title. Lissen to The Land by PLACE HOLDER 

date. 2019

Location. Fort York Toronto 

PlaceHolders - Listen to the Land
Nuit Blanche 2019 @nuitblancheTO

October 5 / 6 from 7pm to 7 am

Fort York Historic Site (Bunkerhouse #2)
100 Garrison Rd. Toronto

Placeholders is Aylan Couchie, Jason Baerg, Logan MacDonald, Vanessa Dion Fletcher and Ryan Rice (Curator)

Listen to the Land, a media projection cast upon a heritage structure at Fort York, teases out remnants of Indigenous presence buried in the strata of place and memory threaded though vignettes. Logan MacDonald counters the lonstanding colonial dominance constructed upon the surface of the site by projecting imagery of the natural elements as both creative and desctructive forces to overpower those histories. Jason Baerg animates the site’s evolving memory and random knowledge through an encoded language of abstractions. The lens shifts from battles, cannons and gunfire to microscopic biological life in Vanessa Dion Fletcher’s re-envisioning of colonial violence to reorient the natural sustainability of site. Aylan Couchie reintroduces Nishinaabemowin, a land-based describing language which predates the Fort York site by thousands of years. Nishnaabemowin’s function as a placeholder pushes back upon continued colonial naming and claiming of place.

Listen to the Land is presented as part of Creation : Destruction
Curated by Layne Hinton and Rui Pimenta

#placeholderstkaronto #nbTO19

About the collective: Placeholders is comprised of creative activists - Aylan Couchie, Jason Baerg, Logan MacDonald, Vanessa Dion Fletcher and Ryan Rice (Curator) - who embody the diversity Indigeneity offers. Our collective name is a play on words to address our relationship to land, diplomacy and language experienced through our Indigenous bodies, which represents the diaspora of an evolving Tkaronto urban community occupying the past, present and future.

(Follow link for directions, map and other details - outdoors, partially barrier-free and wheelchair accessible)

https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/festivals-events/nuitblanche/all-art-projects/details/2019/project/listen-to-the-land/


Image rendering: Vanessa Dion Fletcher