Otsi:! Rise of the Kanien’kehá:ka Legends was given the Best New Media prize at the imagineNative Film + Media Festival on Sunday night. Otsi:! was the game designed as part of AbTeC‘s Skins workshop with the Kahnawake Survival School in 2008 – 2009, and then subsequently improved by Tehoniehtáthe Delisle and Kahéntawaks Tiewishaw working with Obx Lab‘s Mohannad Al-Khatib, Ramy Daghstani and Nancy-Elizabeth Townsend.
The jury’s comments are as follows:
The winner of Best New Media award had the strongest narrative and engaging story. It was the most ambitious and it had the most transference of knowledge. One of the things that make art exceptional is being able to walk away with cultural transference, and this project succeeds in doing this. The consideration of a project and process as a whole is interesting in that this project¹s transparency is excellent. There are challenges in the structure of the work and for the user but it is also the piece with the most potential, could be a huge success and should be developed further.
The AbTeC team would like to thank everybody who helped with the Skins workshops, including many in the TAG community