The Walks
Finding the Colonnade
Walking has been central to our collaboration: “a way to encourage creative encounters and negotiations through which experiences and ideas are shared and organised” (Baldauf et Al. 2016: 107). We started by organising a walk where Margaret and Carina would walk together to show me the place, but both of them on their individual phones in a Zoom meeting with me. While walking through Montreal we started weaving our collaboration in a tentative manner. Not sure what we were looking for, not knowing much about each other. They were showing me the streets, spaces and the countless possibilities through two perspectives. Walking, talking, laughing, asking questions, pondering possibilities, exchanging thoughts, seeking for things and ideas that would draw us closer together. The cracks, the stairs leading nowhere, water, building sites, the mountains behind the buildings and finally the colonnade.
When we, or they, walked to the colonnade and I saw it through their cameras, I instantly felt excited and curious about the place, a feeling that we all seemed to share. The light grey columns casting their dark symmetrical shadows on the ground. But it was not only that. It was also about seeing the space in two screens at the same time, from two perspectives. It was about the exchange of thoughts we had, the flow of ideas and the shared experience of having discovered this place. It is not just the space, but also the collaboration, our thoughts and ideas weaving into a project and finding a common platform. The interaction and the space were not separate but creating each other in this intertwinement.
I control my excitement, wonder if you see it.
Narrow space
Pillars, light and shadows
Two sides,
One of you is walking on the outside, by the side of the cubicle restaurant.
The other one, under the pillars, well not under them,
Enclosed, fenced
Walking down the hallway.
-I imagine a similar kind of hallway, yet so different.
Inside a British mansion or a castle,
On the other side, row of windows, reaching to the ceiling
Between every window, a painting.
But no, it is not this narrow,
And there are no paintings here, no art.
The light grey stones casting their dark shadows on the ground.
You feel you are out of place,
Not supposed to be here maybe.
CCTVs staring at you through their countless lenses.
Do you feel uncomfortable?
Imagine that perspective,
Them seeing you on 20 screens, almost all from the same angle, but only almost.
So many perspectives, and yet so little.
Only that they don’t really see me.
They see you holding your phones.
I am there, but not really, in three places at the same time.
I am here behind the screen, and I am there -here behind the pillar
I am walking around the pillar looking for myself or for you.
This space is not a hallway with beautiful paintings.
It is not to be walked for beauty.
It serves a different purpose.
A service hallway.
The service doors leading to the building,
hidden by the pillars for any visitors walking by
You are not meant to walk past it,
Not to stay and linger,
sight unseen and yet countless lenses guarding you every move.
There is not art on the walls
No graffiti
Exploring the Colonnade
Moving through the colonnade offered the opportunity to embody the themes of: ripples, edges, cracks, legends. It was helpful to move in response to our group walks through Belfast and the Giant's Causeway in order to sense the similarities between these different (and what we found to be not so different) spaces. It was also helpful to be on site to compose written reflections using site writing methods for critiquing and reflecting on the built environment.
Walking among the walls and fences in Belfast
After the walks in Montreal we wanted to do a walk in Belfast.
I was drawn to the verticality of the colonnade and to the contrast of the white wall, when thinking about the walls in Belfast. The red brick walls; the red, the blue and the black coloured fences; the graffities; the murals; and the mixing of various materials and colours with no apparent rules.
I started the Zoom walk from the higher parts of the peace wall, feeling its verticality and overpowerness. At the same time, it offers a glimpse of freedom. Graffities, signatures and texts covering the wall.
The gates show a border within a country. One that is closed every night, enclosing within a non space, no-one's land. The peace walls are a space for performance and interaction. They mean different things for different people, locals, tourists, artists.
Yet, it is not necessarily the peace wall that shapes the public space as I know it. I am drawn to note the presence of the fences, different sizes, strengths and colour. Some old, some new, some decorated, some eroded.
Also, other walls exist all over the city. Many made out of the red Belfast bricks. The buildings offer wall space for murals or other forms of communication, while at the night time, the shutters are revealing different griddle patterned murals. At the city centre the pillars for the White star liners made in Belfast, remind us of the futuristic lights in Place des Arts.
The fragmented walk at the Giant's Causeway
Wind
Rain
Disconnections
...reconnecting...
no internet
sun
rain
wind carrying my words away
fragments of the colonnade
I answer a question you asked a minute ago
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