Kavita Garg &
Julie Guevara
How will we Live Together?
How will we Live Together?
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Five Points towards Land having agency
![Property and Thresholds: Which way of the land is the rightful one?]()
The subject in focus here is Land, where we recognize Her as a living entity, who has the capacity to exert influence. This is the basis of our Thesis ‘Five Points towards Land having agency’, which is an exercise in ‘Listening to Land’ to rethink a new worldview.
The threshold is a meeting place for the informal and formal, where borders are used to facilitate order to the ephemeral. The articulation of boundary edges in architecture produces artificial thresholds such as property lines on maps that divide the Land. Property lines are the first step in dis-connectivity, and once humans are disconnected, they stop listening to Land. The understanding of disconnect, comes from the analysis of the ‘power of map’ that draws imaginary lines on paper that can dis-value communities, belief systems and collective histories attached to Land elements. Amidst Canada’s ‘land back movement’ conflict between the Indigenous and Colonial systems, we question ‘Which way of the land is the rightful one? How can these borders be altered to become forces of progress rather than oppression? ‘
Our thinking directs on co-existence of stewards and settlers, where our focus is less on designing spaces for Indigenous peoples, and more on the role of the settlers in this context and how it can be challenged. We began our investigation in an area of Toronto where Land was flourishing and can break free. Subsequently, we began questioning ‘What would land look like if we saw it in a different way?’ Through further research, we listened to the history of land, where she was hurting, where she was thriving, to help us conceptualize a set of tools.
We present these five tools to help us revolutionize the way we conceive the future of Land, using visualization in a blend of intuition and logic. We decided to explore a multiplicity of tools rather than a singular strategy to determine the design to produce something new because Andre Lorde quotes, ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’.
Five points towards Land having agency:
1. We should have a reciprocal relationship with Land as ‘give and take’ rather than ‘take take take’.
2. Land is not property. Land is not capital. Land is a living being with rights and should be listened to and respected.
3. Land wants to breathe.
4. Incorporating Land’s natural state to create decentralized societies that are less selfish.
5. Time driven by property is a linear relationship acting to an end, but time driven by Land is a circular relationship that is continually regenerative. Land should be conceptualized as intergenerational, considering both ancestral and future beings.
The threshold is a meeting place for the informal and formal, where borders are used to facilitate order to the ephemeral. The articulation of boundary edges in architecture produces artificial thresholds such as property lines on maps that divide the Land. Property lines are the first step in dis-connectivity, and once humans are disconnected, they stop listening to Land. The understanding of disconnect, comes from the analysis of the ‘power of map’ that draws imaginary lines on paper that can dis-value communities, belief systems and collective histories attached to Land elements. Amidst Canada’s ‘land back movement’ conflict between the Indigenous and Colonial systems, we question ‘Which way of the land is the rightful one? How can these borders be altered to become forces of progress rather than oppression? ‘
Our thinking directs on co-existence of stewards and settlers, where our focus is less on designing spaces for Indigenous peoples, and more on the role of the settlers in this context and how it can be challenged. We began our investigation in an area of Toronto where Land was flourishing and can break free. Subsequently, we began questioning ‘What would land look like if we saw it in a different way?’ Through further research, we listened to the history of land, where she was hurting, where she was thriving, to help us conceptualize a set of tools.
We present these five tools to help us revolutionize the way we conceive the future of Land, using visualization in a blend of intuition and logic. We decided to explore a multiplicity of tools rather than a singular strategy to determine the design to produce something new because Andre Lorde quotes, ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’.
Five points towards Land having agency:
1. We should have a reciprocal relationship with Land as ‘give and take’ rather than ‘take take take’.
2. Land is not property. Land is not capital. Land is a living being with rights and should be listened to and respected.
3. Land wants to breathe.
4. Incorporating Land’s natural state to create decentralized societies that are less selfish.
5. Time driven by property is a linear relationship acting to an end, but time driven by Land is a circular relationship that is continually regenerative. Land should be conceptualized as intergenerational, considering both ancestral and future beings.
