JOE FELLOWS

Aki's market came about as the studio had the opportunity to install a show at JANM in the summer of 2023.  The artist, Glenn Kaino, was interested in telling the story of his family's corner store that was open from the late 50's into the early 70's.  All that remained of it was the building, which had been turned over into an apartment, two 3" x 3" polaroids, and the memory of his grandmother, parents and extended family.  

We initially thought that we might design a set to be assembled in the gallery space, as the estimated footprint of the original store would have fit comfortably inside the gallery.  I began modeling the store in CAD based on what we knew of the dimensions as well as some rough sketches from his uncle.  

We had been using virtual reality to preview our public artwork through the course of development.  I felt it was an ideal way to generate feedback from the artist's family.  We started initially with Autodesk's 'Prospect' product, and eventually started using Enscape as it offered far superior rendering capabilities.  

After a series of design reviews, we agreed that the VR experience had become so compelling that we felt that it should be the featured work in the gallery.   I felt personally moved by the way this process made memories more accessible to the artist's family and an audience simultaneously.  It was truly special to see his family members progressively finding memories in a virtual space that represented a store they hadn't set foot in, in over 40 years. 

Once we agreed that VR would be featured in the show, I started reaching out to VR developers to help us create a VR app.  I felt that that would be the best way to make sure the experience would be consistent and accessible to museum visitors.   We began to craft the exhibition around the coexistence of physical and virtual objects.  The store itself was anchored in a fixed position, marked by rubber mats we called our ' VR stage'.  The rest of the gallery was arranged around that feature. 

I then worked with our VR developer to migrate all of our designed assets into Unity, and design additional assets to fill the shelves with as many of the brands and products as we could.  The final design of the app took us about a month and a half between the two of us.  Setting up and configuring the headset in the museum took us about a day to adjust lighting, and train museum staff.