Catching up with my misperceptions and revelations

What have I learnt so far? You would think it would be incredibly easy to summarize all of the things I have taken in, but in reality I find these posts the hardest to pin down. But here it goes…

-Trevor Anderson is a genius. Apart from being hilarious his short film really made me give the High Level Bridge some serious thought. It’s such an integral part of the city, bridging together north and south. And at the same time I realized that although it gives you a spectacular view of the river valley and makes for excellent photo shoots it really makes me uneasy. I always feel claustrophobic when I drive across, like the guy in the big ass pickup truck will lose focus for one second and crush my tiny little car. A common site of suicides and the city has really not taken any drastic preventative measures. Apparently they value aesthetics over human lives.

-I really enjoyed reading the pieces from Edmonton on Location because they all seemed to address Edmonton in a different light. I found Hiemstra’s piece particularly engaging: uneasiness was created through the pace of the narrative allowing for a voyeuristic experience of something that most of us turn a blind eye to. More significantly the works evoked a great sense of guilt. A burial ground at Rossdale? How could I not have known?! I drive past the memorial on a weekly basis but never realized what I was looking at. These histories are the histories that belong to me as an Edmontonian. It’s about time I take ownership with that past.

-I have never liked poetry. However, Knight and Major did not seem like a burden to read (could be due to the incorporation of mythology into the foundation of this city. I have a certain fondness for Classics).

-The mapping project, as demanding as it may have been, illustrates the multiplicity of ways to interpret the spaces that we inhabit. From the sounds of things it appears that no two maps were exactly the same, and the maps that focused on similar areas suggested different ways to view/question the space. It’s interesting to see how everyday places, parts of our collective memory, can vary so greatly. They have challenged the way I think about the spaces around me, which was one aspect that I was hoping to get out of the course.

Although my opinion is far from set as of yet I truly think I’m starting to realize some of the reasons why I have such a strong attachment to Edmonton. (p.s. sorry the post is so long. In all fairness I did say that the prompt was one hell of a loaded question!).