Parse
By parsing the layers of urban landscape, new narratives of land and belonging emerge.
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En analysant les couches du paysage urbain, de nouveaux récits de terre et d'appartenance apparaissent.
By parsing the colonial layers of our city we can expose an obscured narrative of our urban landscape. The land of the Mi’kmaki is ever present. The stream that once flowed into Black Duck Pond is now channelized underground; Big Pine Hill, which once held tall strong pines is now a grassy knoll marked by a citadel on its peak; and The Great Harbour, whose rocky shoreline once offered food and shelter to Mi’kmaw people, is now filled in with working wharfs. The places we know and have a sense of connection to are all grounded in a spatial awareness that is at the same time personal and communal, human and natural, organic and inorganic. Our psychogeography of the city is tied up in history, politics, and other “invisible” social structures.
This installation will ask the question, “what is absent?” as a starting point for audience engagement. The project seeks to bring to surface how colonial ideologies of territory are inherently present in the layout of urban infrastructure. By engaging in a collaborative mapping process, we hope to initiate wide spread critical reflection of our urban landscape and reveal the insidious persistence of colonial history. What we call Halifax - the streets, the harbour, the houses, the parks – is an amalgam of histories which unravel a narrative of reciprocal social relations and our relationship to the land. This urban condition is ultimately a result of the colonial project - of survey grids dividing the land, streets named after colonial magistrates, and sightlines directing views to Victorian landmarks. These acts of colonial inscription – naming and physically marking the land - were futile attempts to distort what has always existed and persists to this day under the Peace and Friendship treaties: the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.