Dear Reader: I’m currently not writing much on Research Notes as I am enrolled in a Master of Art in Art Education program at NSCAD University in Halifax, NS. But here’s the 3rd post of a short series titled “Dear Carrie” for which the newsletter seemed a perfect vehicle.
November 24, 2022
Dear Carrie,
You know that thing you said about being paralyzed between “thought” and “action” when responding to online things? And I said, “I do a lot of writing and backspacing on Instagram” (and un-commenting and deleting my own posts). Well, this edition of “Dear Carrie” has been hard to write. After having already written 1300 words for this edition, I am now attempting to re-write this, to find a new way of negotiating thoughts spoken out loud. The public nature of “Dear Carrie” complicates things while also contributing “something” to its shaping—what is that something? Perhaps this is a good time to return to the term “research-creation” (from Dear Carrie #45) and especially “living-inquiry” which is a word often used to describe what a/r/tography as a methodology is. This inquiry into walking and all the questions it brings up is “literal, metaphysical, intellectual; it transcends ableist notions of physicality and is by definition peripatetic. The walk can be positioned as drawing, theorising, reading, or writing. Indeed, the concepts of walking-through and moving-with in walkography are shifting, unstable, transmutable, allegorical, “conceptualised as an assemblage of reverberative and resonating sensations, pedagogies, materialities, events, encounters and aesthetics.” ”[1] New research word: “walkography!”
Although I started this project by walking and thinking through a specific area in the downtown of Halifax, I didn’t know that it would lead to what I’m doing now…theorising, reading, writing, and…collaborating with you via the recent phone conversation and texting—we did not formally agree to collaborate but all conversations that happen in any medium affect the course of things. Therefore, I propose this process, this project, is inviting collaboration—unconditionally. The possibility is there, for me it emerged clearly as we shared a few texts last night. Surely, this is living-inquiry. With living-inquiry we don’t have control over things; results are unexpected and can lead to new directions. We can choose to act or not to.
The discomfort of this private/public project arises when I try to venture into new territory. I am trying to respond to one aspect of this creative mapping project’s directive: “One aspect of your map must consider you relationality with the Indigenous lands. Reflect upon the history of place and how it might shape your practice.”
The 1300 words I originally wrote with the above instruction in mind were messy, tentative, self-conscious. Thankfully, our texting last night presented a new path, new inspiration to start again.
Here is a section I’m keeping from my original attempt. So, let’s begin again…
Dear Carrie,
I decided to start my walking inquiry by walking the downtown but almost every time I went for a walk, I felt anxious—the hazards of doing a Master’s, moving to a new city, relationships, etc. So I was hoping to discover some quiet spots. That became my mission. Armed with a Zoom H1n handheld audio recorder, I walked without a plan and recorded my walks. Audio recording while walking had a strange effect on me. Sometimes, I talked to the recorder; I thought my thoughts out loud. That’s how I became aware that I needed something to shift—I just wasn’t sure exactly what or how to go about it. Through these recorded walks a “thinking-space” was created, and through this, “research material [was] cogenerated with the place.”[2] I also want to call this thinking-space, an interstitial space where moments of altered or heightened awareness were created.
“Sound compositions are more abstract products compared to standard audiovisual documentaries, yet they are better suited to highlighting people’s sensory experiences and mental worlds in more expressive ways (Eylul Iscen)”.[3]
Carrie, do you experience these thinking-spaces, these interstitial moments? Do you walk with headphones on? Do you listen to music and podcasts? And if you do, where do you go in your mind? Do you lose sense of the place you’re walking?
Carrie, how would you consider you relationality with the Indigenous lands? How might the history of place shape your practice? I am thinking of your walking and IG documenting as your practice. Is your walking peripatetic? Do you decide on a route, do you have a system, is it spontaneous? Would you say you are engaging in living-inquiry perhaps?
Now, how will I answer these questions for my practice? (Thinking through this while pulling loose hairs from my mop of hair--a satisfying action).
I know that I am practicing and writing this on Mi’kmaw territory in Kjipuk’tuk (Halifax) which is commonly translated to Great/Big Harbour. When the English arrived in Mi’kma’ki, which is the Mi’kmaw homeland of present-day Nova Scotia, PEI, central and eastern New Brunswick, the Gaspé Peninsula and Newfoundland, the Mi’kmaw people did not give away the land. In 1725, the first treaty was agreed upon and signed between the Mi’kmaw people and the British Crown. This was called the Peace and Friendship Treaty and it stipulated that the people occupying the land would leave in peace and friendship and that the Mi’kmaw way of life and the land would be protected. The Peace and Friendship Treaty is a living treaty—it still applies. The Mi’kmaw are still here but the land was taken from them—unceded territory. The Treaty was/is broken by settlers.
My relation to this land is that I am a second-generation immigrant settler of Italian lineage who came here in 1980, but that benefits from an actual Canadian birth—born here, left, came back. I will admit, I have not fully appreciated the privilege of a Canadian birth, I have taken that for granted. Although it is not hard for me to acknowledge that I am a settler in behaviour and an immigrant in identity—a distinction I realized after reading a dense scholarly essay,[4] I have begun to realize the challenge of responding to Call 93 and 94 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations. How are immigrants who are trying to learn the language of their host country, trying to “settle in”, make new friends, support themselves/their family, supposed to focus on their relationship with the Indigenous territory they occupy? “They thought they were coming to Canada, but instead they came in this mess,” one of my cohort’s shared in class. So, there’s that…a reality.
November 27th,
Dear Carrie,
I know my actions are important if I am to decolonize my interaction with all people here. To intend to decolonize takes thought, intention is the first step. Action is hard only because you will find that to decolonize means to examine the life you live within the context of capitalism, within which we are deeply entrenched. Everyone must do their own work to answer, ‘how do I decolonize?’ But here is a list of verbs offered by Vancouver-based artist and writer Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen who describes her lineage as Ojibwe/Swampy Cree and English/Irish:
naming—so when we think of land acknowledgements, these are actions we can take inside this space of asking ourselves, “How do I do it?” … We name ourselves, we name the space, we name our ignorance, we name our inadequacies, we name our pride and our connections (and disconnections) and our People.
dismantle
refuse
affirm
holding (space, ideas, history, aspirations)
occupy
learn
maintain
receive
subvert
declare
return
plant
intervene[5]
LAND BACK #LANDBACK #landback = Indigenous Presence / We Are Still Here
How might the history of place shape your practice? Still thinking.
…I stepped away to make cornmeal pancakes and it dawned on me that I am already shaping my practice in response to the history of Canada.
I might answer the question by saying that I’m looking for ways to create opportunities to have conversations about the history and issues of this place…which is what just happened here. I am aware that there is a good chance that 100% of the readers of this document are non-indigenous, so this action is meaningful. I am also learning to design decolonized community-based programming. It’s a process.
Let me leave you with a condensed recording of my first research-creation walk.
More thoughts next time. Keep on walking,
Laura.
[1] Bickel, B., Springgay, S., Beer, R., Irwin, R. L., Grauer, K., & Xiong, G. (2011). A/r/tographic collaboration as radical relationality. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10(1), 86-102. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691101000107. (Carrie, you should be able to access these scholarly articles with your UBC library card—if you have one.)
[2] I am borrowing this phrase from Derek McCormack who was quoted in page 208 in an essay titled Creative Engagement with interstitial urban spaces: the case of Vancouver’s back alleys in Urban encounters: art and the public, edited by Radice, M. & Boudreault-Fournier, A. (2017)
[3] Eylul Iscen, 2014 quoted in Creative Engagement with Interstitial Urban Spaces: The case of Vancouver’s back alleys, as above.
[4] Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40.
[5] Robinson, D., Hill, K.J.C., Ruffo, A.G., Couture, S., & Ravensbergen, L.C. (2019). Rethinking the Practice and Performance of Indigenous Land Acknowledgement. Canadian Theatre Review 177, 20-30. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/716610