Currents: Niagara's Power Transformed
Spaces That Speak
In Conversation with Gemma Hodgson, Emilie F. Grenier, and Margaret Kerrison
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From the author, Anna Altschwager: Before becoming Creative Director at TAIT two years ago, I spent most of my career exploring placemaking in cultural and heritage spaces. I often wonder what the future of Placemaking will look like at TAIT. I sat down with three amazing women on our TAIT team to explore how they understand the possibilities of placemaking.
Placemaking is a bridge. It connects people to a place. The place could be a stage, a studio, a shoreline, or a ship. Placemaking can be permanent or ephemeral, intimate or expansive, deliciously complex, or beautifully simple. Placemaking is the craft of transforming functional environments into meaningful destinations—layering narrative, design, and experience into everyday spaces to create emotional resonance, cultural relevance, and a sense of belonging. TAIT’s team of deep listeners, creative leaders, and technical experts reflects a collage of different backgrounds, talents, and perspectives.
Currents: Niagara's Power Transformed
A Place Is More Than Just a Destination: With Gemma Hodgson
Gemma specializes in making places unforgettable - on land and at sea. With 20+ years of experience turning cruise ships and iconic attractions into immersive experiences, she's now shaping the future of experiential entertainment, as TAIT's Chief Executive, leading Placemaking and Location Based Experience markets.
Gemma Hodgson was waiting for a friend. She was in Sydney for work, and her friend asked her to meet at the Opera House. That night, as they caught up, got drinks, and took in the nighttime buzz of this busy public space, she thought about how none of this was actually about “the opera” or even the building itself. It was about how the iconic architecture and setting worked as the center of an ecosystem: a meeting place, a backdrop, an anchor for dining, drinks, and shopping. Yet together it was more than the sum of their parts. It told a story of that time and place.
This thinking created a bridge to Gemma’s earlier career, which began in the cruise ship industry; cities on the sea—the epitome of a collection of amenities working together to be more, and mean more, for passengers. Cruise ship amenities are often the same mix of must-haves—atriums, spas, pools, dining, theatres, and more. But to be the best, there is something else: an ecosystem of stories that connects and elevates everything. This drives how TAIT investigates placemaking. From Hodgson: “We set the goal of meeting audiences where they are, tapping into the energy in the room, and transforming it. Our technological toolkit is powerful— and at its best when it all fades from view. When technology serves the space, story, and audience, it becomes a bridge for personal connection across an ever-evolving ecosystem.”
Sun Group: Ho Guom Opera House
Creating Places for Connection: With Margaret Kerrison
Margaret brings Placemaking to life through storytelling, crafting immersive narratives across film. games and Location-Based Experiences. With a passion for blending story and space, she creates unforgettable, award-winning projects worldwide, proving that great places aren't just built, they're told.
Margaret Kerrison was trying to convince her brother to take off his shoes to get the most out of what awaited him. The immersive play space they were visiting—filled with climbing, textures, projections and more—was not something he was used to. Would it be weird? Why were they doing this!? With Margaret’s urging, he joined in, unshod, and eventually uninhibited. The playful experience of that day is still a go-to family story. Exploring how individuals bring their unique perspectives and needs into a space is at the core of Margaret’s work. Through narrative storytelling and experience design, it’s about investigating the possibilities of connection within layers of experience. What does it mean to be welcoming—not just to bring in the crowds, but to make sure that everyone has an inroad, a path that feels intuitive, accessible, and personalized?
TAIT’s interdisciplinary teams are advocates for the human-scaled layers and footholds that make placemaking possible. Beyond creating a “must-see attraction,” our work seeks to craft a responsive network of mediums and modes that all play their part in the larger experiential symphony. Within this space, every guest can find their rhythm, play along, and take the baton when they’re ready to make it their own. The audience is empowered to take what they need from the space, and that is what makes it meaningful. This feeling of being “for you, about you” is the first step to real impact.
"Through narrative storytelling and experience design, it’s about investigating the possibilities of connection within layers of experience." - Margaret Kerrison, Senior Creative Director
Lab at Rockwell Group: Bristol Myers Squibb Kinetic Chandelier
Virgin Voyages: The Lady Ships
Technology + Placemaking: Beginning & Beyond
It began on a ship. A big one. A city on the sea. Here, TAIT was tasked with technology integration. While doing this, we realized that we were doing more than hooking up A to B—we were creating the connective tissue that would allow an experience ecosystem to flourish. This was the start of our work in placemaking. From there, it expanded and took on the modes and mediums our partners needed to form bridges between the place and the person. As the portfolio grew, the technological innovation at the heart of our storytelling pushed past expectations. Relentless question asking (“Why? What if? How?) fueled the work. Today, we are laser focused on the balance between innovation and the individual. We seek to be the masters of supercharging innovation with a hyper focus on the personal and the ability to make meaning in moments.
Technology isn’t just TAIT’s origin story, it’s our horizon. As we look forward to 2030 and beyond, we know full well that we will dream dreams that seem impossible… for now. We know that big questions + big skills + big dreams = innovation across the board. The future of experiences is personalized, participatory, and prolific—crafted for the human experience, designed for exploration, and fueled by generative technology. Will the future be nano-drones leading us into a city of wonders? A live music event that transports us to a lush forest with a cool breeze on our face, the smell of pine lingering on our clothes? An ancient storyteller by a fire, the light casting dancing shadows across 20,000 years of humanity? Yes, and more.
Authenticity
From art galleries to public parks, stages to historic venues, humans crave the authentic. Sometimes the way to create this is expertly working within historical preservation guidelines, or with hidden, nimble technology. With audio that builds a sonic world around you, or sensors that make magic happen with the wave of a wand. These are only means to an end. The real motivation is a single person, in a moment that moves them. Authenticity is about feeling. The intake of breath when you enter a space. The widening eyes as you gaze at a dream made real.
Sun Group: Ho Guom Opera House
Fernbank Museum: Wildwoods AGLOW
Where Places and Emotions Connect: With Emilie F. Grenier
Emilie transforms spaces into emotional journeys, blending art, technology and storytelling to create unforgettable experiences. With two decades in immersive design-spanning performance, film and interactive storytelling - she knows how to turn the ordinary into something extraordinary.
On a cold Montréal day, as Emilie F. Grenier waited to cross a gray slushy street on her way to work, a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and spilled across her face. She closed her eyes and felt it on her skin, thinking about what it meant for that sun, in that moment, to have found her. The breath she took while in that pool of sunlight resonated with her throughout the rest of the day. She found meaning in this tiny detail that felt as if it was there just for her. Emilie’s work revolves around the weaving together of art and technology. Her quest is finding the emotional beacons in the guest experience. These landmarks are not often the big, flashy, expected icons. Good placemaking balances the beacons and the smaller, layered moments of personal connection. It is in this intimate space that details like scent, silence, and sparkle can evoke emotions that feel like magic come to life.
When TAIT does placemaking, we’re obsessed with crafting this bridge between emotion and meaning. Experiences can be amazing, dazzling, and one-of-a-kind. But what did you feel? Did you find yourself lost in a moment? How can we most elegantly choreograph the relationships between spaces and ever-evolving human experiences? We love spectacle, and we know that true placemaking is about resonance—about crafting something that lingers beyond the experience. We set a scene and welcome people in.
Power stations, opera houses, museums, or cruise ships—at TAIT, we have a shared understanding of placemaking as a bridge between people and place. Placemaking isn’t about the technology, the venue, the programming, or the content. It’s about the impact. Empowerment. Ecosystem. Emotion. The ability of the guest to be fully “as they are” or “as they could be” in the space. This is the heart of placemaking. It’s the culmination of all our TAIT know-how in service of creating moments that move people on their own terms.
"Power stations, opera houses, museums, or cruise ships—at TAIT we have a shared understanding of placemaking as a bridge between people and a place." Gemma Hodgson, Chief Executive - Placemaking & LBE
MSC Cruises: MSC World Europa