Curator and artist
Public perception of forests often centres notions of control, extraction, or anthropogenic utility. There are other stories to tell: of interrelation, of responsibility to more-than-human communities, and of reciprocity that counter historical colonialist approaches to forest management. As an arborist, forest technician, professional composer-performer and emerging curator, I seek to build empathy towards forests through story. My research foregrounds the voices of local forest advocates currently, historically and atemporally connected to the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Stories of people from small-scale, DIY, non-profit, grassroots initiatives supporting forest stewardship will contribute to a prototype digital exhibition deepening relationships with forests and those who care for them, breaking boundaries between the white cube gallery and the natural forest, and between institutional authority and community voices. This prototype will serve as a foundation for a later physical exhibition by allowing for curatorial dreaming (Butler and Lehrer 2016), community consultation, experimentation, and critique.
I aim to decentre large-scale industrial interactions with the forest and to recentre small-scale hyperlocal initiatives, favouring affective experiences and visitor engagement. Preferencing dialogical “exhibitions as research” over unidirectional knowledge-sharing in the museum space (Bjerregaard 2020), I position storytelling as a rich entry point to imagining collective, forest-tending futures. Indigenous sound theorist Dylan Robinson urges that the “act of listening should attend to the relationship between listener and the listened-to” (2020, 15). Treating critical listening as a decolonial act, stories can be analyzed as archives that don’t necessarily act within linear or normative Western understandings of collection, time, space, and memory. A multivocal approach to knowledge-sharing demonstrates how story can function as both environmental archive and relational practice; sharing and receiving story can uncover layers of meaning hidden beneath dominant narratives.
Methodologically, I draw on critical museology (Shelton 2013), ethical and activist curatorial practices (Gkitsa 2024; Lehrer and Gutman 2023; Marstine 2011), memory and sound studies (Arnold-de Simine 2013; Chidgey and Garde-Hansen 2024; Dénommé-Welch and Becker 2023; Simon 2014), Indigenous research methodologies and storywork (Archibald 2008; Robinson 2020; Windchief and San Pedro 2019), vibrant matter and non-human actors (Bennett 2010; Latour 2005), as well as my own training in forestry and arboriculture. Supported by a Howl Experience grant (2025), I will build an ad hoc advisory board to inform ethical research design and decolonial, care-based practices throughout project development. This includes consulting with Indigenous, Deaf and Blind communities to ensure culturally-aware and gain-focused, accessible design. Following ethics approval, I will recruit twelve story-carriers working across themes such as afforestation, seed collection, urban forestry, Indigenous forest management, memory-place-diaspora, and climate change, prioritizing racialized and queer voices. I will host group meetings to establish shared intentions and narrative themes, followed by semi-structured interviews that I will transcribe and code using narrative analysis (Bright and Du Preez 2023) to pull out major themes and contribute to the curatorial voice of the exhibit. Collaborators will be invited into an iterative review process, contributing not only content to the exhibit but also offering input on how their voices are being represented. The resulting virtual prototype exhibit (co-developed with a web programmer) will circulate back to participants to share with their communities alongside a curatorial guide and written thesis, inspiring engagement and offering a reflexive processual analysis to support future iterations.
This project is supported by the Howl Experience Microgrant, and is in development as part of my MA in Music and Culture, and graduate diploma in Curatorial Studies through the University of Carleton.
Public perception of forests often centres notions of control, extraction, or anthropogenic utility. There are other stories to tell: of interrelation, of responsibility to more-than-human communities, and of reciprocity that counter historical colonialist approaches to forest management. As an arborist, forest technician, professional composer-performer and emerging curator, I seek to build empathy towards forests through story. My research foregrounds the voices of local forest advocates currently, historically and atemporally connected to the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Stories of people from small-scale, DIY, non-profit, grassroots initiatives supporting forest stewardship will contribute to a prototype digital exhibition deepening relationships with forests and those who care for them, breaking boundaries between the white cube gallery and the natural forest, and between institutional authority and community voices. This prototype will serve as a foundation for a later physical exhibition by allowing for curatorial dreaming (Butler and Lehrer 2016), community consultation, experimentation, and critique.
I aim to decentre large-scale industrial interactions with the forest and to recentre small-scale hyperlocal initiatives, favouring affective experiences and visitor engagement. Preferencing dialogical “exhibitions as research” over unidirectional knowledge-sharing in the museum space (Bjerregaard 2020), I position storytelling as a rich entry point to imagining collective, forest-tending futures. Indigenous sound theorist Dylan Robinson urges that the “act of listening should attend to the relationship between listener and the listened-to” (2020, 15). Treating critical listening as a decolonial act, stories can be analyzed as archives that don’t necessarily act within linear or normative Western understandings of collection, time, space, and memory. A multivocal approach to knowledge-sharing demonstrates how story can function as both environmental archive and relational practice; sharing and receiving story can uncover layers of meaning hidden beneath dominant narratives.
Methodologically, I draw on critical museology (Shelton 2013), ethical and activist curatorial practices (Gkitsa 2024; Lehrer and Gutman 2023; Marstine 2011), memory and sound studies (Arnold-de Simine 2013; Chidgey and Garde-Hansen 2024; Dénommé-Welch and Becker 2023; Simon 2014), Indigenous research methodologies and storywork (Archibald 2008; Robinson 2020; Windchief and San Pedro 2019), vibrant matter and non-human actors (Bennett 2010; Latour 2005), as well as my own training in forestry and arboriculture. Supported by a Howl Experience grant (2025), I will build an ad hoc advisory board to inform ethical research design and decolonial, care-based practices throughout project development. This includes consulting with Indigenous, Deaf and Blind communities to ensure culturally-aware and gain-focused, accessible design. Following ethics approval, I will recruit twelve story-carriers working across themes such as afforestation, seed collection, urban forestry, Indigenous forest management, memory-place-diaspora, and climate change, prioritizing racialized and queer voices. I will host group meetings to establish shared intentions and narrative themes, followed by semi-structured interviews that I will transcribe and code using narrative analysis (Bright and Du Preez 2023) to pull out major themes and contribute to the curatorial voice of the exhibit. Collaborators will be invited into an iterative review process, contributing not only content to the exhibit but also offering input on how their voices are being represented. The resulting virtual prototype exhibit (co-developed with a web programmer) will circulate back to participants to share with their communities alongside a curatorial guide and written thesis, inspiring engagement and offering a reflexive processual analysis to support future iterations.
This project is supported by the Howl Experience Microgrant, and is in development as part of my MA in Music and Culture, and graduate diploma in Curatorial Studies through the University of Carleton.
I'm grateful to two Howl Experience programs for helping educate, inform and inspire me in the development of this project.
The first, an "8-day Howl Experience in the Yukon. Learn in community with youth from across Turtle Island, while visiting the traditional territories of the Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, the White River First Nation, Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. Engage with local Elders, Knowledge Holders, language keepers, artists and researchers to deepen your understanding of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, climate change, ReconciliAction, community building and personal resilience. Get inspired and find your voice (howl?) by truly connecting to place through land and community-centred learning, all through a relationship-based and Two-Eyed Seeing approach." (https://www.experiencehowl.com/yukon)
The first, an "8-day Howl Experience in the Yukon. Learn in community with youth from across Turtle Island, while visiting the traditional territories of the Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, the White River First Nation, Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. Engage with local Elders, Knowledge Holders, language keepers, artists and researchers to deepen your understanding of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, climate change, ReconciliAction, community building and personal resilience. Get inspired and find your voice (howl?) by truly connecting to place through land and community-centred learning, all through a relationship-based and Two-Eyed Seeing approach." (https://www.experiencehowl.com/yukon)
The second, "Healing Hemlocks, is a 6-day Howl Exploration developed by Howl in partnership with Ulnooweg Education Centre. Open to youth aged 17 to 35, Healing Hemlocks is a journey of community-led conservation and land-based learning, offering a unique experience to work alongside Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers, and community members to participate in an Indigenous-led treatment of one of the last remaining old-growth Hemlock forests in Nova Scotia, which is under threat due to the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid. In a cohort of eighteen, your exploration will begin at Asitu’lisk (ah-see-dew-lisk), a lodge and gathering place surrounded by 200-acres of ancient forest and waterways, located in Mi’kma’ki on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. The exploration will also include a visit to trails and pristine beaches of Kejimkujik National Park Seaside, just an hour down the road." (https://www.experiencehowl.com/healinghemlocks)
