Team SOM

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Design intent

Bapiiwin (Survival, Overcoming - Working Title)

Like a field of flagpoles stripped of their flags, Bapiiwin emerges from the landscape as a matrix of hundreds of stainless steel wands that can be explored in infinitely diverse pathways, reflecting the multitudes of unique paths towards justice for 2SLGBTQI+ people.

Central to the Monument is a soundscape developed by Rebecca Belmore and Noam Gonick that memorializes the oppression and humiliation suffered under the Purge. Words and sentences researched from Professor Wake’s Ottawa Fruit Machine tests of the 1960’s emanate from a grid of speakers below the ground and surround visitors in a disorienting array.

A central clearing is anchored by a low, heated table that is an invitation to community, dialogue, and healing, and is split into four cardinal quadrants that centre Indigenous experience.

The monument is nested within complementary landscapes. On the one hand a sloping meadow for healing and meditation, and on the other a large communal lawn for festivities and celebration.

Transcript

Transcript of the 2SLGBTQI+ National Monument Team SOM video

Video length: 1:30 minutes

The visual elements are animated renderings.

The narrator is unidentified.

[Text on screen: Bapiiwin, Survival, Overcoming]

[Animated black background becoming lighter, with tall wands, rain and foliage]

Narrator’s voice: “Like flagpoles stripped of their flags, LGBTQ2+ people were often forced to shed their identities.”

[Animated renderings of blurred nighttime view of monument site from Wellington Street showing illuminated tall wands and then the descent into the site]

Narrator’s voice: “From the humiliation of the purge to the oppression of colonialism, our paths to healing are diverse… But they must begin, as they always have for Indigenous peoples, in nature.”

[Animated rendering of close up view of the monument showing the tall wands, a low table in the centre of them, landscaping and an interpretation panel]

Narrator’s voice:Bapiiwin emerges as a matrix of hundreds of stainless steel wands. It emanates a soundscape of words from the fruit machine experiments of the Purge”

[Animated rendering of a close up view of the tall wands and the heated low table in winter]

Diverse voices: “Salon de thé”

“Voyou”

“Queer”

“Restaurant”

“Circus”

“Fruit”

“I would like to be a soldier””

[Animated renderings of views to the sky from the centre of the monument amidst the tall wands, amidst trees]

Narrator’s voice: “Like a clearing in a forest, visitors emerge in a communal space…”

[Animated renderings of the low heated table at the centre of the monument site. The surface is reflective]

Narrator’s voice: “Anchored by a low, heated table - an invitation to community, dialogue and healing”

[Animated rendering of an overhead view of the monument showing the hundreds of stainless steel wands and the associated landscape]

Narrator’s voice: “Its circular form is split in four cardinal quadrants that centre the Indigenous experience within the monument.”

[Animated rendering of a ground-level view of the monument site showing the tall wands and people celebrating in the background]

Narrator’s voice: “The site is a universally accessible journey that leads to a large lawn for festivities and gatherings that will become a riverside destination for the capital.”

[Animated rendering of the monument site illuminated in rainbow colours at dusk]

[Text on screen: Bapiiwin, Survival, Overcoming

SOM

Rebecca Belmore, Artist

Noam Gonick, Artist

HTFC, Landscape Architecture

Lyle Dick, Historian

Iraklis Lampropoulos, Audio Consultant]

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