Next Wave - a digital archive

For the past three weeks we have gathered as a collective to find new ground and question many things about the act of making, identity, and community. Sharing practice and the practice of sharing have been a common thread, the glue in our daily rituals and emergent forms. Sticky notes as a key organizing structure with a steady stream of chocolate and coffee surfaced as the shared comfort tool. Listening, propositioning, finding direction through many different compasses, pushing boundaries, the collective expansion of ideas, and challenging relational fields led us to confront vulnerability and gave us the courage and the will to follow the unknown together. Research is the act of posing a question and seeing what happens, conclusions are the attempt to find comfortable ground. Here the ground is unsteady, the research field is open and the desire to continue into the unknown, together is strong.

   

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re·search       /ˈrēˌsərCH,rəˈsərCH/

Noun

1.   the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. synonyms: investigation, experimentation, testing, analysis, fact-finding, fieldwork, examination, scrutiny

verb

2.     investigate systematically

  

com·mu·ni·ty             /kəˈmyo͞onədē/

noun

1.   a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

synonyms: group, body, set, circle, clique, faction

2.   a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

 

e·mer·gent                 /əˈmərjənt/

adjective

in the process of coming into being or becoming prominent. synonyms: emerging, developing, rising, dawning, budding, embryonic, infant, fledgling, nascent, incipient, inchoate

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Reflections from the process

It is very satisfying to do something tangible.

Everyday, every moment we are building and taking down walls together. We all have different walls. Sometimes it is the same wall.

Completion and self reliance is overrated.

I’m following, I’m leading. I’m 1/7 of an ever changing wall.

Suspending disbelief that nothing will be built.

Letting go of responsibility to build.

I am not alone.

Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity ... When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.   - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

...A gentle soft smile falls across your face... The intimacy and depth of many ecological relational fields crossing is the dance... A room of women who hold space and take space is a beautiful thing...

being in the space is shared is shareable is not mine nor my story to tell, but together we push our bones across the pages and singularity that is our nature; under the waters are winter’s blemishes and fear of the raging furious singularity that is my story to tell.

   

Photos by Kevin MacCormack

Next Wave 2019 Participants: Susanne Chui, Sara Coffin, Jessica Lowe, Julie Robert, Liliona Quarmyne, Anastasia Wiebe, Lydia Zimmer

Next Wave is supported by the RBC Emerging Artist Project and the City of Halifax.