Cree Cultural Interpretive Center

University of Guelph-Humber Field Trip Moosonee

University of Guelph-Humber students travel by plane, by bus, by boat, by helicopter, and by foot in order to gain a better understanding of the notable disparities in mental health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations.

While in the northern Ontario communities of Moosonee and Moose Factory, students visit with community leaders and with Elders; visit the probation and parole offices; visit the Sagashtawao Healing Lodge, Payukotayno Family Services, the Cree Cultural Interpretive Centre, the Weeneebayko General Hospital – they examine interventions provided by both government agencies and traditional healing services.

Doctoral Program Conference: #decoding, Session 1, Unsettling

3/11/16
Power inscribes order on space through codes. Bureaucratic codes measure and normalize dynamic ecologies and constitute the substrate of any infrastructural system, organization, and praxis. They striate space and punctuate time to increase efficiency, maximize profit, reduce risk, and maintain order in cultural, social, economic, and political spheres. #decoding gauges the agency of spatial practices in relation to the challenges and capacities prompted by codes and protocols. Organized by students in the Doctor of Design Studies program, this conference investigates the impact of codes, concerned with mapping of environments, demarcation of legal territories, operational protocols of logistics and risk management, and codes of building and subtraction. By exposing the spatial and socio-cultural implications of micro-politics embedded in the hidden codes and protocols, we speculate about the potential agency of design practices mediating between processes of normalization, and the live, complex, and unpredictable ecologies of human habitation.