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PROGRAMMING: this so-called reclaimed land has lain bone dry

this so-called reclaimed land has lain bone dry by Marina Fathalla
with contributions from Alize Zorlutuna, Petrina Ng, Christina Battle, and Matthew Cardinal

Project Link Here

Join us for a walk in the Don River Valley to experience IRL.
Sunday, November 14 at 2PM (cancelled due to rainy forecast)
Friday, November 19 at 4PM
Saturday, November 20 at 2PM

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this so-called reclaimed land has lain bone dry is a guided audio walk along Woscotonach River (Don River) and through Todmorden Mills Wildflower Preserve. The recordings layer conversations with artists Alize Zorlutuna, Petrina Ng, and Christina Battle, with field recordings and music by Matthew Cardinal. Together the conversations grapple with complex relationships between racialized settlerhood & land, heritage & mental health, and consider the limits of the preservation site and it’s confrontation with settler-colonialism.

Historically we connect back to the institution of Parks Canada with the Banff Hot Springs, and untangle the Western legacy of institutionalizing parks to prioritize profit and extraction, coming up against seemingly opposite needs for access to water, baths and swimming for mental health.

Physically, we meander along paths of ‘old’ river beds, and we imagine, embody, encounter and trace the commodification of wildflowers and plants such as the waterlily, and cattails that have grown submerged or floating atop of water; water that carries histories and moves through cycles – rainfall, drought, flooding. The river, the pond, bath, the sea, and the lake, can be held and returned to in our diasporic imaginaries to care for our mental health whenever we do not have access to water or the places that have intrinsic connections to some form of ‘heritage’ – a slippery term particularly for the diaspora, where lineages unravel, and what we inherit and feel we belong to can be at odds. This assumes both that a site of national identity is real; and that there is such a thing as a delineation between protected and unprotected natural spaces.

Immense gratitude to the artists, to Strike Design Studio, and matthew cardinal. Thank you to Golboo Amani and Zinnia Naqvi for the thoughtful feedback throughout the process. Thank you to Brickworks and Todmorden Mills Heritage Site for locational insight and support.

this so-called reclaimed land has lain bone dry is generously supported by

+ Image Credit: designed and illustrated by Strike Design Studio Emily Woundenberg