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Gushing at the Wrong Evergreen — a self-guided soundwalk
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This soundwalk extends the historical, cultural and socioeconomic exploration begun with False; Flat; Fake – a soundwalk, offered in September, 2020. Gushing at the Wrong Evergreen continues to investigate the resulting detritus when subjective particulate matter collides with human wills, minds and emotions.
Moving northward from Olympic Village, this map-directed, self-paced “digital soundwalk” further explores the fringes of the False Creek Flats. It exposes development pressures laid upon ongoing social, cultural, economic, colonial and political forces that both build and bury the land, lives and histories embedded into this coveted terrain.
The term “evergreen” underscores the perennial, the long-term relevance of things by remaining captivating, fresh and interesting. This walk resumes the call for continued listening, witnessing and reflection, including awareness of what captivates one’s own subjective evergreen. Lives, livelihoods of histories of this unceded land’s Indigenous peoples have been smothered by a century of industrial development. These colonial engines of capitalism are now being erased by luxury car dealerships, tech companies and overvalued condos, which have landed alongside vulnerable citizens continuing to search for safe and affordable shelter. How does one relate to the present situation, how can past histories be resuscitated, and equally importantly, how can current imbalances be counteracted? Which evergreen is being gushed over?
A map for self-guided exploration and further details will be available on the Vancouver New Music website in advance of the soundwalk’s launch on May 30, 2021.
*** To get the most out of the Soundwalk, we encourage you to complete the route in silence – without talking, headphones, or other distractions. This walk may be undertaken individually or with a friend or family member if you prefer not to walk alone. Please follow all Public Health restrictions. ***
Jorma Kujala’s research, carried out through academic and interdisciplinary art practices, are enveloped by theories of identity and the construction of a global cross-cultural “home.” Through his work as coordinator for the Vancouver Soundwalk Collective, his undergraduate, masters and PhD-level academic studies, as well as a process-based art practice that includes painting, drawing, and soundwalking, he researches the shared knowledge, identity, memory, and social interaction that occur when culture, communication, and social change intersect. He is currently exploring theories relating to embodiment, phenomenology and performance, and how the human interacts with the non-human, predominantly through sensory ethnography research, including soundwalking. He also investigates repetition and re-enactment and the bodily interplay between individual, senses, and environment.
A Soundwalk is a silent walk along a planned route to experience a location’s ambiance and underlying rhythms. All too often the sounds of the environment pass by unnoticed because of our uncanny ability to shut them out. A Soundwalk invites participants to actively listen, opening ears and consciousness to the complex orchestration that the environment is composing at all times. It is a musical-sonic adventure that reveals the banal to be extraordinary!
Soundwalks are presented by Vancouver New Music in association with Vancouver Soundwalk Collective.
Jorma Kujala’s academic and interdisciplinary art practice includes painting, mixed media, collage, drawing, as well as his soundwalking research as coordinator of the Vancouver Soundwalk Collective. His work is informed by the interchange between the social and the studio, and he researches networks of shared knowledge, identity, memory, and social interaction that emerge when culture, communication, and social forces intersect. His work also investigates perceptions of truth, repetition, re-creation and re-enactment, as well as the bodily interplay between the senses, the individual, and environments. He gratefully acknowledges he lives, works and plays on the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples: the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), the Tsleil-Waututh (Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh) and the Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Nations.
