September 5, 2007, 11:13 pm

Today was the first day back on campus with a sudden flood of new students. I met a couple of my fellow new MFA candidates and enjoyed the brief moments of air conditioning I found between our new apartment and walking to campus.

I also submitted a proposal for a residency in Vancouver. In short, I submitted that the urban environment is in need of desperate repair and intensive action. The environment in which we live has become a hazard to our collective existence on numerous levels, perhaps most eloquently defined as ecologically and visually disastrous, or, geographically and phenomenologically barren - though there are means of repair. Working from the stance of the artist as a catalyst for the community, I am proposing a project that requires a technological mediation for a physical and communal resolution.

Though we've only been living in our new apartment for a few short days, the community feels alive, in all of its disparity of classes, disconnected architecture and overgrown gardens. Maybe because it's removed from being a solely student neighbourhood (in which its rental residents often remain boarded indoors or vagrant due to schedules beyond their control), but this neighbourhood feels like it has potential for connection. I would propose that this connection occurs with art as its catalyst.

The community of graduate students we met with today was exciting and felt extremely positive. It felt like maybe the room was full of potential for change and for action. That a community exists on paper, on maps, in a tax-base database is a given, but to begin the momentum to forward thinking and encouraging action is essential.

To repair a community, there must be an understanding and definition of the problems that need attention. These problems will range from such a variety of people, it is difficult to think that repair is possible. How does the process of addressing one problem not effect another solution negatively? I would rather think that broadly, communities need to be the physical and sociological structure in which change can happen. I would argue that the arts can be among the most powerful impetus to begin a movement of action. In specific terms, I dream of communities that are livable (walkable, breathable, experiential, physically and aesthetically motivated, ecologically responsible, art-friendly, forward-thinking, low traffic, tall trees and open access to information everywhere). Art can begin the steps towards this livable community, but, at least for tonight, I have to think that the residents must be the actual movers within their communities.

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