UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies (E-Journal - York University)

Collective, Editorial

Back Matter

UnderCurrents Editorial Collective

Rear, Peter

(untitled image)

Salhus, Megan

"Home Place: Essays on Ecology" by Stan Rowe

Viswanthan, Leela

Living Well 3 and 2

The language of the birds outside my bedroom window has to compete with the sound of traffic seeping through the brick walls that becomes a part of my day, like the canned music that fills my ear when I'm once again waiting for a real voice on the telephone instead of a “press three” for hours of operation

Chahal, Taina

A Map to the Door of No Return 
The language of the birds outside my bedroom window has to
compete with the sound of traffic seeping through the brick walls
that becomes a part of my day, like the canned music that fills my
ear when I'm once again waiting for a real voice on the telephone
instead of a “press three” for hours of operation.
Getting away from traffic in Toronto is almost an impossibility.
Traffic leaves its filthy print everywhere; my fifth floor window is
covered in the black dusty exhaust of commuting and mall'ing. In
the morning, I draw the curtains open and look out a permanently
stained window and see the sky already shrouded in smog, despite
the new dawn. I turn away, downcast; the rays of the sun diffused
behind a curtain of yellow fog.

Traveling one hour east of Thunder Bay, the cold, early morning
air convinces the warmth of late summer to leave the depths of
Lake Nipigon and hang a curtain of silk over the surface of the
water. On the other side of the road, backed by glacier carved
cliffs, St. Sylvester's church stands a silent, abandoned witness. And
past the black sands of Orient Bay, unseen behind the boreal for-
est, lies an Ojibway burial ground where small, white wooden
crosses stand, unsilent witnesses whose silence is deafening
We pass a small town named Tunis on Highway 11, the northern
route that carves its way up from Lake Superior through the
Canadian Shield, curves, then cuts straight across northern Ontario
through muskeg. Think of Samira as we pass Tunis, but she's
nowhere in sight. After the point where all waters flow south, we
pass a town named Moonbeam.
In Rosegrove, named to defy the struggle of wresting plants from
the oldest, hardest rock on the planet, we pass unpainted, weath-
ered wooden homes left abandoned, doors ajar, hope having run
out one night down the road.
We travel past Wabewawa Road, lined on both sides with a climax
forest, its dark green broken here-and-there by paper birches with
no branches or leaves, with thin, wind-bowed trunks. The black
spruce have waited patiently for the birch to die, for their turn in
the northern sun. Farther on, in the overgrown grass in front of a
small, red, wooden mummon-mökki that has white tape slapped
haphazardly over the three large cracks in the front window, we
pass a sign: House for Sale. And up the road from Net Lake, stuck
in the gravel at the side of the highway, right after the turnoff to
the Constance Lake Indian Reserve, almost unnoticeable, a small
black-and-orange sign: Garage Sale.
I thought to turn around and tell them that they should've stuck
the sign before the turnoff, not after, because by then it's too late.
After swamps and bogs and blow-downs, fens and beds of reeds
standing in still waters choked with bulrushes, mirror lakes reflect-
ing clouds bottom-heavy with lilacs on a rainy day, the boreal ballet
of tilting, drunken forests, and creeks disappearing into the sky, we
stop at a gasbar with no gum, no mints, no chips, no chocolates,
no cigarettes.
A gaunt teen swipes my card and his hair. I look across the room
from the cash register and see a sign taped on a glass door leading
to a roomful of empty tables and upturned chairs: Restaurant
Closed.
Highway 17 winds up and down steep cliffs, providing spectacular
views of Lake Superior, from miles and miles of windy shoreline
to uplifted cliffs of granite and gneiss that are the remnants of the
mountains that flouted the glacial river of ice. Its dramatic beauty
makes it a popular route for travellers and tourists. And with the
railway now gone, it's busy with transports and truckers beating
deadlines.
The northern route, on the other hand, is almost deserted. It has a
sneak-up-on you charm. Travelling Highway 11 is like turning a
cut-glass prism slowly between your fingers and, within the slant of
pink light, seeing clear as crystal into the mirror of your mind
and… there you are, a drop of dew weighing down an early-morn-
ing spider web.
The northern highway, like the stillness of the morning bush while
blueberry picking, underfoot, blue-dusted berries among the
crunch of pale green lichen.
There is a city here where I walk to see how others live. I could, I suppose, see about myself only. I could be unaffected. I could come to
the easy belief that, really, what is there to speak against? I could develop that voice so full of cold address to beauty. I could with some
self-defacement go about the business of making my living. I could say in that way many do: oh, it's not so bad, your writing need not
show your skin, it need not speak of trouble, history is a burden after all. But Neruda summons me, is waiting for me at the end of every
sentence. I cannot ignore my hands "stained with garbage and sadness." 
~ Dionne Brand
The Meaning of the Colour Blue
by Taina Chahal
UnderCurrents v.13 33

The freeways in Toronto are unlike either Highway 11 or Highway
17. No muskeg, no rockcuts. It's an area of low relief. The meta-
morphic rock has been eroded by something even more powerful
than a two-mile thick, moving ice sheet: a car culture that has car-
ried away much of the region's topsoil. There's not much to see
out your window except other cars zipping by, transports and
tankers, and cement walls that zip you in like a straightjacket. Grey
folding in upon itself. An asphalt sky; aground in grey. Nothing
more alienating than hitting the highways in Toronto.
I'm looking for my blueberry patch but I can't find it.
Yet, there is an understory to pavement too. There is an understory
to this city found on the right of sunrise. When the surprise of
blue breaks through the clouds.
A Friday in October, the month of the hunter's moon. I've had
enough of shoebox existence, and despite my undone work, I leave
North York with Fataneh and Shukria, and head downtown to lis-
ten to Dionne Brand read from her memoir, A Map to the Door
of No Return.
The club on College is crowded; filled with women and a handful
of men, most black, a few white (like myself); there is laughter and
the clink of glasses; a temporary camaraderie emerging from our
collective anticipation.
Brand reads from "The Man from the Oldest City in the World", a
passage about her chance encounter with a parking lot attendant
while on her way to read at a PEN benefit. She speaks the absurdi-
ty of a man who comes from one of the oldest civilizations in the
world (Ethiopia) being reduced to spending his days inside a small
box in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of the city among
new, glass buildings:
The man from the oldest city in the world and I are shak
ing with laughter. Then I walk toward the theatre. Its glit
tering glass doors, its self-conscious newness, its dispos
able modernity. Years ago it, too, was a parking lot; in 
another decade it will become one. Around me is the 
parking lot, the great parking lot temporarily occupied by 
buildings. This is what he looks out on every day, his 
curly head shaking. (Brand 2001: 109) 
She talks about the laughter they share, about their momentary and
unexpected meeting ground, about finding a point of human con-
nection among the asphalt landscape of the city, of laughing at
"they" of the "civilized world" yet recognizing that she is also of
the civilization of parking lots: "It is a grim laughter we share. Yes,
it is at the ironic circumstances of belonging to this civilization of
parking lots. I am the citizen of the parking lot" (Brand 120).
Brand looks closely underneath the workings of Toronto and finds
the garbage that fills its corners. She exposes many of the trou-
bling injustices of the urban landscape, particularly the racism and
the disregard and unequal treatment meted out to many who are
not white, yet paradoxically, her words enable us not to lose faith
but to dream for a better place. Her words bear witness to the ugli-
ness of the city - its racism, its alienation, its asphalt soul, its park-
ing lots and corporate towers, and bring to light that which many
don't notice, indeed, what is tossed aside, carelessly. She speaks of
the garbage she finds on her hands through language birthed in the
"fortunate and unfortunate" (Brand 2001: 193) beauty in which she
is immersed .
Her words give utterance to the divine found in small moments
tucked right beside the ugly of Toronto. They tell of sweetness and
pain, despair and beauty, and evoke hope within hopelessness. Her
words tug at my conscience in a bitter-sweet way, their clarity re-
kindling an anger towards the injustices that occur in this city on a
daily level, and that are not equally borne. Hearing her read nudges
me out of myself; her words set me adrift, clear-headed, breaking
through the grey clouds that had been showering rain on me all
week.

Walking back to the subway with Fataneh and Shukria, and weav-
ing between the crowds of people streaming by, we pass sidewalk
cafes and vegetable grocers and Vietnamese shops selling huge
bunches of basil for $1.99, mangoes as big as melons, slender
Chinese eggplant, and the surprise of blue tulips. We buy apples
and milk and a cauliflower to bring back home. We pass Italian
butchers with ham in the window and Portuguese bakeries and
Fantasy Cleaners. We pass 2-4-1 Jazeera Falafel, Vicki's fish and
chips and thai food, Irene's Tarot Readings, The Golden Loonie
Dollar Shop, and Jacinthe's Hair Shop, no appointment needed.
We are reminded that there is texture in the street.
The storm clouds have cleared; the moon is shining overhead. We
talk as we walk all the way back to the subway about the words that
we've heard and about the city and the big urban sprawl that is
Toronto and how to find a means of not just getting through it
but finding a space so that we can do our share.
The moon casts her magic on us, warming our talk. The greens of
vegetables and the yellows of fruit, the shuffle of feet and the
sweat of the street stream through us and skip like a stone on the
waters of our souls. Our strides lengthen and quicken; our steps
are weightless; in this "civilization of parking lots" we touch
ground together, and laughing, run barefoot to a midnight blue
sky.
Reference
Brand, Dionne (2001). A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes
to Belonging. Toronto: Doubleday Canada.

UnderCurrents v.1334 John Opiola, untitled, photo


English

The Meaning of the Colour Blue

Lu, Wendy

Cypher, Jennifer

Phillips, Catherine

Cover image: Leah Burns, Textured Expressions, retouched photo
As we put this issue together the last days of 2003 swirled around us, with all the artifice
and artifacts that this time of year seems to generate. The steamy-windowed café where we
planned the final week of tasks was full of holiday greenery, all artificial. Part of our con-
versation revolved around the artifacts still to be purchased or made for friends and family.
The reality of our intimate connections with artifacts and artifice seems heightened at this
time of year. We buy and bake and celebrate, undeniably caught up in webs of things and
crafts and greenery (artificial or otherwise).
How did we get here? The texts and artworks within this volume present external and inter-
nal collisions of nature and non-nature and question them in various ways. When are arti-
facts ‘natural’ elements for humans or non-humans? How does language designate gen-
dered bodies and human-created landscapes as natural? How do artificial landscapes reflect
human ideals? Is the cultural construction of a nature unsullied by the human hand an ide-
ological, or even practical, artifact? These are some of the questions considered from a
variety of perspectives and in several different formats; they reflect the diversity and mal-
leability of the meanings of all these terms.
Artifice means feigning (‘faking it’), and several of the pieces discuss and/or demonstrate
this aspect of the term. The ability to be false is not presented in an entirely negative light;
even when faced with an onslaught of fake nature or feigned identities there are many ways
in which the artificial is seen as something useful, meaningful, even natural. The ability to
camouflage can be a survival technique for non-humans as well as human beings, as is
pointed out in Lenore Newman’s article on gender transformation. The meaning of artifice
that addresses to human crafts and skills is also shown, but with a twist that acknowledges
the crafts and skills of the non-human as well; again artifice is not presented as a strictly
human attribute. In Aileen Penner’s ‘Cancer at Sims Creek’, a man’s ability to track bears in
the midst of clear cuts is contrasted with the skill of cancer to kill him, a stark reminder
that humans and nature are both skilled in destruction.
The term artifact refers to human handiwork of all kinds. A particular use of the word
indicates what we humans create and leave behind, ‘historical artifacts’. Can artifacts
become ‘re-natured’? Rusted cars return to their basic elements and olive oil tins nurture
new plants. Matthew Cowley explains how a particular greenhouse can connect, and recon-
nect, us with nature and human nature in a built environment. Do artifacts have multiple
lives? Bert Oldershaw changes objects found while experiencing and exploring a beach
through his art, their close proximity and precise arrangement constituting a new meaning
for them as found and placed objects. Even language may be understood as both an arti-
fice and as a set of artifacts used to define and construct environments in literal and figura-
tive ways, as is suggested in the piece by Jennifer Foster.
The articles, prose, poetry and artworks in this issue point to existing and possible intersec-
tions of artifice and artifact, the places in which these two concepts work in tandem to cre-
ate meaning. We are all situated at these intersections, positioned to receive and create
meanings of our own from them, with them, in spite of them. There is meaning in artificial
greenery and in our exchange of various artifacts, meaning about nature and non-nature
and the relationships between them. The question of what meanings can be made through
living with artifice and artifacts is one posed throughout this volume, and one we invite you
to pose for yourself.
UnderCurrents v.13 3
Editorial essay
by Jennifer Cypher and Catherine Phillips
UnderCurrents
Vol. 13 
Artifice / Artifact
JENNIFER CYPHER and CATHERINE PHILLIPS Editorial
JENNIFER FOSTER The Natural Ambiguity of Native Species 
ELANA WOLFF Almost Full
AILEEN PENNER Cancer at Sims Creek
LIETTE GILBERT Landscapes of Contradiction in Las Vegas:
the costs of sustaining hyperreality
ELANA WOLFF Orca
LENORE NEWMAN The Badlands of Gender:
excerpts from a notebook
MATTHEW COWLEY Design, intent and changing nature of Allan Gardens
TAINA CHAHAL The Meaning of the Colour Blue
HEIDI SANDER Still Breathing
LEAH BURNS Textured Expressions
RICHARD J. MOUNT Rusted Barbed Wire
LEANNE AMORT Untitled
SHEILA KARROW Loss of Innocence
BERT OLDERSHAW Flotsam & Jetsam
ROBIN COLLYER VCR Hospital 
PETER REAR Untitled
KAREN ABEL Roadkill
WENDY LU Untitled
LEELA VISWANATHAN Living Well 3 and 2
ROBERT WIENS Red Pine
JOHN OPIOLA Untitled
BRENT KULBA Concrete Watercolour
KAREN ABEL Discard
MEGAN SALHUS on Home Place: Essays on Ecology by Stan Rowe
SUSANNAH BUNCE on Resist!: A Grassroots Collection by Jen Chang et al.
LEELA VISWANATHAN on Damage Control, Museum of Contemporary 
Canadian Art, July 17- August 23, 2003
CARMEN VICTOR on Collapsing Difference, Museum of Contemporary 
Canadian Art, July 17- August 23, 2003
CONTENTS
Richard J. Mount, Rusted Barbed Wire, photo
WRITING
3
6
10
12
17
20
22
25
33
35
ART
1
4
9
11
15
16
19
21
24
30
31
35
38
39
REVIEWS
36
36
37
37


Editorial Essay

Amort, Leanne

Toronto, Canada’s most populous urban centre, is home to millions of people from all over the world. First established as a city in 1834, the lands downtown that were once muddy ports and trading posts are now overshadowed by such architectural giants as the CN tower, the Toronto-Dominion Centre and SkyDome. While these structures are some of the most memorable shapes on the city’s skyline, Toronto is also known for its green spaces, including an extensive ravine system, large urban parks and recreational refuges such as Centre Island

Cowley, Matthew

Design, Intent and Changing Nature of Allan Gardens

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Back Matter

UnderCurrents Editorial Collective

(untitled image)

"Home Place: Essays on Ecology" by Stan Rowe

Living Well 3 and 2

The Meaning of the Colour Blue

(untitled image)

Editorial Essay

(untitled image)

Design, Intent and Changing Nature of Allan Gardens

219

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