Top left: Devina Lookman (Director and Producer)Top right: Beth Eden (Assistant Producer and Post-Production Advisor) Bottom left: Carter Kirilenko (Director of Photography and Post-Production Advisor) Bottom right: Chelsea DeMello (Lead Editor and Sound Engineer)
While not everyone connected with GreenHouse lives on-site, sometimes the most valuable aspects of the incubator come in those small, unscripted moments that happen in the cafeteria or residence. Such was the case for Devina Lookman during the last year.
Devina had lived as an Innovator in Residence at GreenHouse before, in the winter 2018 term, but she returned to GreenHouse in the fall of 2019 in her last year of an Arts and Business degree with a Peace and Conflict Studies major and a minor in International Development.
One day, last fall, Devina was talking with one of her GreenHouse peers about their families when her peer said, “That makes sense since you’re a Third Culture Kid.” The term was new to Devina but when she had to write a thesis for her PACS major, the conversation came back to her as something she wanted to explore more. As she began her research, she discovered that this was in fact a significant part of her identity.
“A Third Culture Kid or TCK is defined in the literature as an individual who spent a significant part of their formative years outside of their parents’ own culture,” says Devina. “An expression that is often used about TCKs is that ‘you don’t belong here, there or anywhere.’”
This described Devina’s life experience where she was born in Indonesia to Chinese parents, before moving to Canada at the age of six and regularly visiting Indonesia ever since.
She became involved with TCK communities online as she researched her thesis. When she was asked to create a public service announcement video as an assignment for another class, she chose to make it about the question that TCKs get frequently asked: “So where are you from?” The short video went viral among the TCK community, and shifted Devina’s own thinking about how she would communicate about and to TCKs with the idea of developing a TCK documentary.
Devina met regularly with different coaches from GreenHouse who helped her as she refined her ideas, and as she had to pivot repeatedly due to coronavirus restrictions. Now, thanks to connections made through GreenHouse, Devina has pulled together a team with plans to develop a full-length documentary film about TCKs in the next couple of years.
Devina Lookman