Lulu Sweet: A Gold Rush Tale in 8 Acts

Lulu Sweet: A Gold Rush Tale in 8 Acts (2015) is a location aware walking tour app situated on the Fraser River, re-imagining the life of Gold Rush actress Lulu Sweet, for whom Lulu Island (Richmond, BC) was ostensibly named.

Using animations, archival imagery and sound, panoramas, and 19th century newspapers, the artists take viewers on a journey from New York in 1850 through the jungles of Panama, to the mining towns of California and the outposts of colonial England, ending in the footlights of the Gold Rush stages of San Francisco.

There are nine gps activated hot-spots, each taking you back to a different moment in time, from 1850 to 1863.Lulu takes the stage at the tender age of ten in the rough mining town of Hildreth’s Diggings, California; shares the stage with the notorious Adah Menken in San Francisco; is managed by desperate swindlers and hot-headed gamblers. All of this is set against the backdrop of the Fraser River itself, upon which she and Colonel Richard Moody (the officer charged with surveying the region) sailed in 1861, the ‘moment’ when the island received its name.

(Source: Project Description Page)