Episode 4 transcript: Seeing with two eyes

This is episode 4: Seeing with two eyes

Maya Lach-Aidelbaum: A tree can be many things — it all depends on your perspective. For a bird, a tree is a home. For a builder, a tree is raw material. For an artist, a tree is a source of inspiration. For a botanist, a tree is a plant with a tall, sturdy trunk that supports branches and leaves.

For many of us, trees hold deep significance — they provide medicine, shelter, shade, wisdom and so much more. Yet, contemporary science doesn't always integrate traditional knowledge about nature. That's why Mi'kmaw scholar Albert Marshall introduced the term "two-eyed seeing."

It's about learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, and with the other eye, the strengths of western knowledge. And using both together for the benefit of all.

For example, science often uses nature as an object — something to be studied and classified. But from an Indigenous perspective, nature is a living, spiritual subject woven into our relationships and ways of being. Both ways of seeing are valuable.

So far in this podcast series, we've heard from environmental scientists, biologists and sustainability experts. But far from all knowledge about nature comes from studying it in a classroom.

I'm Maya Lach-Aidelbaum, and I'm a master's student in media studies at Concordia University, interested in our relationship to urban spaces and the environment.

Today, we'll hear from Nico Holzmann, a self-taught urban farmer and artist. In this episode, we'll explore urban nature through first-hand experience, what we can learn from trees — not just as biological organisms, but as teachers, companions and vital parts of our everyday lives.

Nico Holzmann: I was raised in Alberta, but I was adopted from the Amazon — from farmers — and then, luckily enough, my adoptive family are also really into gardening. I got really into gardening then, and we lived close to the Rocky Mountains. Being close to the Rocky Mountains, I really got into foraging and wild plants and dyes.

Then, when I went back to Peru to see my family, it turned that they're farmers too and have a whole farm there. It's just been with me my whole life, and I think it was a stepping stone to get to where I am right now.

It's a love of plants that drew me to all of that. I think an education in it might have been stifling for the personality that I have. I actually went to school for art at two different universities I dropped out of. I just did it on my own, went WWOOFing when I was younger — in my early twenties —, where I went to different permaculture farms, restaurant farms. That was nice too, but it's mostly self-taught.

My art practice used to and somewhat revolves around having natural things — things that degrade or things that you can derive from what nature is around you. I think that made me very interested in growing plants that are dyes and also medicines because I also have an interest in herbalism. It turns out, that's also what participants are interested in when gardening with me. You can kind of be a teacher and learning at the same time with participants around you, which is truly a blessing.

On top of that, I think it gives me such a joy — being able to help other people grow their own food and see the joy on their faces. It gives me such peace. I feel like I'm tied into what my ancestors did in South America. It really gives me a sense of home to be in those gardens.

It's kind of like a cliché — there should always be more wild spaces in the city. I think that there's an incredible amount of waste in the city for aesthetics, and maybe that is because I am doing urban agriculture and all that. These parks are huge and just filled with grass. I think there's so much just wasted opportunity — that they could have stuff that makes us be more sustainable, makes us have food security. It could be easily accessible.

We have tons of resources. We have water, we have all these things that would make it so easy, but it's just not done. And it's really hard to get land from the city.

Again, you can provide the space, but I think it also gets back to the kind of society that we live in, which is very individualistic. It's almost like we've been conditioned towards not thinking about community and not thinking about these spaces.

I have an idealist point of view that if you build it, they will come. But I think there's a much deeper thing in all of us in a Western society that we have to reflect on, and I think that's hard to do when things are so easily available for us. We can get all the food that we want from the store. You don't have to interact with nature if you don't want to. That's tough to unpack for people.

Ideally, I think that any space that people can come and grow things at their leisure will just invite more people. I think one of the problems is that all of the community gardens — there's such a long waitlist. Some of those waitlists are four years for someone to get a tiny plot. Why not use all these spaces — just get more plots. I think it would help so much more.

Especially, Montreal is so multicultural and new immigrants coming here coming from cultures where you still are farming a lot. Just to have that opportunity to mix together and education from our community is so important. But no one wants to wait four years to get the tiny little plot of land. That motivation leaves after a while. I think you have to trust that the goodness in community will make those spaces beautiful.

There's tons of beautiful little spots I especially love along the bike path in the Mile End. There's tons of elderberries that grow there. They smell amazing, and it always has a good harvest. There's secret little spots that are at the backend of a community garden, between train tracks where there's tons of wild plants and all that. I think it's really hard to find that natural beauty in Montreal, but it is there. But it's all these forgotten spaces.

I think it's, again, a personal preference. I like when you have a space where everything randomly grows up, and you're not sure what to expect. There's a surprise sometimes when you see a rarer plant or something that just pushed its way through in the city. The organized spaces of the city are just so organized. You have to have it look a certain way. Life's about surprises, you know.

There's so many things in the city. I think an easiest thing to find is goldenrod — that's everywhere here. Which is really nice in the fall to harvest, especially for cold season and all that — just to have that dried. I do have to give the city props. I think the city has made more of a policy to plant indigenous species in their planter boxes and in their parks and all that. Because they plant goldenrod, they plant Agastache and yarrow and all these things that are medicinal plants too, that are also drought resistant.

All of these things, they're made for this environment. That does make foraging easier — when the city plants it too. For other things, there's tons of dyes. There sumac flowers, which make a great red dye. There's oak trees all over the place and sometimes they have wasp galls on them. They're these black balls that are on the twigs. You have to find a certain tree with them, but they're full of tannins and they'll make — if it's combined with iron sulfate — it'll make a pure black ink that's really nice.

There's a combination of knowledge from different groups. There's tons of knowledge that you get from — I'm very lucky to be in a community of other farmers that just give a lot of their experience growing here for a long time. I think that's really important. On top of that, trying to really bring back indigenous species and all that, and that really takes a whole other group of people with knowledge. Like our friends in Kahnawà:ke who are doing more of that, and that's a whole other avenue of knowledge.

One of the new things I've gotten since working in urban agriculture, I do have participants that are new immigrants to Canada that bring tons of knowledge of farming from Africa and all that. It's a completely different way that I'm used to, but it's such knowledge there that it really sometimes humbles me. A couple of years ago, I had this old woman that was helping me in one of the gardens, and she just — she knew everything.

Scientific knowledge allows anyone to read about it and access it, and I think that's incredibly important. I think knowledge around the science of gardening — the internet is just absolutely amazing for that, just to be able to give knowledge so quickly. But there is nothing like learning from some — hands in earth —, and I think that will stick with you more. But both have their places, and I think they're both really important.

My coworker is a lot more versed in the science aspect to it and has helped me out incredibly just because there's this knowledge that she has about type of soil and what are the amendments we need for that soil. It's just stuff that I don't have that's amazing.

I think nature is everything. The trees, the plants — they've given me not only personal joy but have given me a career. I never knew that my interests in these things would lead me to where I am right now. I'm infinitely grateful not only for my inspiration, my health, my art, my job. it all tied back to what plants and trees, what all of that has given me — infinitely grateful, everything.

Maya Lach-Aidelbaum: Today, we discussed how tactical, practical and intimate interactions with the natural world allow us to tap into different lessons that nature has to offer. And when we bring together different ways of knowing — scientific, traditional and personal — we deepen our understand of the world around us.

I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that this podcast wouldn't have been possible without the generous contributions of many people. I'm deeply grateful to Jackie Martin, urban agriculture and biodiversity coordinator in Concordia's Office of Sustainability, whose vision and guidance sparked the idea for this project and helped shape its direction.

A heartfelt thanks to Liz Miller, professor in Concordia's Department of Communication Studies, who has supported this project from the very beginning and connected me to the people who made it possible.

Special thanks to David Gale, who's completing his bachelor's in electroacoustics studies at Concordia, for lending his expertise in sound design, music composition and audio mastering. You've given this project its unique sonic character.

Thanks to Teagan Lance, technician at the Feminist Media Studio, for lending us the space and helping us with technical requirements.

I'm also incredibly thankful to our interview guests Rebecca Tittler, Bella Richmond, Emma Despland and Nico Holzmann for sharing their time, insights and experiences with us.

And finally, thanks to you for listening to our podcast.