Inhabit: A Place/Land-based Poetic Inquiry

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Cayley Burton  

Based on an ongoing artistic collaboration with Vancouver-based illustrator, Sawyer Anderson, this presentation’s aim is twofold. First, I discuss the methodology of this project, including the ways in which walking through and witnessing localized more-than-human creatures inspired poetic responsiveness, nurturance, and introspection toward an environmental ethic. Second, in taking up the intersectionality of my lived experience on the stolen Coast Salish territories of metro-Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada/Turtle Island, I share the creative process of place/land-based exploration and self-reflection central to my poetic contributions for this project. While this project remains unfinished, some of the poetry and illustrations making up its current iteration will be shared. The complexities of what it means to learn and benefit from particular places/land/communities are also examined through ecological and decolonizing lenses, using Tuck, McKenzie, and McCoy (2014) as inspiration. This presentation articulates, via poetic inquiry, the ways in which possibility, play, and optimism are fostered within the relationships and interconnectedness between two artists, the land, and the more-than-human creatures in their urban reality. A creative practice of developing an attuned awareness of the role of urban static in one’s relationship with the natural environment can be a productive, hopeful way of situating oneself—and one’s accompanying responsibilities—within the larger conversation of the global climate crisis.