Homeglen School of One

The Culture, Power, and Urban Space Gallery is the direct result of a collaboration between the Homeglen School of One and a Cultural Studies class taught by the scholar Ann De León at the University of Alberta during the Winter Term, 2015. Aside from an occasional reference to outside sources noted below in the gallery, students addressed selections from the various cultural theorists found in Simon During’s third edition of The Cultural Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 2007) throughout the term and for this pilot project in particular. De León’s own research interests are directed towards the study of continuity and changes within Nahua communities in Mexico after the Spanish Conquest. Since her arrival to the University of Alberta, she has worked tirelessly to expand opportunities for the study of Latin America and has supervised several graduate and undergraduate research projects towards that end.

After several discussions with the School of One Carver regarding the study of History, the trajectories of Cultural Studies, and the actual goals of the Global Art Project, De León decided to integrate the Carving Vignettes program into her course in a way that followed a “constructivist” approach to the required selections from the Cultural Studies Reader. After an extremely brief introduction given to the class about the carvings, the basic parameters of the Carving Vignettes program, and the Global Art Project, the School of One Carver lent the class the collection of carvings found in this gallery. Working in groups randomly assigned a specific carving by De León, students developed collective themes and used the rocks to mark their experiences in specific places in order to challenge, contest, and confirm many of the leading authors that they read. The exercise, as seen in the comments linked to the images of the carvings, helped most of them better understand the theoretical material at hand and many of the students were able to articulate some extremely novel and worthwhile interpretations. In the vast majority of cases, moreover, they were able to appropriate the Carving Vignettes agenda to think about things in advanced terms, even if we may question some of their assertions.

From the perspective of both De León and the School of One, the exercise was a success, especially since all of the vignettes proved to be highly original historical records with thoughtful, heterogeneous insights into the urban landscape of Edmonton and some the surrounding communities in its environs, with one student detailing a moment from a trip home to the city of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. After the assignment was graded, students were given the option to contribute to this gallery. Only two of them decided to opt out and not participate. The School of One Carver and De León noted, moreover, how select International Students seemed somewhat uninterested in what the European and Anglo-American theorists had to say about culture, power and the urban environment. Nevertheless, these contributors still were able to create vignettes that raised sophisticated questions regarding the experiences of International Students and provided refreshing observations about their newfound surroundings in Edmonton from their own cultural perspectives.