TG12

Thomas Gray

Discovering a New Design Process: The Edge between Indigenous and Contemporary

2012

The Missing Pieces is a critique of contemporary cross-cultural negotiations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in post-contact regions. It examines how 'cultural hegemony' is often perpetuated when external agency dictates the conditions of collaboration, consultation and participation in ‘community driven’ design projects. This fragment is a reflection on a new way of practicing between world-views (the unknown). It summarises the sentiment of want, weight, guilt and object (project) and a feeling of space, opportunity, mothering and need (landscape). The original jar of trout was gifted to me by Shirley Lewis, a Skwxwu7mesh woman. It was eventually discarded, uneaten.