Upcoming Events

Nov 30 2017 Lecture /

Daniels Faculty Lecture Series: “The Path. The Mountain. The Journey: landscape architecture, learning, and reconciliation” with Chris Grosset

6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Mediatheque (Room 200), 1 Spadina Crescent

Free (registration is required)

Information

Registration is required for the event. Subscribe to the Daniels Faculty newsletter to be informed when registration opens.

“We have described for you a mountain. We have shown you the path to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing.” Senator Murray Sinclair, former Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, speaking on the release of the TRC Calls to Action (June 3, 2015).

We are taught that landscape architecture is both an art and a science.  Our professional practice emerges from our education, our personal experiences, our cultural context, and our world view.  Through study and application, we gradually master the skills of the profession, organizing place, resources and people to achieve a well-defined goal.  Most successful landscape architecture projects represent the fusion of creative vision with a linear, formal process of planning, check listing, implementation and final sign-off.

Achieving “Truth and Reconciliation” will also be a process.  But there is no single definition of what “reconciliation” will mean. The term describes a state of being, defined by connections between cultures, communities and individuals in the past, the present and the future. There is no project plan, no checklist. Reconciliation is a destination defined by the journey – a journey without a map to an undefined place, along paths that haven’t yet been revealed.  Every First Nations, Inuit or Métis person and community has lived their own Truth. Every Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadian has a responsibility to our shared state of reconciliation which can only be defined through the process of seeking.

Chris Grosset has worked alongside Indigenous communities in the Arctic and across Canada. He has learned in their classrooms on the land, in their homes, or during their project meetings. Through this lecture he will discuss how formal and informal education paths can lead towards reconciliation. He’ll explore how Indigenous perspectives have changed the process and perspective behind his work as a landscape architect, and share his reflections on the values, principles and practical approaches that may enable landscape architects to respond to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Chris Grosset is a partner and senior consultant with NVision InSight Group, an Indigenous Consulting firm based in Ottawa and Iqaluit. NVision provides a range of services to empower Indigenous communities and organizations throughout Canada.  Chris has been a consultant and landscape architect working in northern Canada since 2001.  He is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA), the President of the Nunavut Association of Landscape Architects (NUALA), and a member of the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP).  He is currently the Chair of the CSLA Indigenous Issues Task Force, mandated “to guide the CSLA in improving awareness and capacity for supporting Canada’s First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples”.  Chris seeks to integrate traditional knowledge and current professional practice models into his perspective and work.  His consulting projects involve the assessment of the social, cultural, environmental and economic conditions associated with Indigenous community development, land use, protected and sacred areas, cultural practices, and growth in capacity. He is a part-time instructor of community planning at Nunavut Sivuniksavut in Ottawa, a post-secondary program dedicated to providing Inuit youth with unique cultural and academic learning experiences.  Away from the office he is supporter of Canadian artisans through his family’s gallery, General Fine Craft, and an avid gardener.