This week, one of the goals for our group was to build upon our external research and further our understanding of Samira’s perspectives on the revitalization. We continued our walking tours of Regent Park with Samira, collecting more and more pictures of the neighbourhood as we went along, particularly focusing on places that are or were meaningful to Samira and her life experiences. We collected pictures using our phones, an Instax camera, and disposables. We hope that these images taken with different tools will add to the character and aesthetic of our final project.
In our walks with Samira, we experienced multiple juxtapositions in the imagery of the neighbourhood. Here, we see the rubble and destruction wrought by the ongoing redevelopment construction in the foregrounds of residential buildings.
This week, we also worked on understanding our timeline, the medium and focus of our project. We had given Samira a rough timeline to fill out and work on, and were extremely excited when Samira came to class with the entire timeline filled out! As the project heavily relies on Samira and her experiences, we were very pleased to see that, with her help, we could now move on to the following stages of developing our final piece.
To be inclusive, and also to make Samira feel more comfortable sharing her lived experiences with us, we hoped to perform the interview activity we did with Alexa Mills again. We saw this as an effective way to get to know each other and build more trusting relationships among our group members, as well as for us to further understand Samira’s perspectives and experiences of the revitalisation through the interview. Through the interview and the walking tours hosted by Samira, we were able to broaden our understanding of the revitalisation. At this time, we have started to ground our project photos and Samira’s stories into the timeline in a way that is inclusive of and specific to Samira’s personal story, but can be interacted with by other members of the community and others we hope to reach with our piece at the final showing.
This week, Samira seemed to be particularly comfortable around us during our class, which increased our confidence as well. It felt as though Samira is becoming accustomed to being around and working with us, and offered insight into the direction of our project and the way we should present certain aspects of it. It was really reassuring to see Samira so engaged in our discussions and our work, especially in the walking tour and photography. It is apparent that she has been actively thinking about this project in her day-to-day, which has been extremely helpful in being productive during our time together. The interview activity also showed her increase in confidence and her engagement with the project through her active participation, and her willingness to both answer and ask questions.
We’ve been having an extremely enlightening and fun experience working with Samira. Although she seemed slightly hesitant in our first few sessions. Having Samira alert, present, and confident this session was also reassuring for our group because it made getting into the work much easier for us, as well as much more productive. Knowing that she is also thinking about this project outside of our session times was doubly comforting, particularly when she told us that she had asked for her mother’s insights too.
Next week, we look forward to beginning the process of assembling and creating our final piece as a group. We hope to intertwine the stories we’ve heard from Samira, as well as external research done by Sayem, Erika and Lena, with the photographs we have taken of Regent Park to tell a meaningful story.
The Social Fixers are Lena, Sayem, Erika, and Samira.