Workshop 1 at the Alun Turing Institute
Polar Impact is an inclusive network of racial and ethnic minorities and allies in the polar research community. In autumn 2022, we will send Polar Portals (Augmented Reality (AR) enabled postcards) via the Antarctic to schools in the UK to inspire and engage children to consider a career in polar research, especially among the target audience of 8 – 12-year-olds from racial and ethnic minorities. We will be commissioning original works from BIPOC artists living in polar regions which will be printed into several postcard designs. The postcards will present visual artworks connected to the theme of polar regions, exploration and science. On the reverse of the postcards, pupils will be able to access a QR code to learn about the postcard’s journey and bring it to life through AR.
With Royal Museums Greenwich an under-18s Postcard Design Competition will be held with local schools in East London. The winning postcard will be stocked in the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust Penguin Post Office and available for purchase. A temporary exhibition for all entries to the competition will be hosted at the National Maritime Museum in December 2022.
Working illustration by Farid Hussein (2022).
Polar Portals Workshop 1 – supported by SENSE and the Alun Turing Institute
On Friday the 29th of July the SENSE EDI Champion Heather Selley led a workshop at the Alun Turing Institute to kick off the project. The volunteers included Prem Gill (Polar Impact Founder), HEather Selley (Project Lead Organiser), Kirsty Flockhart (Art and production officer), Keiron Bally (Augmented Reality Officer), Priscilla Wong (Digital Content Officer) and Farid Hussein (Illustrator). The workshop allowed the volunteer team to come together and meet for the first time after working virtually on the project for the last few months. The team includes polar scientists, art curators, illustrators, web developers and PhD students with a wide variety of skills and backgrounds. It also gave the team the opportunity to discuss the more technical aspects with the Alun Turing Community, who are data science specialists. A key aim of this project is to make it scalable and be able to be as automated as possible to ensure longevity. This workshop focused on automating the process of getting the polar explorer’s geotagged digital diary which can be shown on a map, tools for QR code tracking, and expanding the project’s augmented reality concept. They also got to try out the mythical Alun Turing Institute coffee machine.
