Camille Marcoux
History Sticks to your Feet
This thesis addresses current concerns around climate change and geological time through decolonial literature, seeking responses for change through the position of a critical settler. I use a process of observation and breakdown of the non-native and highly invasive Phragmites Australis found on a site located in MercierHochelaga-Maisonneuve to think through the complexities of colonialism in the land I inhabit. The incessant remodeling of Phragmites Australis paper pulp allowed me to actively think through making. Throughout autoethnographic research, I realized that if I want change, I need to radically accept the reality I live in and address the feeling of shame that arises within me, to move beyond this paralyzing feeling. To help me through my thinking, I have supported my research with Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna Haraway, Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised times by Alexis Shotwell, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada by Paulette Regan, and Decolonization is not a Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. I also learned that Decolonization requires more than theories: it demands concrete material change. As the journey towards decolonial ways of being and making is far from over and as I aim to work towards concrete change beyond the studio, I use site-specific engagement and lyrical performative approaches to unsettle my work and participate in the cultural side of the process.
Keywords: Chthulucene, capitalocene, anthropocene, Decolonization, climate change, invasive species, phragmites australis, paper making
