From Film to Immersive Art: How BCEFF Helped Spark You Are Here

Ocean Week Canada 2026

From Film to Immersive Art: How BCEFF Helped Spark You Are Here

Earlier this month, CBC Radio featured You Are Here—an immersive environmental art installation that invited people to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with the ocean through sound, movement, and living visuals.

The installation, created by artist Julie Kim as part of Ocean Week Canada, transforms public space into an immersive kelp forest experience. Rather than teaching visitors through facts and statistics alone, it encourages something equally important: feeling a connection with nature.

For us at the British Columbia Environmental Film Festival (BCEFF), hearing the story on CBC was especially meaningful.

Where the Idea Began

Photo by Alexi Liotti

During the CBC interview, Julie shared something that made us incredibly proud:

“Initially, the project was incubated at the BC Environmental Film Festival and Creative BC’s Breaking the Waves workshop on Gabriola.”

That statement perfectly captures why BCEFF created the Breaking the Waves Workshop.

The workshop was never intended to be simply a filmmaking course. From the beginning, our vision was to bring together filmmakers, scientists, artists, environmental communicators, and creative thinkers to ask a bigger question:

How do we inspire people to care about nature?

Sometimes the answer is a documentary.

Sometimes it’s a short film.

Sometimes it’s an immersive public art experience like You Are Here.

Beyond Facts

Environmental communication often focuses on delivering more information.

But information alone rarely changes behaviour.

At BCEFF, we believe that meaningful environmental action begins with emotional connection. Stories, films, music, sound, visual art and immersive experiences all have the power to create that connection.

That philosophy is exactly what emerged during our Breaking the Waves workshop.

Rather than asking, “How do we tell people about the ocean?” participants explored a different question:

“How do we help people feel the ocean?”

That simple shift in thinking became the foundation for Julie Kim’s installation.

The Power of Collaboration

The success of You Are Here also demonstrates the value of collaboration.

The project grew through partnerships between creative artists, scientists, environmental organizations, and Ocean Week Canada, showing what becomes possible when different disciplines work toward the same goal.

This interdisciplinary approach sits at the heart of BCEFF’s mission.

Our festival exists to bridge science and storytelling—not only through environmental films, but by supporting innovative projects that communicate environmental issues in new and unexpected ways.

A Growing Legacy

One of the most exciting moments in the CBC interview was learning that You Are Here is only the beginning.

Future versions of the installation are planned for cities across Canada, each featuring local rivers, lakes, coastlines, and marine ecosystems unique to those communities.

Watching an idea that began in a collaborative workshop evolve into a nationally recognized public installation is exactly the kind of impact BCEFF hopes to foster.

Innovation doesn’t always begin in a laboratory.

Sometimes it begins in a conversation.

Sometimes around a table of artists and scientists.

Sometimes at a film festival.

Listen to the CBC Interview

We encourage everyone to listen to the full CBC interview featuring scientist and science communicator Moronke Harris, artist Julie Kim, and the Centre for Ocean Literacy Collaboration, where they discuss the inspiration behind You Are Here, the importance of ocean literacy, and the future of this remarkable project.

Listen here at  CBC:  Click Here

Congratulations to Julie Kim and everyone involved in bringing You Are Here to life. We are honoured that BCEFF’s Breaking the Waves Workshop helped provide the creative space where this inspiring journey began, and we look forward to seeing the installation continue to grow across Canada.