When it was announced that A.I. data centre development and construction was planned in my home province of Alberta, I was angry. Generative A.I. has been decimating the creative industry and the environment, and I don’t want it to have space to continue to do so in Alberta.

This was not something I wanted to be complacent about, so I developed a simple illustration that represented the Alberta I know and love, with a flying magpie and an Alberta rose. It was designed to be easily printable in black and white, and to grab a passerby’s attention if pasted up on the street or on a bulletin board. I created a Linktree, which contains links to petitions against the data centres, information on the negative impacts of data centres, and testimonials from people already living near large data centres. I linked surveys on A.I. use in Canada, articles about Albertan opinions on data centres, and the printable pdf of my poster for readers to distribute on their own.

I posted the illustration on Instagram and explained the project. The post has since gained over 2,500 likes and received hundreds of shares. According to Instagram analytics, the post resulted in ~200 bio link taps, which means people were tapping the link to the Linktree. I hope to continue sharing the poster and Linktree, and engaging with other community efforts to have a say on the data centres in our province.