23 Onhwa' Lumina
For bringing the history and culture of an Indigenous people to brilliant life
Drone-operated dolphin balloons floating through waves of fog at Phish’s Earth Day-themed concert. A three-part installation—complete with waterfall gardens and a selfie-ready sendoff station—at Hong Kong International Airport. An augmented reality gaming experience at a Montréal mall that turns visitors into human-sized joysticks. Moment Factory clearly is no stranger to creating spectacular displays of light, sound, video and special effects that stretch the imagination.
And with its Onhwa’ Lumina project, the Montréal multimedia studio delivers yet another spectacular experience: an enchanted night walk that celebrates the Huron-Wendat Nation and their way of life. But the company built the experience in a completely different way. Project leaders understood they couldn’t create an attraction for and about their neighbors on their own. They needed to craft it with them.
“All our projects are born out of a place of a certain culture. We always start by getting to know the community and the content. But for this project, we knew consultation wouldn't be enough,” says Marie Belzil, Moment Factory’s creative director.
So in addition to collaborating with Wendake consultants, writers, historians and artists to learn about the Huron-Wendat, Moment Factory brought in two community members known as guardians of the nation’s culture. The result of that tight-knit, sustained collaboration is what Grand Chief Rémy Vincent called “the first attraction of its kind in Canada to be produced in partnership with an Indigenous nation.”
After two years, and with support from the Huron-Wendat Nation Council and the Wendake Tourism Office, Onhwa’ Lumina opened to the public in June. The magical, 1.2-kilometer (0.75-mile) walk through the Saint-Rémy woods is spread over seven distinct zones that trace the community’s history, from creation to life in traditional longhouses to colonization to the nation’s hopes for the future. As the sun goes down, the woods come alive—with lights, video projections and the sounds of Wendat singing and drumming.
The walk is designed to unfold as a series of immersive, animated vignettes. In one, a massive bear seems to spring to life among the trees, while in another, a humdrum hill is transformed through colorful lights into a flower-flanked spring.
“In a museum you have space to give context, but in the lumina we were trying to bring this dreamlike experience to step out of your own world into the Wendake world,” says Belzil. “We wanted to work with the emotion of the people so that afterwards, visitors would want to learn and read more.”
Though team members had brainstormed various concepts and elements during the planning phase, it wasn’t until they settled on the exact project site in mid-2021 that they were able to refine their ideas to suit the natural features of the landscape. An opening in the forest, for example, called to mind palisades—protective walls that often encircle Wendake villages. So the team iterated its early designs, opting to build an on-site palisade and use projection mapping (a technique that overlays video onto surfaces) to transform it into a tribute to the “three sisters,” the Huron-Wendat’s name for the key crops of corn, beans and squash.
The team finalized project plans in October 2021, with a goal to deliver by 21 June, the celebration of the solstice and Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day. That firm deadline meant much of the build was scheduled to happen when weather often proves unforgiving. “If you think of Québec City, winter is never-ending,” Belzil says. “The time and the season were our biggest challenges.”
The team adapted by meticulously tracking and prepping installation components to minimize drags on the schedule caused by supply chain delays. When a snowstorm dropped 12 inches (30 centimeters) of snow in the area and obscured the paths, the team was forced to wait until a thaw to install the palisade. But even as the temperatures rose, the mushy ground delayed installation further, and it wasn’t until May that this central structure was finally installed.
“It came very close to the last call, but in the end the spirit was so good that everyone gave a lot of dedication, and we got it done,” Belzil says. “From the first night to now, positive comments are still coming in—you can feel that there’s real appreciation for the bridge that has been created.”
Along with the glowing feedback, Onhwa’ Lumina is projected to generate more than US$11 million in local economic activity, with the tourism office expecting as many as 100,000 people to visit the project in the first year alone.