• Assisted in setting up events, with materials, refreshments, seating, materials, and other requested needs.
• Took notes during all events and attended meetings on large poster boards to aide in recalling previous discussion topics and in order to generate questions after presentations
• Proposed possible speakers for future events by researching academics, writers, poets, scientists, artists, and designers in the Greater Vancouver area
• Assisted as a volunteer for external events such as the Vancouver Art Book Fair. Helped with the booth at the Fair, working cash and card transactions, replenishing booth materials, and answering questions related to Other Sights and The Foreshore project
• Set up an instagram account for Other Sights

Initially, we discussed updating the website for the Foreshore, and attending the weekly meetings for Other Sights; however, as we moved forward, it was clear that I was needed more as a researcher of future events and physical aide on the days of the events, so the web updating portion of the role changed. As well, attending the weekly Tuesday meetings for just the board members of Other Sights was illuminating, but Barbara and I felt that with my schedule and the extra hours I was putting into research would mean that I was better off changing my schedule to do half my partnership remotely. In this way, I was physically present for their monthly events to help out in setting up and taking notes, while the rest of the time, I sent email updates with their requested research.

Previously, I had skills in notetaking and event planning, so I was able to translate my experiences to create animated and clear notes during their events, incorporating illustrations, connecting lines, mind maps, keyword boxes, and colour codes so that they were not only informative but engaging. As well, my experience in event planning made setting up and material preparations for the events a fairly easy task.

The skills that I acquired through this partnership was primarily research, as well as some cash/credit transactions with the Square Reader. In terms of the research, it was the first time in which I had to not only comb through the bibliography of over 50 potential speakers, but to also “pair” them with complementary individuals. It was a great skill set to learn, as making those connections between individuals in disparate disciplines and fields was a greate exercise in connecting those lines of thought and process through the larger network of issues surrounding the foreshore. Additionally, I was able to volunteer for events such as the Vancouver Art book Fair, wherein I learned how to inplement the Square Reader app to process payments in cash and credit and sell a number of Other Sights’ publications. It was also a healthy dose of interaction with the public who had a lot of questions regarding our organization and the various public artwork that they’ve seen around the city.

Hours for events/meetings/volunteered events: 17 hours
Hours for research: 10 hours
Total hours for partnership: 27 hours

Wanting to take this partnership further, I’ve signed on for a second term and will be doing some research for them during the holidays, as well as continuing to help with events beginning in January. As The Foreshore is continuing until the end of August 2017, I look forward to helping them plan different events and workshops by taking up the ongoing research, as well as web components of their project.

The larger learning experiences that I will be taking with me are the questions and processes of research that have already begun to inform my own practice; the ability to connect and thread together different studies and in doing so, create a new idea that is tied to my own personal interests.

Researcher & Event Support
The Foreshore, Other Sights | E Georgia St, Vancouver, BC                 [October 2016-Present]

• Proposes speakers for future events by researching dozens of academics, writers, poets, scientists, artists, scholars, and designers in the Greater Vancouver area by summarizing the most recent years of their research in a document through careful review of their publications and projects
• Develops pairings of speakers from different backgrounds in order to generate complementary and engaging talks and workshops by connecting the potential individuals with keywords, scholarly and peer-reviewed articles, and overall research interests and background
• Creates illustrated and engaging notes on walls of The Foreshore space during events to record, as well as generate discussions. As well, assists in the general set-up and take-down of events, including materials, refreshments, and overall physical prep-work

My creative response to the partnership was a research into location, time, and space in relationship to the shoreline of Vancouver. With my interest in soft robotics, I designed a paper maquette of the robot that I will be creating during my second term and continued involvement with Other Sights.

Working with the help of instructors and technicians in other departments on campus, and organizations such as Vancouver Hacker Space and MakerLabs, I hope to complete a working prototype by the end of next year. The design is still being worked out, and I would like to do further research into just what it would mean to release a form into the water, track its movements along the shoreline, and place it within the context of contemporary art.

Personally, the appeal in this project is not just in its digital and technical challenges, but in its unpredictability, its questionable autonomy, its continually changing position in the water, its inevitable breakdown as it loses power, and its yet unknowable outcome. I think that these aspects of the project speak to my deeper interests in identity, site, diaspora, and chance, as well as to my partnership experience with Other Sights.

With their project, The Foreshore, I was privy to the formal and impromptu discussions that arose during their events. The talks touched on the political, social, and ecological issues related to the shore/water/easements/contentious lands in a way that informed my interests and questions. Being able to see how an issue is examined and turned every which way in order to understand it, was invaluable to see, and I wanted to reflect upon this thoughtfulness and careful research in my own creative response.

Our event fell on the night of the US presidential election. Suffice it to say, the mood was sombre (see photo above). We had only one one person actually attend (the rest being board members/volunteers). The discussion opened with Makoko’s floating house and then we listened to a radio talk with Chris Williams. Williams’ spoke for about 30 minutes about the generally terrible state of affairs in the world, particularly in the world of capitalism, and by the end of it, we all felt depressed as f—. That’s when we turned to the polls and found out Trump was ahead and we all wanted to call it a night and curl up with a puppy.

I mention all of this because the event, while perhaps a less publicly successful one than others in the past, was an important one for me to witness. As I stood jotting down notes from the meeting on the large papers we had posted on one side of the room, I realized that what I was feeling at that moment was also being felt by this collection of people, and I was part of it in a way that I rarely feel a part of anything “adult”. That may sound obvious or strange, but I often have trouble realizing that I’m no less valid than those I work with. (Most of the time, I don’t feel quite grown up, partly because I’m still a student, partly because I like velcro shoes and can’t handle my finances very well.) I felt a brief equalizing as we all candidly discussed our view of what was happening, and it was important for me to see that these adults were as lost and uncertain about the world as I was.

Otherwise, some keywords of the week were:

• eco-socialism
• Williams’ revolution (tear down capitalism entirely)
• unsustainable system
• bare life
• human rights

SESSION 3

CHRIS WILLIAMS ON ECO-SOCIALISM AND NLE’S MAKOKO FLOATING SCHOOL

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 8 2016
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

This week we will gather to discuss a radio lecture by Chris Williams on the topic of Eco-Socialism and a short video about the Makoko Floating School.

Chris Williams is an environmental scholar and activist  based in New York and focused on the topic of the eco-socialism. His talk assesses the interrelationships between our economic system and the environmental crisis, between the convergence of planetary and social degradation, and offers suggestions and insights into possible alternatives. This talk was originally aired on Alternative Radio and recorded in San Luis Obispo, CA on May 15, 2016.

The Makoko Floating school is a three story building designed to provide space for education and community gatherings in the autonomous water-bound slum of Makoko in the lagoon of Lagos. Designed by Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi in collaboration with the Makoko Waterfront Community the project is part of the firm’s ongoing research into building for flood prone regions.

And, we welcome the contributions, questions, and comments of attendees, please join us!

CHRIS WILLIAMS is a long-time environmental activist and author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis. He is chair of the science dept at Packer Collegiate Institute and adjunct professor at Pace University in the Department of Chemistry and Physical Science. His writings have appeared in Green Left Weekly, Alternet, CommonDreams, Climate And Capitalism, Climate Story Tellers, The Indypendent, Dissident Voice, International Socialist Review, Truth Out, and Socialist Worker. He reported from Fukushima in December and January of 2012 and was a Lannan writer-in-residence in Marfa, Texas over the summer, where he began work on his second book on the Commons. He was awarded the Lannan 2013-4 Cultural Freedom Fellowship to continue this work.

NLÉ is led by KUNLÉ ADEYEMI an architect, designer and ‘urbanist’ with a track record of conceiving and completing high profile, high quality projects internationally. His recent work includes ‘Makoko Floating School’, an innovative, prototype, floating structure located on the lagoon heart of Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. This acclaimed project is part of an extensive research project – ‘African Water Cities’. NLÉ is currently developing a number of urban, research and architectural projects in Africa; one of which is Chicoco Radio Media Center; the amphibious building in Delta city of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. Born and raised in Nigeria, Adeyemi studied architecture at the University of Lagos where he began his early practice, before joining the world renowned Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 2002. At OMA, working closely with founder Rem Koolhaas for nearly a decade, he led the design, development and execution of numerous projects in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Our next event has been pushed to November 8, Tuesday. It will feature a video B found about a floating school by a Nigerian architect and listening to a lecture on eco-socialism by Chris Williams that is available online. In the meantime, I reviewed updated the list of potential future speakers for The Foreshore and highlighted those that seemed most interesting and relevant. Document attached.

Other Sights Research

Ideas that were discussed:

• Blue Cabin: logistics of transport, thoughts on process
• The Floating School: How it addresses the changing structures of education and programming
• Ideas on how we can use existing infrastructures to create interactions with the public
• How to be self-sustainable and self-enclosed (min. effort, max. effect)
• How do we transition between spaces

Other Sights PDF

First event for The Foreshore, hosted by Access Gallery and Other Sights. We had three speakers from varying backgrounds (poet, researcher, artist) discuss how they inhabit “grey zones” (i.e., areas of unregulated space such as easements, corridors, and through-ways in public space). Very stimulating discussion, and as we move forward, Barbara and Kimberly continue to work to improve the format of the events and bring in different elements such as film and workshops. Some images from the talk below.

Ideas to think about include:

• paradox of the rational
• easements
• slowness (i.e., travel by boat, shipping container, etc)
• visual recording
• grey zones
• Istanbul Biennale’s connection to water
• styrofoam shorelines

This video is part of The Foreshore website links and helps to add to the project by exploring artwork that address similar issues. I started watching this without any preconceptions of what to expect, and about eight minutes in, I was transfixed. The idea captures a beautiful, yet ultimately “failed” attempt to “bridge” the conflict of the region at that time. (It’s difficult to find any direct reviews online for Bridge/Puente, but go here for a brief overview of his work, and here for a review of his work.)

The project also reminded me of this book called Failure which another instructor recommended that I read last semester, and I find myself revisiting the articles in that book again. There is something that I cannot shake from these public acts of unknowable connection and collective effort that more often falls short of its representation, effect, or reach, that I find deeply moving and quite challenging to define.

I met with Kimberly Phillips (Access Gallery) and Barbara Cole (Other Sights) on Tuesday, September 27. Some of the tasks they have in mind are:

• Update the website for The Foreshore project
• Help with research related to the project
• Attend the weekly/bi-weekly Tuesday meetings (4-6pm) for Other Sights
• Assist with events (typically on Tuesdays, after their regularly scheduled meeting)

The tasks are broad and aside from the weekly meetings, there are no set office hours or long-term scheduled work. Rather, they would like to have this position adapt and grow as the weeks progress. A such, they don’t have many set duties for me yet. (This suits me just fine, as I prefer the challenge inherent in remaining flexible and changing to the needs of each project.) Consequently, a detailed project schedule is not available; however, I will be checking in with Barbara and Kimberly, as well as other members of Other Sights at their meetings and giving email updates weekly/bi-weekly to receive feedback and maintain a clear line of communication with everyone involved.

I believe that my tasks will function to serve the emerging series of workshops, talks, and events for The Foreshore project as it evolves and becomes part of the large roster of public projects by Other Sights. This falls in line with my own personal objectives quite well. More than any technical skill set, what I really want to learn is what is happening in the discourses around public art, site-specific art, and public space. What does it mean to create works on contested land? How do artists address issues of property, environment, and history? What are the surface tensions inherent in the making of public work? How do they function with architecture, land, and identity and how do we begin discussing these ideas in terms of both local and globalizing questions of being? These are some of the thoughts that I hope to work through as I progress through this partnership.

As this project moves forward, I will be continuing my personal readings and research on public art, as well as adding to them with research related to their own interests which include environmental sustainability, non-art professionals and scholars addressing issues of public space, and other related topics.