in the conversation. This constantly changing view means the conversation is not frozen, but seems alive. With Words as their Actions knits together past histories from the end of Bytown and its history up to1855, to the women gathering 43 years later in 1898 when enough history was made to fear its potential loss, to the writing in 1954 of ‘Last Days of Bytown’ recording that history. Collapsing these together, the sculpture presents history as it is made: by collective effort, after the fact, through the act of story-telling and by means of a persistent rereading and re-presentation in the present. However, unlike an archive or a historical museum, the artwork embodies this as a physical experience, etching a new groove. For us, what started as a giddy exploration 25 years ago – a deep dive into the physicality of materials and landscape – has broadened as we have become more instrumental in our approach to memory in all manner of project types. We have come to understand that illuminating a landscape or a history was just the first step to the goal of reinforced and embedded collective memory of place and community. It is one that demands deeply impressed material experience – a form of persistent storytelling.
With Words as their Actions is a permanent artwork at Lyon Station on the O-Train Confederation line LRT and is part of the City of Ottawa Art Collection. An exhibit about the artists’ processes is on at Transformations: 24 artists, 13 stations, 12.5 km in Corridor 45|75 , Rideau Station, O-Train Confederation Line LRT, Ottawa, Ontario from September 2019 to January 2020.
PLANT Architect Inc
on site review 36: our material future
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