Over this past semester I’ve been working toward finalizing my capstone project as part of the Critical Media Practice specialism. The project is being developed in parallel with my doctoral research which investigates forest management and processes of urbanization, with the overall goal of providing an insertion point through which to critically analyze the potential of planning and design within these spatial contexts. The capstone has enabled a deep dive into a discrete slice of these dynamics, and explores incentivized landscapes of forest stewardship in the region of southern Ontario. The work navigates the various ways of defining and valuing these forests, and asks the question ‘what is a managed forest?’ Methodologically, the project investigates how artistic research contributes to an understanding of these landscapes, as well as how, and through which modalities of engagement participants are involved in their stewardship. By integrating video as part of my research methodology, I ask: what does this particular approach -one that blends fieldwork with video installation- offer?
A work in progress, this piece has been reformatted several times over the last year. It was first conceptualized as a three-channel video installation, which then transformed into a two-channel piece that paired camera movement and montage to explore different ways of connecting spaces separated geographically, but united through policy and stewardship. In this first iteration, I was interested in what was revealed when this footage was coupled to create new digital landscapes combining different scales, locations, and movements. The pairing brought attention to ecological similarities while juxtaposing footage to highlight differences in location, scale, activities and time.
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