Gathering Initiative, 2020

Publications:

https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2021/land-based-design-ecu-campus-decolonial-wayfinding

Keywords: community, placemaking, way finding, land, ancestory, place, history, students, population, demographic, landscape, ecosystem.

Emily Carr University is settled on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Territories

of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl ̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh)

people, where we all congregate to learn, teach, and share our unique cultures and identities with

one another.

This wayfinding project proposes to create an inclusive environment to honour the Indigenous

The sovereignty of the Musqueam, the Squamish, and the Tsleil-Waututh host nations and their land on

which Emily Carr University is situated. We also present this project as a way to welcome and gather

students, faculty members, stakeholders, and the rest of the community together, through a series of

annual workshops, graduation merch, engagement with the school’s three main entrances, and the

development of a student-oriented gathering and studying space underneath the stairs, along with

a small community garden outside the reliance theatre. In the Potlatch Methodology, it is said that the

act of gathering and learning with people with different views and knowledge can “maximize a collective

transformation” (Izgerean, 2019), and knowing this, there is a heavy emphasis on community building and

the acknowledgment and acceptance of different cultures and stories throughout all the elements of

this wayfinding project.

My role in this project was to use the TC2 loom and come up with the designs for the woven tapestry.

ORIGIN TAPESTRY

Each year, a tapestry-making workshop will take place where students, faculty members, and indigenous

community members may share their experiences of how they came to be at Emily Carr; whether from

another country or simply the route they take to school, in turn drawing out their paths on a map template.

This workshop aims to facilitate participation between a community of diverse people, foster a friendly

atmosphere, and also spark casual conversations throughout the workshop. Participants will be able to

learn a little more about their fellow peers, to share a piece of their identity and culture through conversations

about where they come from. Once the designs are drawn onto the templates, the material matters

lab will combine all the templates and weave the designs into a large tapestry which will then be cut back

down into their original template size. From there, another workshop will take place to attach all the small,

cut tapestries together to form a large unified piece. The result of their efforts will be one large tapestry

that the students will make collaboratively to form what will be called an “Origin Tapestry”.

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