If human civilization as we know it were to crumble tomorrow, what would future archeologists infer about our relationship with trash? Would they think that it was something our society valued and respected? Worshipped? Or would they think that we were shortsighted for stuffing every corner of the earth with it?

Garbage & waste are a nearly unavoidable product of civilization at this speed and scale, yet as our footprint expands, places to hide trash decrease, a need for object stewardship grows.

With that in mind we started off by considering our relationship with the overlooked spaces in our cities.

But of course…. when speculating on empty cities of the future, one must slow down and consider HOW they could come to be that way in the first place. To help sharpen our “noticing muscles” we started off with a magic trick.

To understand the present, one must contemplate the past… so I am going to ask you to slow down for a minute….

Contemplate the walls around you The lifespan of a Gallium Sphinx Moth. Breathe deep, think down, lower… 20 metres, preglacial sediment, bear-sized beavers? Sandstone, salt, silica, a leaf falling to the ground… layers of shale, coal, clay, Cretaceous, The Devonian Gardens, fossil seeds, Precambrian, no data available.

Look for proof of passing time

When researching the urban Geology of Edmonton, I came across a series of maps from 1973.

This one depicts the thickness of Gravels, sands and overburden of kisiskâciwanisîpiy which is (cree) for the “swift-flowing river”. That cuts through This Urban Island.

Do you think it looks like a bird?

Think down,,,,

This is the same swatch of land.

Sewer construction 15 - 30 metres below the surface

Do you see the dinosaur skull?

Think deeper….

Potential Sulfate Hazard in the Edmonton Area 1973.

Upper Crust…..

Suitability of the Edmonton Area for Solid waste disposal

CHAPTER TWO
Midsummer- When it started to get Hot… I mean really hot, record breaking. I started to think about concrete, and how it is so good at retaining….. energy. I thought about The Urban Heat Island Effect, How cities can be 2.5 degrees hotter than surrounding rural areas. The way that you can grow fruit trees in Edmonton, that you can’t grow in Entwistle (which is only 100 km west)

As my body melted in the radiance of Churchill Square downtown, I stared at the “Sundance” patch of Trees, and how much happier they could be if they were in the river valley, a five minute walk south. Their leaves browning and crumbling in the August Sun. It really was hot outside.

So hot in fact, that for the first time in my memory the mosquitos disappeared, the short grass burned away. My windshield left clean after a drive through the country.

I thought about mono-crops, grass, the collapse of ecosystems.

The plastic divide between nature and culture.

Human time, and earth time.

A time before metropolis, before kisiskâciwanisîpiy was low and turquoise in August. Epochs when Rocky Mountain glaciers were taller than Edmonton’s tallest buildings….. and also taller than that stack of water cups beside the dinosaur in the top right. .

And then I started to think about magical thinking. The kind of that lets you believe your Nike’s manufacture themselves, and the reusable Tupperware you throw in the garbage dump disappears to Mars.

Garbage fossils - Artifacts of Luxury and time.

These are details from my second installation titled Zebra’s fix what unicorn’s break. On the left is an older painting titled “Mountains are the Watertowers of the world” A child in the gallery of the future contemplates the hydrological system and legacy pollutants from human activity… The image on the right demonstrates the fragility of these systems…. A mineral skull, a stack of paper cups. beware…

Chapter 3

It is easy to feel deflated in the face of the climate crisis and in an effort to ask difficult questions, much of my work can be a little heavy… I started to dream of hope…. an antidote… So Rather than focusing on the negative and just pointing at a problem, for this installation I thought I would offer a solution. I featured Edmonton’s only tree planting subscription service, Shrubscriber, community in the shape of a forest. a boots on the ground initiative to help cool Edmonton down.

Untamed boulevards. Dandelions nodding in the breeze. The benefits of Trees and their Shade. The need to cool down…… and relax… Nature as First Aid.

With all of this heat and frenzy …, it is of course easy to Burnout. Living through relentless tides of crisis, tragedy, emergency, lather, rinse, repeat , like, share, subscribe…. It wears on a person. So I invited everybody to reconnect with themselves… think about movement... meditation… slowing down… going outside… making space to listen…..

which brings me back to that magic trick from earlier… notice the world around you, it might just notice you back…

We can’t always be doom and gloom. Or nothing will ever get done. In the spirit of Fluxus, it is important to have fun …. so that we have a reason to keep going.

Slowing down and taking the time to rest can be radical action

We talked about labyrinths,, taking unexpected turns,, letting your surprise wander into your life. We thought about taking time and slowing down….

Questioning who we are with the land we occupy… writing in the sand…..

And playing games…