Agnes Etherington Art Centre (AGNES), in partnership with the Vulnerable Media Lab (VML), has been awarded $220,000 through the Canada Council for the Arts’s Cultivate program. This significant funding prototypes the development of the Emulator Library for Media Art (ELMA), an open-source platform dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of computer-based art within Canada and beyond.

With advancing technology making some software platforms and equipment obsolete, small- to mid-sized arts institutions often lack the resources to maintain digital art.

AGNES and VML will prototype three emulators as part of the library, enabling institutions to easily curate and exhibit works created on outdated software, ensuring they remain accessible for future generations.

The project builds on the research of Dr Jennifer Kennedy, a leading scholar of cyberfeminism and computer-based art in Canada and Research Principal at the VML. “The loss of born digital art and cultural heritage to changing technology is an urgent crisis that poses a significant threat to resilience, intergenerational knowledge, histories, identity, and belonging for communities across Canada,” says Kennedy. “Not only will this collaboration open exciting possibilities for exhibiting artworks made with now obsolete software for the first time in years, but it will enable new understandings of digital-born art in Canada too.”

“Many people believe that digital lasts forever, and this could not be further from the truth. Digital is fragile and incredibly ephemeral, and without direct intervention, some of the most important works of the late 20th and early 21st centuries could disappear forever,” says Jeremy Heil, who is leading the development of the three emulators. “This project will map out the ways in which we can first and foremost preserve digital artworks, many of which were built on obsolete early web technologies.”

The emulators will allow artworks created with now-obsolete technologies to run within simulated virtual environments that run old hardware software, eliminating the need for costly software updates. The initiative will increase the ability of Canadian arts institutions to engage with digital art while providing essential preservation tools for the sector.

“The collaboration between the VML and Agnes will take an important step toward addressing this problem by making emulators that allow outdated software to run on current computers much more accessible to the arts sector than they have ever been before,” says Susan Lord, Director, Vulnerable Media Lab.

The Emulator Library for Media Art extends prior work with interdisciplinary artist Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) to revive her 2008 digital artwork vancouversonglines.ca, which had become unviewable due to technological shifts. The team found emulation to be the most viable solution for preserving digital art, and this new project will scale that process to help Canadian institutions manage and present digital works.

As AGNES prepares to open a new facility in 2026, this project is central to its ongoing transformation and commitment to innovation, inclusivity, and civic engagement. The emulator library will empower Canadian and international institutions to preserve and exhibit digital art, expanding the capacity of museums, galleries, artist-run centres, and artists.

“Few Canadian arts institutions have the technical know-how to exhibit digital art, let alone the infrastructure and resources to resurface digital artworks that were built with now obsolete technologies,” says Danuta Sierhuis, Digital Development Coordinator at AGNES. “With this breakthrough funding, Agnes and the VML aim to make emulator technologies more accessible to museums, galleries, artist-run centres and artists alike so that they can access, preserve and exhibit digital artworks more easily. For Agnes, this opens more opportunities for us to engage with digital art in the future.”

For more information about the Emulator Library for Media Art and AGNES’s digital initiatives, please visit agnes.queensu.ca or contact danuta.sierhuis@queensu.ca.