‘Each piece represents a memory’
Paule Gilbert is a fourth-year student in the Department of Studio Arts. She took up Janssen’s challenge by creating an artwork inspired by a colony of paper wasps living by the canal.
“For me, it spoke to the politics — a metaphor for what used to be there in the industrial era.”
Gilbert is making her paper from scratch. Each piece represents a memory and a layer of the past.
“I took a micro site and developed a project that had many connections with the bigger history.”
Engaging with historical tensions
LandMarks curators and faculty from 15 Canadian universities have also developed a national curriculum that draws on Indigenous epistemologies and readings to address the legacies of colonialism and the complexities of nationhood and cultural identity.
“I have to admit, it was pretty intimidating to start with. I am educating myself,” Gilbert says.
Janssen asked her students to consider what it means to make a mark, but also to think about erasure as a mark. She also provided her students with critical readings to understand these historical tensions.
In addition, de Groot, Scholes and several other artists have spoken to Janssen’s class about how to approach making public art and work with ideas of land, territory and cultural identity.
According to Janssen, public art creation is a social practice. Students from Concordia, UQAM and McGill met with the artists over a weekend in February, collaborating in several workshops.
“It was an opportunity for those from different artistic backgrounds to meet and exchange. I believe there are a few collaborations across these universities to come.”