UNITE
T1 / 24
49.265898683400955, -123.251743608119557
A1 - Home Ground
A2 - Cube Method
A3 - Supernatural • nitobe • šxʷsyiçəm (spanish banks)
A4 - Buchanan Rain
A5/A6 - Lost in Translation
We are tasked with observing and recording local environments, specifically comparing and contrasting different forms of greenspaces. The assignment involves examining the program, structure, and function of human-made and natural areas at two locations: Nitobe Garden at UBC and Spanish Banks in West Point Grey.
Learning Expectations
- Develop skills in observing and recording different types of greenspaces.
- Compare and contrast human-made and natural environments.
- Engage with multisensorial experiences and document them.
- Practice clear and thoughtful annotation.
- Experiment with graphic styles and representation techniques.
Process / Intention
Many days of my early childhood were spent at the beaches of Caspian Sea. And now feeling at home in Vancouver, I found a foreign difficulty to “analyze” a beach. I feel it’s so close to my identity that I am not sure how to distance myself from the environment of the beach. The sky, the water, the sand, the vegetation, and everything else feel inseparable to me.
For this exploration I felt the draw to lean into this inseparability, where I found that playing with the sand felt paradoxical. As something that is dry and hard on the individual and granural scale, when united with other elements of what makes a pile of sand, acts as a fluid. You will find short loops of sand play that demostrate the infinite shapes that it can take, and the way its behaviour is conditioned by the elements such as temperature, moisture content, moon.
In consideration of the fluid nature of sand, below are some visual notes on the qualities (often difficult to express in a static image versus directly somatic impression) of sands in different areas. For Tawi trail I was able to collect a sample and size it next to the sand from E-Eyalmo (Jericho Beach). Initial impressions were that the desert sand is much smaller and has more glassy quality within individual bead (I assume the quartz). Tla-o-qui-aht sand appears as a map of the interaction between the winter ocean and the sand. Additionally, you may notice in šxʷsyiċəm that the trees are rooted in beach sand which is unusual to me and I wonder if there is a different type of soil and what kind of root shape is not visible to us. (Initially I thought it looked like a dinosaur foot).
Tawi Trail, Sharjah
25.052776350152264,
55.75075114353597
N^
Cox Bay Beach, Tofino
49.10372154112367,
-125.87455765950749
N^
Jericho Beach
49.27238160990176,
-123.1916795825114
N^
Spanish Banks
49.27795669923524,
-123.22448443956617
N^
Jericho Beach
18/9/24 - 16:57
Spanish Banks
24/9/24 - 17:13