Erica Hargreave
Ahimsa Media / Roamancing / StoryToGo

Chosen Pronoun: She/Her

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Destinations

Portfolio Items

Stareable, Vidme, Seeka TV

Fearless, EVRGRN Channel, STIRR

Hi! I am the Founder and Creative Head of Ahimsa Media, Roamancing, and StoryToGo. My specialty is in creating cross-platform media and interactive and immersive storyworlds. In fact, I’ve been doing this before there were terms for this form of storytelling, which led me to create of one of the earlier digital / transmedia storytelling companies.

Over the years, I have written for TV, magazines, books, the web and the education sector.  I’ve worked as a creative producer for TV and theatre, directed, and starred in my own TV Show. Ultimately the adventures I had telling stories and speaking around the world, lead me to create our digital travel and culture magazine, Roamancing. Our goal with Roamancing is to uncover the love and beauty around this world of ours, and increase cultural understanding.  In this bent, my team and I have been developing internationally award winning documentaries, web series and podcasts that do just that.

Recently I completed a Master of Educational Technology with a storytelling focus.  Through that process, I:

  • researched alternative pathways for creatives and educators to build sustainable funding models around their projects,
  • began creating projects targeted to reshaping perceptions around disabilities,
  • revamped and built new resources to make the media we create more accessible,
  • researched and wrote case studies on XR (virtual, augmented and mixed reality), and
  • started developing solutions for natural and cultural history storytelling with augmented reality.

I won awards, received grants, and spoke around the world on the work I did on sustainable funding models, accessibility, and XR storytelling; in addition to becoming a grantee, Ambassador, and long-term member of the Interledger Foundation community.

As a part of our accessibility work, we began creating an audio version of our articles on Roamancing and StoryToGo, that we are releasing through the podcasts Roamancing Reads and StoryToGo Reads, as well as embedding into our articles, allowing visitors to listen to the articles, read by the article’s author.  In addition to these podcasts, our other ongoing podcasts include Culture Travels, in which we learn something new each episode from the culture of our guests (this includes everything from cooking to handicrafts to music to history to languages …etc), the Sustainable Funding Series, Exploring Extended Reality (XR) and Encounters in EdTech. Additional I produced and hosted Web Monetized (a podcast for the Interledger Foundation at MozFest), produced Anne Webster’s award winning My Ukrainian Heritage podcast, produced the Live from the Interledger Summit 2023 Podcast, and have in the past been a regular on an international cooking podcast called the Social Cooking Club (in which 5 of us originating from 5 different countries cook together from afar, chatting about food and culture) and on The Creative Farm (a contemporary media podcast). Our work in making podcasting accessible to others, through open educational course materials has won us an innovation award from CNIE.

With my Masters now completed, my Director and Cinematographer Kelly Conlin and I are gearing up to shoot more seasons of our internationally award winning web series and nature documentary Naturally Ours.  We have been developing an accompanying website for that series with parks guides and educational resources for use in the classroom. You can visit that site, which is a work in progress, here: https://roamancing.com/naturallyours

Secondarily to this series, we are working on an Eco-Friendly Campervan Build to act as a studio on wheels for us, when we are filming in remote locations, as well as a Roadtripping and Wellness Retreat vehicle for my cat and I, of which we plan to share adventure from.  As we are intending to set up our Eco-Friendly Campervan Build as either an all electric or a hybrid campervan, we are planning to film a web series and / or documentary on this process and the subsequent roadtripping adventures, as there are a lot of questions around the feasibility of this in roadtripping communities.

We are also working on the development of an augmented reality natural and cultural history storytelling project, which will allow visitors to a place to travel through time, to learn from those who have been there before them, via their smartphones and tablets. With this we have begun with stories of Japanese Canadian in World War II, designed to create ghostly memories in AR in places of historical significance to Japanese Canadians in World War II.  Using similar technology, we are also working on some movement and mindfulness pieces in VR for managing chronic pain and general health and wellness. Currently I am partaking in the Mosaic Accelerator to grow this side of our storytelling and business.

Lastly, as an experimenter, tinkerer, and pioneer of newer technologies and newer digital platforms, I am an earlier adopter in the travel space in many such newer platforms, such as Mastodon, BlueSky and Castopod.

It is with our documentaries, web series, podcast and augmented reality storytelling in mind, that I am attending the 2024 TMAC Conference. We would love to talk to people about the possibilities of:

  • Filming a Season of Naturally Ours, our a documentary web series on parks and the people they inspire, from your destination. Here is a tease to the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpV4uIM1kg4 While the teaser is focused on Canada, it is our goal to film Naturally Ours around the world.
  • Establish partnerships on the series that delves into Building an Eco-Friendly Campervan and its subsequent Green Travel Roadtripping Adventures.  This is a way to highlight parks and other destinations that are EV friendly.
  • Film one of the other series that we have in development from your destination. These series include Roamancing the Globe – a light-hearted quest to uncover the secrets to love and romance from different cultures around the world  (Think Indiana Love!), Following the Grease Trails – travelling the original trade routes of the Pacific Northwest to discover how indigenous culture, life, and art has transformed over time, Sustainably Yours – a series that celebrates the sustainable initiatives that are helping to make our world a greener place to live, and meet the people that are helping to make that happen in the different places we visit, Healing Travels – a series in finding pathways forward with different health and wellness practices from around the world, following illness, accidents, and trauma, and Four Seasons Road Trips – in which as every good road trip needs good friends and music, we pack a couple of our musician buddies in the car or camper van to create music and mayhem in our adventures.
  • We also work with destination to craft tailored web series, documentaries, and podcasts for them, based on their goals.
  • We can help you cover live, on-the-fly, podcasts and other media from your events.
  • Having guests from your destination on our award winning Culture Travels podcast to share experiences in audio from your culture.
  • To discuss the possibility of bringing natural and cultural history to life at your destination through augmented reality storytelling via smartphones and tablets.

 

I should also note, that while I see myself as a child of Canada (which the campervan will allow me to do more slow travel across the country), I have two homes in Canada where I am when not traveling – in BC’s lower mainland (my official home) and Southern Ontario (when I am spending time with my mom).

Looking forward to seeing you in St John’s to catch up over good food and beverages, and enjoy nerdy musings on bridging stories and technology to bring adventure, travel, and culture to life, transcending time and space!

Heading on a car camping trip, leaving from Gander, post the post trips, if anyone has suggestions of adventures.  Presently thinking of heading in the direction of Gros Morne.