What is Wastescapes?
Wastescapes is an educational and artistic project in the form of an augmented bike tour, an interdisciplinary course series, short films, and a collection of educational resources. Our aim is to build awareness and develop methods to address waste as both problem and resource. With environmental justice as a key critical lens, we explore the scales of waste from individual to institutional, from local to global and consider the role of policy and governance in addressing the complex and inevitable place of waste in our lives.
Why now?
In urban cities, waste is largely out of mind and out of site and yet the accumulation of unprocessed waste is a looming public-health crisis and a major contributor to climate change.
Guiding questions:
• Where and how does waste live and circulate in our environment?
• What values and practices shape waste production, management and reduction?
• How can place-based and embodied learning foster connection and knowledge?
We would like to acknowledge that the App and related WasteScape events take place on unceded Indigenous land.
The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations.
As you move through the city and its wastescapes, we invite you to reflect on the relationship between waste and colonialism. All of the places you will visit are unceded land, and as Max Liboiron suggests in Pollution Is Colonialism, “pollution is not a manifestation or side effect of colonialism but is rather an enactment of ongoing colonial relations to Land.” (Liboiron, 6)
To learn more, visit Concordia’s Territorial Acknowledgement, written by the Indigenous Directions Leadership Group or check out Max Liboiron’s book, Pollution Is Colonialism.
