A standard land acknowledgement seemed inadequate for this Earthbound project, and I searched for treaty information on places where I have lived. The chart below emerged. I have benefitted from living as a settler on the territories of many First Nations in what maps label the Dominion of Canada. Colonialism within our national borders as well as economic and military conquests by allies reverberate today. Every Child Matters, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and Truth and Reconciliation are among many initiatives to deal with oppression. The Disorienting website and Coordinates of Home mapping projects show measurement system standardization as a tool to enforce property and normality. This website is dedicated to Land and humans of different abilities, economic background, racialized identities, and 2SLGBTQ+, who are dismantling hierarchies and taking care of each other in Community. Identities and differences are not promoted for exceptional individual’s gains but to assess our group needs and honour contributions through indigenous Land-healing and economics systems reoriented through potlatch practices .
Throughout the process, Geographer Eduardo Padilla contributed to my still basic grasp of geodesy and is a consistent interlocutor. Gaye Jackson helped with grant submissions. Web Developer Mel Racho set up spread sheets to organize posts and recommended separating "Neurodivergent Notes" from "Visit Descriptions" and "Place Histories". Essays followed when curator Belinda Kwan suggested a stream of consciousness introduction. My usual punctiliousness kicked in. As texts got long, I divided up essays. Images, charts, journal snippets, and subtitles acted as editing tools. When essays became as data-heavy as the travelogues, I switched from Word outlines to spread sheets. Themes emerged as titles and patterns morphed into graphs
Interlocutors
This project wouldn't have happened without friends, family, art colleagues, and a neighbourhood community.
Institutional Acknowledgements
This website was conceived and researched at four international artist residencies in places chosen for their proximity to Earth measuring history and home. The influence of different place and suggestions from artists is evident in website posts. I would also like to acknowledge the support from local and national arts funds that keep residencies operational.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
