations, salmon research organizations, streamkeepers, volunteers and of course, funders — all of it ensuring the public was part of this very public creation.
For the Uninterrupted team, producing and projecting images onto a bridge became the creative challenge of a lifetime.
The camera crew was trained to film underwater, capturing four migrations of sockeye salmon over as many years. In the edit suite, Nettie and Michael sought to frame the familiar within a very unfamiliar frame; and to intertwine images that could be recognized easily, with the mystery and surprise of images shot in the abstract. Given the complexities of the project, final post-production had to be completed on location under the bridge, with the team holding its breath.
Finally in June 2017, Uninterrupted’s eight projectors were ready to project a salmon migration unlike any other. Every night after dusk people gathered and by summer’s end, 30,000 people in all had witnessed a wild river unfolding in the heart of the city.
In 2020, the fish and their story migrated into virtual reality. No longer tied to a specific location, in VR headsets the salmon could swim anywhere in the world. Better still, in virtual reality Nettie and Michael could try things not possible in the “real world.” The team expanded to include developers — those wizards of VR. For a year they explored the magic of virtual reality — a deep dive into the totally immersive world of 3D in search of visual, virtual poetry.
And the bridge? It has proven to be the perfect canvas throughout — and a metaphor for the intersection between cities and nature. The bridge shaped the story that unfolds upon it, and that story in turn fosters reflection on how we in cities and towns intersect with the nature around us.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Nettie Wild (Director):
Nettie Wild’s documentary art is driven by a pursuit of cinematic poetry and her appetite to explore new mediums.
Her renowned feature documentaries include A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS (1999), FIX: the Story of an Addicted City (2002) and KONELINE: our land beautiful (2016.)
In 2017, she joined forces with Betsy, Rae, Michael and a crew of 50, to create Uninterrupted — first on Vancouver’s Cambie Bridge and then in Virtual Reality (2020). With fellow filmmaker Scott Smith, Nettie co-directed the 3-channel video, GO FISH (2023.) And collaborating with soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp and pianist Rachel Kyo Iwaasa, Nettie directed the experimental performance video, KLAVIERKLANG (2024.) Her current work explores “Moving Paintings” as Nettie continues to attempt to “frame the familiar in an unfamiliar way”.
Nettie’s films have been broadcast and won top honours at film festivals around the world. More recently, her installations have been exhibited across Canada and internationally, including GO FISH at the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto) and the National Gallery (Ottawa); and Uninterrupted-VR at the Kaohsiung VR and Film Archive in Taiwan.
In recognition of her achievements, Nettie was the recipient of a Governor General’s Award for Media Arts in 2023.
Betsy Carson (Producer):
Betsy Carson is a producer/EP/director with over 35 years’ experience in documentary film, television, and digital projects. She has collaborated for decades with filmmakers Nettie Wild, Mark Achbar, Velcrow Ripper, Gary Marcuse and Hugh Brody and has produced over 100 hours of innovative projects ranging from television, theatrical features, VR and websites to public art installation. As an early adopter of “impact distribution” since 1988, her career has been focused on activating social and political debate in communities around the world, and the films she has collaborated on have won numerous awards and honours including multiple Genie and Gemini awards, AFI, Berlin Forum of Young Cinema, Hot Docs, IDA, Prism, Grantham, and two Cinema for Peace nominations. She also served as Co-Vice-Chair of the Documentary Organization of Canada for 6 years.
Rae Hull (Producer):
Rae Hull has travelled a path through many forms of media, first as a broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker, later as a creative director and program executive in digital media. She has always enjoyed the energy of start-ups and her skills as an innovator has seen her leading projects that nurture new talent, and encouraging public creativity and input. For CBC she created the concept for the Emmy-nominated, groundbreaking ZED — the first TV network/web series in the world to broadcast user-generated content; and for the 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games she led the development of an unprecedented series of interactive public art programs (CODE) that engaged people across Canada and around the world. In 2014 Rae joined Betsy, Nettie and Michael in making the Uninterrupted project a reality. She remains astounded by salmon and their journey, and inspired by the efforts of people everywhere to protect them.
Michael Brockington (Editor):
Michael has been editing documentary, drama and performance since 1995, with intense focus on the intersecting rhythms of picture and sound. He’s collaborated frequently with director Nettie Wild, on projects including Klavierklang (2024), GO FISH (2023), Uninterrupted (2022/2017/2012), KONELINE (2016) and Bevel Up (2007). Michael has won Leo awards for editing feature drama (Sundance Special Jury Award winner Eve & the Fire Horse), long-form documentary (Island of Shadows), as well as for Sound Design (GO FISH). Numerous other nominations include Gemini and Canadian Screen Awards.
Other favourite projects include NFB docs Carts of Darkness and Everything Will Be, indie features On the Corner and Protection, and the TV series Alienated.
Michael has published fiction and articles in various magazines and newspapers, worked as an organist, a juggler, and as a computer programmer in the field of robot vision. In ordinary life, he rarely refers to himself in the third person.
IMMERSED • RETURN TO WATER 2025
The world premiere of Nettie Wild and Scott Smith’s video triptych GO FISH took place at CVAG as part of in | at | on : RETURN TO WATER 2023. GO FISH took viewers inside the annual herring migration when hundreds of millions of herring return to the Salish Sea.
Uninterrupted-VR is presented now at CVAG as part of Immersed • RETURN TO WATER 2025, which marks the gallery’s fifth year of inviting visitors to programming and community activations that explore the enduring relationship we have with this watery region.
