Participatory project on Menecing/Toronto Islands, Canada; Monthly updates on the well-being of "companions and relations" of local people. 2019-22 Follow link to the website.
Letter of invitation to participants
Dear Islander,
This project aims to establish a way for people to check-in on the health & wellbeing of the many nonhumans that live on or comprise Menecing/Toronto Islands. Many islanders are companions to nonhumans, whether they are plant or insect, animal or mineral. We individually care about the willow trees on Ward’s, the toads that recently crawled out of the wet meadow, or the wood wasps that have begun to look for places to nest in our houses, for example. We even care about more problematic species, like the e-coli in the lagoon, the Strangling Dogvine, and Norway Maple. Some of us care about the health of non-living things, such as water, or the sand on the beaches that are strewn with plastic.
This project will encourage and enable us to report back on the health of our nonhuman companions. Each month, we will contribute a simple statement about the health of our chosen companion – whether the swallows that are nesting at the Ward’s ferry dock are thriving, for example.
I’ll compile and distribute these statements in an email/newsletter. Occasionally, there will be meet-ups – in Willow Square for example, or at the Little Clubhouse – where we can mingle and share our thoughts and feelings about the health of our nonhuman companions. This will be a time when we can articulate what we understand of the health of our ‘ecology’ – as the sum of us and our companions.
Perhaps this will also be an accessible expression of the kinds of politics that we already do with nonhuman islanders – as we formulate policy for dealing with Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. subsp. Australis, or any other species deemed “invasive,” for instance. Perhaps we can begin to understand the complexity of interactions between our nonhuman companions.
Early on, we’ll plot the seasonal comings and goings of our companions. In the way that the Wassail celebrates the apple trees, the beach fires celebrate each full moon, we can also begin to devise new celebrations for our nonhuman companions, wishing them good health at key points in the (solar) year.
The first step will be in volunteering some information about the health of your chosen nonhuman companion.
Be The Ecology!
*There are many mentions of assemblies, councils, and parliaments of nonhumans in recent philosophical works (Serres, 2012), in literary fiction (Phillips and Havely, 1997), and in indigenous culture ((Kimmerer, 2015) some of which have been put into practice as experimental political forums (Latour, 1993; Seed et al., 2007). Some of these aim to create opportunities for humans to “delegate,” or even act as a “medium,” in a political forum for nonhumans. In the Parliament of Companions the focus is on thinking about the ways that we participate in ecological relationships with nonhumans, and the ways that we can organize ourselves socially in order to understand this. Outcomes from this could be new forms of practice and policy that are sensitive to the complex ecological relations at work on the island.Thanks to: Shawn, E, G, & V for their contributions.