what is the durée of architecture?
ON SITE r e v i e w
ATLAS :: being in place
Francesca Vivenza A Painting Remembered, 2006 acrylic, fragments of maps on canvas 105 x 81 cm www.francescavivenza.com
Michel Boucher
42: 2023
Jordana Dym and Karl Offen, editors Mapping Latin America: a cartographic reader Chicago: Univerity of Chicago Press, 2011 https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/ chicago/M/bo6225459.html
Mirella Altic, Encounters in the New World: Jesuit Cartography of the Americas Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022 https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/ book/chicago/E/bo95833620.html
Simonetta Moro. Mapping Paradigms in Modern and Contemporary Art: Poetic Cartography. London and New York: Routledge, 2021 https://www.routledge.com/Mapping-Paradigms- in-Modern-and-Contemporary-Art-Poetic- Cartography/Moro/p/book/9781032052045
books
Shari Fox Gearheard, Lene Kielsen Holm, Henry Huntington, Joe Mello Leavitt, Andrew R. Mahoney, Margaret Opie, editors The Meaning of Ice: People and Sea Ice in Three Arctic Communities
Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies Bloomsbury Publishing. NY 2021 https://www.bloomsbury. com/ca/decolonizing- methodologies-9781786998132/
Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of the Arctic Seattle: University of Washington Press / Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. 2003 https://uwapress.uw.edu/ book/9780295983585/historical-atlas-of-the- arctic/
International Polar Institute 2017 https://www.nhbs.com
https://www.amazon.ca/Meaning-Ice-People-Arctic- Communities/dp/0982170394
longing joseph heathcott
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
maps and mapping stephanie white
'...In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied an entire City, and the map of the Empire, an entire Province. In time, these Excessive Maps did not satisfy and the Schools of Cartographers built a Map of the Empire, that was of the Size of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. Less Addicted to the Study of Cartography, the Following Generations understood that the dilated Map was Useless and, not without Pitilessness, they delivered it to the Inclemencies of the Sun and the Winters. In the Deserts of the West endure broken Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in the whole country there is no other relic of the Disciplines of Geography. Suárez Miranda: Viajes de varones prudentes , libro cuarto, cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658'1 1 Jorge Luis Borges. 'Del rigor en la ciencia' (1946) Historia universal de la infamia , Argentina: Emecé, 1954 Diego Doval, English translation, 2017 This very short story, in its entirety, is an invented quotation on a theme covered by Lewis Carroll's 1895 Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. It is quoted in Umberto Eco's 'On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1' in How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays , 1995
On Site review seems to visit maps and mapping frequently, but never as concentratedly as this issue. Maps are essential tools of exploration and conquest: if it can be measured, it can be drawn. If it can be drawn, it can be sold. If it is owned, it can be occupied. Latin Americans have had longer to ponder all this, their period of Spanish and Portuguese colonisation, said to be from 1492 with the arrival of Columbus to 1832 and the onset of the Spanish American wars, left two occupied continents, a postcolonial condition that reverberates from north to south still. In On Site review 31 , Rodrigo Barros, at the time living in Valpairiso, inverted the Mercator projection to position the South as the site of hopes and dreams, not North America, the escalator of power and interference. The 1913 drawing superimposing European countries on the South American continent, points out just how small and overly-intense Europe was just before WWI. Land mass was not power, influence was. The Mercator projection was never a scientific drawing of the globe, it privileges the North, reducing the two continents of the South to elements smaller than Greenland. Distortions, always distortions. Many of the essays and projects in this issue of On Site review re-think the recording of land by starting with the foot on the ground, rather than the pen on the paper. Possession becomes presence; occupation becomes belonging. This can be read as both dominion and reclamation. Like the inverted North-South drawing, it depends where one stands.
an unused image found on a website now vanished. My notes say it was drawn in 1913.
Rodrigo Barros 2014
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
ON SITE r e v i e w 42: atlas :: being in place spring 2023
contents
introduction
1 2
Joseph Heathcott Stephanie White
cartographies: longing maps and mapping
deep roots
On Site review is published by Field Notes Press (1986), which promotes field work in matters architectural, cultural and spatial.
Jeff Thomas Michael Farnan
4 8
mapping Iroquoia mapping the Georgian Bay watershed
F I E L D
complex systems
Susan Shantz Michelle Wilson Yana Kigel Dalia Munenzon
10 16 20 26
Confluence : the Saskatchewan River tracing carefull paths moral implications: urbanism and wildlife drawing water from arid lands
urban markers
30 31 32 34
John Barton Joseph Heathcott
mapped by poetry: The Troubles cartographies: urban design guidelines 2.0 cartographies: decolonising Manhattan (re)mapping: politics in urban space
N O T E S
Always quite liked that for Abbé Laugier, the muse of architecture was female, and there she is, holding her divider, classical architecture in ruins at her feet. For us, it is not the primitive hut that is interesting, it is the water tower.
Lejla Odobašic Novo +Aleksandar Obradovic ´
´
myster ies
Francesca Vivenza Patrick Mahon+Thomas Mahon Lisa Rapoport
exchange an uncertain proposition un-mapping: Autoroute10; Thunder Bay
38 39 40
emigration
46 48
the certificaat uncertain cartographies
Yvonne Singer Salah D Hassan
colonial processes
David Murray Peter Kuper Stephanie White
53 60 61
maps as archives 2018 Trumpworld on some maps; 1929, slippage
calls for articles
62
43: temporary architecture 44: architecture and play cartographies: urban powerpoint
63
Joseph Heathcott
masthead
64
who we are
covers
front: A Painting Remembered back: Gone Missing
Francesca Vivenza Yvonne Singer
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mapping Iroquoia jeff thomas
First came the field-work, next the conversation, then seize the space.
1. Wampum Belt #1 White Corn (2014/2018) pigment print on archival paper left to right: Jeff Thomas: Emily General (1985) Smooth Town, Six Nations Reserve. GPS: 43.01945, -80.08303
Emily General is my great-aunt and sister to my step-grandfather Bert General. Emily was instrumental in helping me define my sense of place as an urban Iroquoian. When I entered university in 1975 she gave me her copy of the handwritten story of the Peacemaker and his journey to bring peace to the warring Iroquois tribes in present-day New York State. Emily told me I could not use a photocopy machine, I had to make my own hand-written copy of the 1900 document. I did and it has been instrumental for my development as a visual artist and curator. Jeff Thomas: Old Chair outside Emily General’s kitchen door (1985) Six Nations Reserve, Ontario. GPS: 43.01945, -80.08303 I photographed the old chair sitting outside of Emily’s kitchen door because it reminded me of the times I sat at the kitchen, listening to my elders tell stories about the old days, gossip, the price of farm animals, etc. I thought that might be my last visit to the farm and I wanted an image to remember my time with Emily. Jeff Thomas: Drying white corn braided by Bert General (1990) Six Nations Reserve, Ontario. GPS: 43.018067 -80.08955 Francis Knowles: Chief Jacob General (1912) Six Nations of the Grand River, Canadian Museum of History. GPS: 43.018067 -80.08955 Bert and Emily had provided me with enough information to begin my journey of discovery. The Hiawatha wampum belt commemorated the Peacemaker’s journey through ancient Iroquoia and the story Emily gave me became the prototype for this journey and would lead to my self-identification as an urban Iroquois.
2. Wampum Belt #2, Cold City Frieze (1997/2016) pigment print on archival paper left to right: Jeff Thomas: Chief Red Jacket monument (1997) Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York. GPS: 42.92315,-78.8663 Jeff Thomas: Joseph Brant monument (1997) Brantford, Ontario. GPS: 43.14077, -80.26331
Jeff Thomas: Onondaga Chief Big Sky plaque (1997) Buffalo, New York. GPS: 42.829767,-78.773417 Jeff Thomas: IROQUOIS (1998) Place d’ Armes, Montreal, Quebec. GPS: 45.50485,-73.557667 Jeff Thomas: Point of View (2015) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. GPS: 40.4391,-80.021367
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Jeff Thomas, photo-based artist, independent curator, public speaker. https://jeff-thomas.ca
3. Memory Landscape (2015) pigment print on archival paper While scouting the streets of Buffalo, New York, Toronto, Ontario, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Ottawa, Ontario, for Indians, I have also questioned the stories the landscape has to tell me. Is there anything Indigenous about this landscape? I am speaking about the Europeanization of Turtle Island and how it inspired my quest to define my place as an urban-based Iroquois. left to right: Jeff Thomas: Storefront Window Display (1982) Allen Street, Buffalo, New York. GPS: 42.89918,-78.87084 Jeff Thomas: “This Is The Problem,” jacket by artist Tanya Harnett (2015) Tech Wall site, Slater & Bronson, Ottawa, Ontario. GPS: 45.41572, -75.70726 Jeff Thomas: Madeline Dion Stout, Cree (2002) Tech Wall site, Slater & Bronson, Ottawa, Ontario. GPS: 45.4153413 -75.7068984
4. Tailgate Family Portrait (2017) pigment print on archival paper left to right:
Frank M. Pebbles (American, 1839-1928 : Dr. Oronhyatekha (1841-1907), Royal Ontario Museum, ROM2008_10224_1. GPS: 43.6677 -79.39477 ORONHYATEKHA 1841-1907 (Oh-ron-ya-TEK-a) The renowned Mohawk chief, orator and physician is buried in this churchyard. Born on the Grand River Reservation, he attended the Universities of Toronto and Oxford. At the age of twenty he was selected by the Six Nations to present official greetings to the visiting Prince of Wales. In 1871 he was a member of Canada’s first Wimbledon rifle team and in 1874 became President of the Grand Council of Canadian Chiefs. Oronhyatekha was largely responsible for the successful organization of the Independent Order of Foresters. Jeff Thomas: Clara Thomas (my grandmother), Martin Thomas (my father), Bear (my son) and nephews, Cleve, Levi and Spencer Thomas (1990) Six Nations Reserve, Ontario. GPS: 43.018067 -80.08955
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
5. This Is Not Nostalgia #1 (2006/2016) pigment print on archival paper A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. left and right: Jeff Thomas: Steve Thomas (Onondaga) (1990) Smooth Town, Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, photographed outside his home, GPS: 43.03222, -80.07591 centre: John (Jan) Verelst: Brant 1710, courtesy Library Archives Canada/C-092419. GPS: 45.42005 -75.70789 Also known as Jan or Johannes (1648-1734), Verelst was a Dutch Golden Age painter, working in England, in the time of Queen Anne’s War.
6. This Is Not Nostalgia #2 (2006/2018) pigment print on archival paper A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition left to right: Jeff Thomas: Holland Antiques (1982) Buffalo, New York. GPS: 42.89916, -78.8773 John (Jan) Verelst: Hendrick (Theyanoguin) (1710) courtesy Library Archives Canada/C-092415. GPS: 45.42005, -75.70789 Jeff Thomas (Onondaga): self-portrait 1998, Samuel de Champlain monument, Ottawa, Ontario. GPS: 45.4294,-75.70145
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7. This Is Not Nostalgia #3 (2006/2018) pigment print on archival paper A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. left to right: Jeff Thomas: Joseph Tehwehron David (1957–2004), (1997) Mohawk, artist, and veteran of the 1990 Oka Crisis, Kanehsatà:ke, Quebec. GPS: 45.47321, -74.125 John (Jan) Verelst: John of Canajoharie (1710) Courtesy Library Archives Canada/C-092417, LAC, Ottawa, Ontario. GPS: 45.42005, -75.70789 Jeff Thomas: Bear Thomas, Cayuga (1996) Samuel de Champlain Monument, Ottawa, Ontario. GPS: 45.4294, -75.70145 I discovered background information about the three men on my son Bear’s tee-shirt. The original image is a studio portrait (possibly in Omaha, Nebraska) by William Henry Jackson; the men are identified as Pawnee Scouts. The portrait’s date is circa 1868-1871. (First from right) ‘Man who left his enemy lying in the water’, Raruur tkahaareesaaru ‘His Chiefly Night’, or ‘Night Chief’ Ticteesaaraahki’ ‘One who strikes the chiefs first’ Tirawa t Reesa ru’ ‘Sky Chief’ Standing, Baptiste Bayhylle, Resa ru’ Siriite‚riku “The Heavens See Him as a Chief”, Pawnee/French interpreter. The seated men are identified as brothers. Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1297.
8. This Is Not Nostalgia #4 (2006/2018) pigment print on archival paper A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition left to right: John (Jan) Verelst: Nicholas the Mahican (1710) courtesy Library Archives Canada/C-092421. GPS: 45.42005, -75.70789 Jeff Thomas : Justice (2006) Department of Justice building, Ottawa, Ontario. GPS: 45.42142, -75.70399 Jeff Thomas: Arnold Boyer (Mohawk), (1998) Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, Gatineau, Quebec. GPS: 45.42605, -75.72173
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
map depicting the settlement history and species at risk of the Georgian Bay watershed michael farnan
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:: deep roots
Michael Farnan. Georgian Bay Watershed and Species at Risk . 2022 Ink, chalk and charcoal on paper. 24 x 36"
Michael Farnan is a multidisciplinary artist and educator, living and working in Victoria Harbour, Ontario. His current research focusses on mapping the settlement history and biosphere of his home community on Georgian Bay. www.michaelfarnan.ca
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
Confluence susan shantz
Gabriela Garcia-Luna
figure 1: Streams, rivers, lakes and delta marshland of the Saskatchewan watershed traced in blue ink from a cartographic source map. (figure 5 )
Water Basin II , coloured pen on paper; 45.7 x 31.8 x 3.2 cm (each panel), 2019
My recent art exhibition, Confluence , uses contemporary cartographic road maps as source material to search for an alternative, watershed map of the Saskatchewan River from source to delta and ocean across three prairie provinces. 1 Using drawing, embroidery and large-scale cutwork tarps, I explored my river connection to the place where I live in Saskatoon which is divided and defined by water on the prairie. By tracing the currents of streams and rivers with ink, thread, paint and cut-outs, I followed meandering water lines that interrupt the boundaries of the regulated prairie grid, connecting my point on the river to humans and more-than-humans 2 upstream and down.
What if my territory of belonging were defined by the course of water rather than land? Might I discover the point of view of a river with my pencil/pen/needle/knife? Draw, stitch and cut my way through the overlaid network of occupation to the find the undercurrents of water in the watershed territory I inhabit? Confluence contrasts the fragmentation and gridding of the prairie through surveying and mapping with the less visible path of water.
1 The Saskatchewan River delta, the largest inland delta in North America, spans the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border near Cumberland House, Saskatchewan connecting Treaty 5, 6 and 10 territories with many Cree and Metis inhabitants. It is considered the terminus of the Saskatchewan River watershed after which its waters become 15.4% of the water in the Nelson River which flows into Hudson's Bay. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022. 2 'more-than-human' – a term used in some academic disciplines to question the binary of human/nonhuman and culture/nature.
https://www.hydro.mb.ca/assets/img/figurebox/dry-conditions-arent-only-factor-in-mh-water-supply-2.png
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
:: complex systems
Gabriela Garcia-Luna
figure 2: Traced ink drawings from figure 3 , upscaled to cover four tarps. The Saskatchewan Watershed --- streams, rivers, lakes and delta marshland – is cut into the tarps to create connected and gaping overhead basins and
paths that cast shadow maps on the floor and walls. Water Basin I (Saskatchewan River) , installation; 4 tarps, 359 x 1280 x 853 cm, 2018-2019
A watershed dream is shared by contemporary bioregionalists as well as the visionary nineteenth century head of the U.S. Geological Survey, John Wesley Powell, who, in 1890 proposed dividing the arid American west along twenty-three watershed boundaries. 3 Now, in a time of climate crisis, this vision is needed to remind us of what has been lost even if it seems only a dream from an unrealized past. What might it mean to live with 'watershed mind'? 4 To feel the connection between water in and outside our bodies, upstream and downstream from our point on a map? Might “watershed” itself be too static a term for something so fluid -- given water is an element that erodes edges and consists of multiple “nested and overlapping scales ranging from the interiority of individual bodies to the planetary hydrological cycle.”? 5 3 Ross, John F. 'The Visionary John Wesley Powell Had a Plan for Developing the West, But Nobody Listened'. July 3, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/visionary-john- wesley-powell-had-plan-developing-west-nobody-listened-180969182/ Accessed 8 Nov. 2022. 4 Peter Warshall used this term to describe the shift in thinking needed to better align ourselves with water. Warshall, Peter. 'Watershed Governance'. Writing on Water, edited by Rothenberg and Ulvaeus, MIT Press, 2001. p 47 5 Biro, Andrew. 'River-Adaptiveness in a Globalized World'. Thinking with Water , edited by Chen, MacLeod, and Neimanis, McGill-Queen’s UP, 2013. p 175
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
figure 3: River canoe route through the badlands traced from pages in a guide book then machine-sewn on paper and accordion-bound into an undulating, overlapping book that opens and spreads, wave-like, across a horizontal plain. Confluence I (Bow/Oldman/Red Deer/Saskatchewan Rivers) bookwork; paper, thread, 188.0 x 24.1 x 7.6 cm, 2017
all images this page: Gabriela Garcia-Luna
figure 4 : The South Saskatchewan River carves its way through badlands seeking the lowest point of gravity; these water currents are represented by long strands of embroidery floss sewn in running stitches across eight panels enlarged from the pages of a book of local topographic maps. Confluence II (Bow/Oldman/Red Deer/Saskatchewan Rivers) , bookwork; mixed media on pellon, 312.4 x 426.8 x 782.3 cm, 2020-2021
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figure 5 : Embroidered shirts for water managers with three key areas of the Saskatchewan watershed represented -- glacial streams, prairie meander and delta dispersion – all of which need care and attention in a changing climate. River Wear (for managers) , found objects, embroidery, 137.2 x 35.6 x 94.0 cm (each), 2018-2020
left: detail of River Wear (for managers: glacial source)
River Wear (for managers) with video projection of the artist’s hand embroidering the path of water across the prairie overlaid with the footage of the river’s changing water surface and sounds of geese in migration. River Wear: Current , video (looped), 2:54 min, 2020 https://vimeo.com/768284162
all images this page: Gabriela Garcia-Luna
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
Susan Shantz
figure 6 : Redacted map of three prairie provinces with the connected dots and lines of roads and towns painted white to reveal the Saskatchewan River watershed from the Rocky Mountains to the Saskatchewan River Delta. Finding Watershed (redacted prairie maps) , white paint on found paper maps, 129.0 x 89.0 cm (detail), 2022
A number of pieces in Confluence began as small-scale tracings from conventional maps, as I sought the path of water, using pen, paint and thread. Scaled up, these became large installations: the blue ballpoint ink lines of water lines hidden amidst the roads and towns of three prairie highway maps were increased, inches to feet, and cut into azure-blue tarps hung overhead to cast shadow-maps below (figures 2 and 2a) ; the accordion-fold bookwork of the river meandering through the soft topography of badlands expanded to eight stitched fabric panels cascading down the wall of the gallery and across the floor (figures 3 and 4) . In another series, I embroidered the path of water in three key watershed zones onto the back of white-collar shirts for water managers. If we wore the river, like a ritual garment connected physically and imaginatively to our bodies (figure 5) , might we make different decisions about the upstream and downstream waters that connect us -- humans and more-than-human beings – in our watersheds?
After completing and exhibiting the Confluence installation, I returned to my map-source and, with white paint and a fine-pointed brush, covered over the grid-lines and dots of roads and towns to better see the connecting paths of rivers as well as the loose outline of the watershed that holds them. This hydrocommons, beneath the ghost- marks of civilisation (figure 6) , is a threshold edge, opening to the white ground of the map itself and revealing a permeable space. Like the water’s shoreline on a river or lake, it is a more complex zone of transition than John Wesley Powell might have imagined with his demarcated governance boundaries.
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
:: complex systems
Gabriela Garcia-Luna
figure 2a: Traced ink drawings based on figure 2 , enlarged to fit on four tarps. Streams, rivers, lakes and delta marshland are cut into the tarps to create connected and gaping overhead basins and paths that cast shadow maps on the floor and walls. Water Basin I (Saskatchewan River) , installation; 4 tarps, 359 x 1280 x 853 cm, 2018-2019
While mapping conventions were my starting point for the works in Confluence , my materials and methods upended those conventions and dissolved the smooth surface of the map into complex fragments. Those who entered the space of Confluence heard the babble of water 6 as my multi-scaled, reconfigured maps expanded the parameters of mapping. From video and audio to embroidered shirts, to tarps and books, Confluence exhibits multi-sensory modes of knowing that come closer to the complexity of land over and under water; of water shifting land and land directing water. p
Confluence was recently exhibited at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, February 4-May 1, 2022.
6 Cecelia Chen uses this term to describe the excess metaphorical 'noise' of water that may go beyond conventions of both mapping and knowing leading to experimental and diverse methods of representation. 'Mapping Waters: Thinking with Watery Places'. Thinking with Water, edited by Chen, MacLeod, and Neimanis, McGill-Queen’s UP, 2013. pp 278 – 298 Those who entered the space of Confluence literally heard the sound of water from three video/audio projections of freezing/melting ice/water from streams and rivers in the watershed.
Susan Shantz teaches studio art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Saskatchewan. Her multi-media artwork, Confluence , considers the Saskatchewan watershed and was informed by collaborating with environmental scientists. https://www.susanshantz.com/confluence
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
tracing carefull paths michelle wilson
michelle wilson
The Coves Collective. Tracing Csrefull Paths (work in progress), 2022-2023. 80cm x 70cm, linen and cotton fabric, merino wool thread, black raspberry, goldenrod and black walnut dyes, time and community.
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My storytelling meanders, retraces itself, stays in place and excavates, changing slightly with every narration. These stories trace the contours of movement, for example, migration routes or rivers. And so, I use maps to guide their telling; maps that, like ‘land,’ are formed through relations. They are mnemonic devices that direct my wandering mind. On this map, we, the Coves Collective, illustrate the land we traced with our bodies during walks and workshops and recorded with GPS apps (see the white-on-white stitches). We create images with threads stained and dyed with plants from this place. Soils with long memories nourished these plant beings. They remember the relationships that played out across their surfaces, the toxins that leached down or were born through groundwater, and the bullets and chemical tanks embedded in their depths. This island of land, nestled in the crook of a horseshoe of muddy ponds, was formed millennia ago by a meander off the river known to its Anishinaabe stewards as the Deshkan Ziibi or Antler River. 1 Settlers had yet to sever this meander from the Deshkan Ziibi when the Deshkan Ziibiing Anishinaabeg signed McKee Treaty No. 2 and London Township Treaty No. 6. 2 As deceitful as those treaties were, one thing is clear: the Deshkan Ziibiing Anishinaabeg never ceded title to the bed of the Deshkan Ziibi. 3 Following the ponds’ banks today, I have found that only one trickling finger stretches toward the Deshkan Ziibi. This is because the river inflow was blocked over a century ago by railway embankments and later, in the 1950s, by a garbage dump. Still, I understand this place, known as the Coves, as part of the watershed that the Deshkan Ziibiing Anishinaabeg nation never ceded. But what does ownership mean when we understand that this area also falls under the inherent Indigenous rights of the Minisink Lunaape (Munsee-Delaware Nation) and the Onyota’a:ka (Oneida Nation of the Thames)? The waters that wore away the banks that define and protect this place also mark it as a place where I can feel what should be palpable throughout this town, province, and country; I am on Stolen Indigenous Land.
So, who does this land belong to?
1 Later the French called it La Tranchée. Most recently, Lieutenant- Governor John Graves Simcoe called it the Thames River. 2 The Deshkan Ziibiing Anishinaabeg are commonly referred to today as the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation. 3 This is a brief and simplified interpretation of the treaty relationships in London, Ontario. For a thorough and more nuanced understanding I urge you to read "London (Ontario) Area Treaties: An Introductory Guide" (2018) by Stephen D'Arcy. It is available at: http://works.bepress.com/sdarcy/19/
michelle wilson
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
This answer, again, returns us to the river. In 1937 the Deshkan Zibii crested its banks and swamped much of the city of London, Ontario. In response, the city instituted flood control measures that arrested the seasonal submerging of the lowlands held within the oxbow. Thus, on the eve of the Second World War, the Canadian government offered up this land, which they had used for nearly sixty years as a rifle range and training ground for agriculture. Simultaneously, the advancing tide of German expansion drove the Wolf family from what was then Czechoslovakia. In 1939 Thomas Wolf purchased nearly all the land we have mapped in this piece. He planted a fruit orchard, built a house, and quietly continued his family trade in the basement, mixing paint. Within a decade, Thomas Wolf and his family established the Almatex Paint company. It expanded quickly, and before anyone could raise alarms about the environmental impact, it became a significant employer in the city. The factory closed in 2001. Its warehouses, laboratory, and factory are gone. However, the chain link fences topped with barbed wire, cement pads, and blocks of concrete threaded with rebar remain, marking where the toxic chemicals were once mixed. This summer, I led walks through a hole in the fence to this site. We poured water gathered from the ponds onto a living artwork: a ring of goldenrod planted by the Coves Collective into a trench we cut into the cement with a circular saw. This goldenrod removes lead in the soil, one of the many invisible presences Almatex left behind. In the center of the ring, we marked our presence by stacking rocks and chunks of concrete to form a cairn. In August, the former factory site is similarly ringed with four-foot-high goldenrod, nourishing swarms of bees, vibrantly declaring that these plant beings are already working to heal this place. The Coves Collective's work humbly draws attention to what these plant beings have already begun. I told those who accompanied me on my walks about Mrs. Ayshi Hassan, who wrote to the city in 1971 and informed them that all the birds had left the area, driven away by the stench of noxious fumes. I told them about the "paint pit" that children set on fire in 1966, creating a column of smoke that rose hundreds of feet above the land we stood on. I told them about the two towering evergreens that were felled in 1981 when a labour strike turned violent; the Almatex management replaced the trees with a giant pole topped with a CCTV camera. One day as I was telling these stories, two deer raced around the interior perimeter of the fence, circling us before escaping through a gap known only to them. One of the youths with me that day asked, “what is the opposite of traumatized?” Valspar, a subsidiary of Sherwin Williams, who bought out Almatex, still owns this land. Their contractors only visit the site to test the groundwater through blue test wells that dot the land.
But does the land belong to them?
michelle wilson
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
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michelle wilson
We do this work because we attend to this place; as we walk here, harvest clay and plants here, and attempt to enter into reciprocal relations here. Not because this place belongs to us but rather because we, the Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the Coves Collective, are in the process of belonging to this place. p
We walked the trails made by humans and animals and picked up the small apples that still grow yearly. I heard that decades ago, the caretaker shot salt pellets at the children sneaking into the orchard to eat the fruit. There we found half a ginger cat, consumed by the resident coyotes. A child left behind tobacco and the whispered words, 'rest in peace'. As recently as the 1920s and 30s, the ponds that circle this land still flowed with water from the Deshkan Ziibi. They were so clear and clean that settlers set up ice-harvesting businesses on their banks. Now the only water that flows into them is runoff from streets and neighbourhoods. This has kicked the natural sedimentation process into overdrive. The water has become nearly opaque in places. In the spring of 1970, almost all the fish in the East Pond died. Today there are thriving populations of turtles and Common Carp. The carp, a non-native giant in these small waterways, stir up the silt, keeping sunlight from penetrating these waters and keeping aquatic vegetation from taking root. These carp are too big to be prey for the herons and egrets who have returned to nest on these banks. So, as the Coves Collective, we have tried to establish better relations with this place by harvesting carp. We honour their lives by eating their flesh (when it is safe) and tanning their hides (which will eventually be incorporated into this map).
The Coves Collective is an ad-hoc group of artists, educators, and activists that have come together to attend to our responsibilities and relationships with the Coves, an environmentally significant area recovering from years of misuse. These actions include Tracing CareFull Paths , a community- produced textile map facilitated by Michelle Wilson and Reilly Knowles, on the land teachings, including traditional medicine gathering and medicine pouch making led by cultural-justice coordinator Candace Dube, and clay harvesting and vessel making guided by Indigenous ceramicist Shawna Redskye. Michelle Wilson is an artist and mother currently residing as an uninvited guest on Treaty Six territory in London, Ontario. She earned a PhD in Art and Visual Culture from the University of Western Ontario and is currently a post-doctoral scholar with the Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership at the University of Guelph. www.michelle-wilson.ca
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
the moral implications of urban design in proximity to wildlife yana kigel
A small pond, a distributary of the Carp River and located within the developing Ottawa suburb of Stittsville sits in what was once an undeveloped buffer zone, separating an established neighbourhood from agricultural land. Recently, the urban sprawl encircling this piece of land has encroached on the undergrowth with the freshly laid-out trail of Abbottsville, a paved addition that overshadows the many organic paths large and small, just as the unnamed pond is dwarfed by the well-known Carp River. I live in this relatively new neighbourhood. With windows overlooking these pathways, I have had a front-row seat to the intrusive construction that has appeared over the last three years. Suburbanites often rationalise their relocation by denouncing the lack of greenery in the city centre; hence, moving from a busy metropolis to a quiet suburb, I also envisioned the promised closeness to nature. However, upon moving, I began to see that the green suburbs had failed to create a place of harmony with nature. Instead, the streets, victims of land manipulation, were deceptively moulded to appear ‘green’. Traditional suburban landscape works to sterilise natural landscapes rather than promote an ecosystem that connects humans and wildlife. The remaining patches of forest lands are isolated in the existing urban fabric. Wilderness is expelled from our daily routine, visited only through planned excursions.
Yana Kigel
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what defines a path? Environment and intent influence how we subconsciously pick which trail is worth travelling along. In small-scale urban parks, designers typically attempt to navigate the traffic by accentuating an abrupt change in materiality along the boundaries - pavement against earth, manicured turf against overgrown plants, the purpose being to make it accessible both visually and physically. As a result, most people stay on the pavement, avoiding extensions that appear uncharted or unstable. These more ambiguous, organic trails are hence less inviting. They have a smaller footprint, a less visible border, and subtle material transition. Only in a less controlled environment, such as a forest, could such pathways be expected to deviate from the established routes. We recognise that we may encounter the unknown - a wild animal, an unexpected puddle, or a dead end. Another alternative, increasingly challenging to locate, is a route that hugs an edge. An existing border, such as of backyards, agricultural fields, or rivers, define these types of boundaries. Unlike spread asphalt or prints left by previous visitors, it is far more challenging to determine if an edge may be intended for travel or if it is part of an off-limits, private property. In our still semi-underdeveloped site, the Abbotsville trail, the only paved path constructed by the urban planners, is popular among the residents of the streets whose properties border it. The rest of the informal paths are on terrain of natural rocky surfaces, flooding gaps and artificial scrap bridges, all of which are difficult to use. The few paths made by animals are too narrow for human use and typically disappear into dense vegetation. They too are difficult to follow and are rarely explored. The only traces of human activity are artefacts left behind on these overlooked paths, such as a brought-in swing, a worn-out chair, or gardening equipment. With such secrecy and enigma, these routes are held sacred by their select users. Their unpredictability, emptiness and seasonal changes make them feel as though they are constantly ‘discovered’.
Yana Kigel
This series of photographs was the initial step in documenting the site spatially; it intended to exhibit the trails in a way that offered an environmental backdrop while marking the segment's start and finish through an orange overlay.
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
simplify: strip the context Unsurprisingly, the previous ways of analysis were carried out from a human perspective. The fundamental problem of dissecting a path through photographs of edge states was its overflowing context. Though natural tracks were walked on less frequently than paved ones, traffic's visual contours made them easy to detect. Crucially, breaking free from an analytic human perspective, new paths may be found, or in this case, missed. We built models to reduce and abstract the volume of visual data found on any path. With decreased information, pathways can only be speculated. Paths that are visually obvious become illegible. It was now easy to imagine how an animal, unaware of human courses, might see the area. For aquatic species, it was the waterways that were the primary means of transportation. Land animals used a variety of terrain for travelling, seeing only the water and structures as constraints. Birds used landmarks such as the tops of trees and higher edges of buildings for their orientation. It is fascinating, especially in contrast to humans, how little importance fauna places on sticking to the beaten path.
The fundamental problem with photographic analysis, conducted from a human standpoint, as is customary, is a site's overflowing context. Breaking this custom by separating oneself was important to gain a new perspective. As a means of documentation, model building decreased the amount of visual data and broadened the perception of the research. The focus has shifted from an individual to a more extensive range of site users. Five paper models each portray a separate area of the routes. Now, with reduced information, the pathways could only be guessed at. Paths that once had clear indicators are now completely incomprehensible. Context is absent from the initial models. The addition of color accentuates the ground, water, and treetops, all used by varied forms of fauna, disregarding any solid route. The previously documented but now concealed manmade route is finally exposed.
Yana Kigel
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accentuate: select the context This fascination led me to explore a different technique that did the opposite of selective omission, which removed textural context and what geometry defines a path. I made a more tactile record, focusing on the surfaces of the trails, and found that one may overcome the need for visual cues and instead follow the path from touch alone – scenery or destination hardly matters compared to the sensation of walking and the feeling of the ground beneath. Organic routes awaken the sense of touch; we become aware of where we step, how we step, and what we step over. We begin to feel more present. The constant variations allow us to appreciate the ground truthfully. A lack of textural variation makes the walking experience less personal and intimate:
It's a shame that natural paths aren't frequently considered throughout the planning phase of parks. To find these, we must go out of our way and visit still-untouched sites or organise a trip to the woods, where the requirement to plan an event takes away any genuine spontaneity. Synthetic walkways are designed to be trusted and so are unnoticed in the process of walking. Our sense of touch is diminished, the environment is sterile, we start to dissociate from nature as the experience becomes artificial. The bleakness of so many modern urban parks suppresses so many of the sensations that make us human. This pushes a human disconnect from wildlife, expelling them from their natural habitats and keeping them from thriving in newly designed ones.
Hard, then softer. Wet. A crawling bug? Squished again. Poking root! Paw prints.
The pavement.. It is just hard, then still hard, and hard once again.
Similarly to selective omission, an inverted method was used to study the segments. The frottage method captures the ground's texture, first with stiff graphite, followed by softer, warmer-toned chalk, picking up the most prominent elevations. Following the flat representation on paper, clay impressions were taken to preserve the three- dimensionality of the different surfaces. This 'roughness' analysis sheds light on potential preferences among path visitors. Solid and uniform surfaces attracted older residents and children, as well as turtles and larger fowl. Young adults, dog walkers, larger mammals, and rodents, however, preferred the more irregular surfaces.
Yana Kigel
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
determine the focus Where does this shift in focus from over-designed human ways to ones of wildlife and their organic route-making practices take us? On my study site, I want to preserve a fragment of animal migration corridors before the expansion of human settlement fully eradicates it. My site visits eventually became routine without thought or preparation, promoting detours and a desire to explore. I no longer made it a mission to travel from point A to B, but rather, I began following the sounds of birds, the scents of plants and the movements of weasels.
Animal migration routes and their overlaps were revealed. Rodents like crevices and dense shrubbery, while coyotes follow cleared-out ways. Turkeys prefer the transition zone between open grasslands and densely forested areas, and songbirds mostly fly between treetops. Herons, beavers, weasels and ducks share the overgrown streams. Geese congregate in open areas near bodies of water and pastures. This more profound comprehension of animal preferences was possible only once I eliminated my preconceptions about what constituted a route. Without this, I would have stayed oblivious to their habits. So how can we, architects, urban planners and designers, continue to claim that we care to build with nature in mind when we actively work on segregating it through construction, sterilisation, and demolition?
Here the focus shifts from human observation to wildlife and its organic route-making practices. The site's flora: short grasses, weeds, shrubbery, and trees. The fauna: several animals on site. Maps chart their rough trajectories throughout a three-year period.
Yana Kigel
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
:: complex systems
the Abbottsville Trail and its sacred extensions
Site analysis is a crucial first step in architectural and urban planning before any design process begins. A study may be carried out in various ways, typically with a particular objective in mind; it is rare for the aim to be uncertain or absent. This research began with neither a framework nor an end in sight but merely with a personal interest in trail usage and prior familiarity with the region's volatile wildlife population. It proceeded with a lack of specificity, exploring new approaches to understanding and interpreting a site. It established relationships between path-making, humans, fauna, flora and the ground itself. Although the Abbottsville Trail analysis did not lead to a design proposal, the knowledge acquired from this work was reapplied to my thesis, A Golden Green Belt: Integrating Nature in Ottawa's Next Suburbs . Experimental and intensive site analysis techniques enabled the thesis to strive for a more dynamic and environmentally friendly neighbourhood layout, encouraging future projects to invest more thoroughly in the design research stage. p
Yana Kigel
Yana Kigel has completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees in the architecture program at Carleton University and is presently working at Carleton Immersive Media Studio. The topic of this text expanded into her thesis. https://curve.carleton.ca/f0f21af2-a73f-4bb4-bec9-ee5260822733
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
drawing water from Aridlands dalia munenzon
On America's Great Plains, water in all states of wetness shapes both landscape and subterranean strata, bonding and holding down soil and flora. West of the 100th meridian, surface water is limited and annual precipitation on the plains is below 20 inches/ 50cm a year. As groundwater from aquifers is the primary source of life for any territory at the centre of agricultural production, the depletion of the Ogallala – the High Plains Aquifer – through hotter, drier and more unpredictable weather, jeopardises local ecosystems and communities. This invisible relationship between extraction, production, and the flow of natural resources is key to understanding future risks and opportunities for adaptation. Watershed-based readings of the landscape make these processes visible. the High Plains Aquifer Water from the saturated limestone sponge, the geological terminology for the aquifer, contributes to the annual production of $35 billion worth of crops, a quarter of national crop production. This remnant of an ancient ocean stretches from Texas to South Dakota and provides water to 112 million acres/4.6 million ha of farmland and grazing. Despite being deep underground, stationary groundwater and moving surface water are fundamentally intertwined as the aquifer discharges into streams and rivers. A decline in the aquifer's water level directly affects local streams that are drying at the rate of 6 miles per year. 1 Pumping for agriculture, industry, and residential use from the High Plains Aquifer started in the early 1900s, accelerating in the mid-century with technological developments in gas pumps. Since the 1950s, high-volume pumping has led to a water level drop of 325 billion gallons every year, between 9% and 30% of its volume, and is projected to lose 40% by 2070. With 90% of the water drawn being used for agriculture, the sustainability of long-term use is rooted in regional water management and use policies. reading the landscape In 1878, the geologist John Wesley Powell released his study on the farming and settlement capacity of territories west of the 100th meridian. In 'On the Arid Lands of the Western United States' 2 he stated that there is insufficient surface water or precipitation to sustain European farming practices and that any farming will require irrigation. He proposed managing and dividing the territory based on watersheds, creating administrative structures based on the natural formation of the landscape to allow rational water distribution. His proposal was rejected. However, the projected climate changes and the rapid depletion of the High Plains Aquifer points to a concept worth revisiting.
cross-boundary recharging The composition of sand and gravel in the High Plains Aquifer makes recharging complex and lengthy. Climate variability across the Great Plains, land cover changes and rate of water seepage result in recharge rates ranging from less than 1mm/year in parts of Texas to more than 150mm/year in the Nebraska Sandhills. This implies that the aquifer will take 6,000 years to recharge fully. 1 Ralls, Eric. 'The High Plains Aquifer Is in Danger of Drying Up' Earth.com , 15 Nov. 2017, https://www.earth.com/news/high-plains-aquifer-drying/. 2 Powell John Wesley et al. Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States : With a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1962.
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
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Dalia Munenzon
Cooperative Republican Platte Enhancement project involves purchasing retired farms and installing high- capacity wells to pump water from the HPA and pipe it to Medicine Creek. 3 Despite regulations and policies that usually make a distinction between surface water and groundwater, this process causes an absurd situation in which a manufactured process increases the flow between the two – therefore introducing groundwater back into the 'regulatory' commons.
Each of the states across the HPA has different regulations for groundwater and surface water use. Some states view surface water as a public resource and groundwater as private property. There is an understanding between the neighboring state of shared ownership and responsibility over surface water resources. However, when one state is geographically located at the top of a watershed, its water use might dramatically reduce the access for the state at the lower basin of that river. Therefore, agreements are used to ensure the fair use of water between these states. In an ironic twist, agreements are met by seeping HPA groundwater from one state and pumping it into river tributaries in another state. For example, Nebraska's
3 N-CORPE. (n.d.). N-CORPE, the Nebraska Cooperative Republican Platte Enhancement project. N-CORPE. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://www.ncorpe.org/
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