Platforms: We Are Here, Live is a series of temporary public art projects that presented from November 2021 until the end of October 2022.

Platforms: We Are Here, Live commissioned 23 Vancouver-based and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) artists engaged in and grappling with the issues revealed by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Selected artworks were displayed on the following platforms:

• Billboard at Arbutus St and West 12th Avenue
• Light box at šxʷƛ̓ exən Xwtl’a7shn Plaza 
• Banners at Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch 
• Glass wall at City Centre Canada Line Station 
• Transit shelter posters throughout the city
• VanLive! video screen, Robson St and Granville St
• Digital display boards throughout the city

Waiting Room, Alex MacKenzie’s material-based film work, speaks to the various states of tension, calm, frustration, apprehension, injustice, inequity, and struggle felt in our respective waiting rooms. 16mm found footage is manipulated using optical printing, layering and reprocessing.

The simultaneous banality and stress of waiting undergoes a physical transformation into an active and highly charged materiality informed by our personal projections and desires.