Personal Geographies

A site-responsive, movement workshop

Professional development for North Vancouver School District Teachers

[Photos by Karl Hipol, additional editing by Xinwei Che]

As part of the From the Ground exhibition at Gordon Smith, I hosted a professional development workshop for the district’s teachers. The ground beneath our feet holds histories of generations that have come before us. Deep beneath the concrete ground of the gallery, there are shadows of water tributaries that have shifted over millennia. Gathered in a circle with a group of 24 teachers, I decided to map our personal geographies - how we connect to this ground, here and now. Using our bodies and footfalls to measure our psychological intimacy with this place, I asked the group 3 questions:

How far are we now from your home?

How far are we from where you grew up?

How far are we from the place or person that most nourishes you?

In response, participants walked a corresponding number of steps towards the circle’s centre to mark distance. We then worked together to connect the points into a topographical map that records not the elevation of ground but our personal relationship to it.

This gathering brings subjectivity and intimacy into data-collection and diagrams. In moments where a participant has to walk all the way to the centre of the circle, we all empathized with that distance in our bodies. The diverse experiences in a group suddenly became apparent when we realized that some are a couple minutes away from their childhood homes, while another has traversed across the globe to be here now.

The participants then used this map to create another clay map in segments, reflecting on their experience of movement and collaboration through texture, touch, and form.