The leaves are changing again - or already!
i wish I had time to be poetic about the past spring and summer, but they’ve come and gone so quickly that I barely had time to take in the scent of lilacs and roses that I love so much. The dragon’s breath of climate change hurled summer at us early in British Columbia and vociferously. Temperatures soared to 40C in mid-June and the Lytton perished. Meanwhile, in my previous home of Toronto, monsoon-like rains ravaged buildings and water systems that were never built for those kinds of deluges.
And then, a gift from the Canada Council—an almost-forgotten proposal for a new kind of artistic, collaborative organization (Understory)—sent me and my colleagues, Germaine Liu and Nicole Rampersaud, on a journey that none of us had figured into our schedules. Understory is up and running. We brought together 39 artists to collaborate in trios and co-create art. There has been some incredible art-making; beautiful community-building. And SO many lessons about how to change the way we do things - by centering care and communication.
Understory releases new episodes on the third Thursday of each month. September’s episode included a work created called “We Were Children” - created by Michelle Lafferty, a First Nations mezzo-soprano who I met through Namwayut, Viviane Houle, also a vocalist, and Danielle Jakubiak, who is better known for field recordings and production, but leant her voice to this track. “We Were Children” is haunting. It encapsulates the devastation, grief, and horror that descended upon the artists - and upon all of us - as scanners found evidence of graves in the orchard of the former residential school near Kamloops. If you have five minutes, I’ve posted a link above.