{"id":47,"date":"2023-01-21T21:02:11","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T21:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wheretheriversmeet.art\/walk\/?page_id=47"},"modified":"2025-07-29T14:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:36:11","slug":"about-the-project","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wheretheriversmeet.art\/tour\/about-the-project\/","title":{"rendered":"About The Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Where the Rivers Meet Tour<\/strong> website portal is part of a larger ongoing conversation between Jeff Thomas and digital designer and writer Leah Snyder (The L. Project<\/a>). Their engagement with each other\u2019s work began in the Summer 2013 when Leah came to Ottawa to cover and write on the events of Sakah\u00e0n: International Indigenous Art<\/i><\/em><\/a> at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) for her online magazine Mixed Bag Mag.<\/p>\n

Leah\u2019s 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\u2019s own research and artistic practice. Since that time Leah has produced multiple online portals<\/a> featuring as well as archiving Jeff\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Like Jeff, Leah\u2019s encounter with the Champlain Monument at Nepean Point and the Anishinabe Scout, then relocated to a more secluded area of Major\u2019s Hill Park, left a deep impression. Also like Jeff, Leah relocated to the region after experiencing a resonance with what the land here offers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the hope of both Jeff and Leah that the WTRM Tour<\/strong> deepens the visitor\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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NEW! Scout Relocation Project RFP \u2013\u00a0view here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A project reimagining the colonial landscape through the eyes of the Anishinabe Scout<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through his photo-based practice, Jeff Thomas has addressed the colonial erasure of Indigenous presence, particularly in the urban space. With over three decades of engagement with the Champlain monument as well as with the Anishinabe Scout\u2019s relocation site at Major Hill\u2019s Park, the figure of Scout has become an avatar for Thomas, a way to move through the urban space while asserting:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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