Community Flow

Community Flow was created to bring together artworks from eight communities on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes. Each community had an artist work alongside volunteers to create one artwork from many smaller contributions. This project was to feature each of the final artworks, as well as the sum of its parts. Each contribution travels along shipping lanes in the overview map, connecting each community. When a community is selected, the main artwork is surrounded by the community pieces. Each piece can be discovered individually by selecting a circle to reveal a hidden contribution.

Besides deciding how to display all the images hierarchically, one of the main challenges was creating a decent SVG of the Great Lakes. The graphic had to be detailed enough that islands and points would be preserved, but not too detailed that the file would become unruly. Also, the Great Lakes needed to be projected in cylindrical coordinates, allowing for the direct mapping of shipping routes and communities.