The Where the Rivers Meet Tour website portal is part of a larger ongoing conversation between Jeff Thomas and digital designer and writer Leah Snyder (The L. Project). Their engagement with each other’s work began in the Summer 2013 when Leah came to Ottawa to cover and write on the events of Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) for her online magazine Mixed Bag Mag.
Leah’s own research on the deconstructing of national narratives in a digital era, particularly with regards to cyberspace as a site for activism, advocacy and negotiating for social justice, aligned with Jeff’s own research and artistic practice. Since that time Leah has produced multiple online portals featuring as well as archiving Jeff’s work.
Like Jeff, Leah’s encounter with the Champlain Monument at Nepean Point and the Anishinabe Scout, then relocated to a more secluded area of Major’s Hill Park, left a deep impression. Also like Jeff, Leah relocated to the region after experiencing a resonance with what the land here offers.
The WTRM Tour is a continuation of their iterative collaboration process that considers how digital tools can contribute to storytelling as well as contribute to Indigenous presence in places where that presence has been erased and obscured.
It is the hope of both Jeff and Leah that the WTRM Tour deepens the visitor’s understanding of this region through an engagement that can either be embodied on the land or experienced at a distance and that whichever way one comes to the WTRM Tour, one leaves with an important shifting of perspective.
