The Pulse: July 11, 2023

An Edmonton artist helped an architecture firm explore the idea of "delightful unburdening" by imagining a more inclusive skate park during a recently completed residency.

"I discovered a way to delightfully unburden, and it's through community connection through the world of skateboarding," Lexi Pendzich wrote as the latest artist-in-residence at architecture firm hcma.

From Feb. 23 to May 5, Pendzich created a project called SKATE WORLD, designing and building a skate park for toy skateboards called Tech Decks using floral design elements. The choice was deliberate.

"When I was younger, I never felt like skateboarding was accessible to me," Pendzich told Taproot. "How I got into skateboarding was (with) a little Tech Deck fingerboard."

This was Pendzich's first-ever artist residency. She used the opportunity to draw on a previous project photographing women and LGBTQ+ skaters as well as to experiment with different media.

"Because I'm photo-based, I've never even built 3D models. So I was like, 'Oh, cool. Now I get to be super hands-on, this is awesome.'"

The residency was part of Tilt, hcma's playground-cum-laboratory for creative experimentation on projects outside client-based architecture work.

"It's not directly informing the architecture practice. It's not directly informing the design practice," hcma director of community projects Ali Kenyon told Taproot. "It's something that takes us outside of our comfort zone and gets us to use our brains or our bodies in a way that's different from our day-to-day. We think that's really valuable in terms of helping us to build divergent creative-thinking skills, as well as being more well-rounded humans overall."

• The Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations has declared a state of emergency in response to the opioid crisis, and is asking for immediate support and funding from all levels of government to help address it. The Confederacy says there is an 18.2-year discrepancy in the life expectancy of Indigenous people compared to the general population, and says the mortality rate of opioid poisoning is seven times higher. "We grieve with them for every community member lost," Mayor Amarjeet Sohi shared. "These deaths are preventable, and both the federal and provincial governments have an obligation to work together to save lives."
• In a statement posted in response to the Edmonton Heritage Festival's decision to exclude it from the event, the Russian Heritage Cultural Development Association said it has "always obeyed, supported and respected the purpose of the Edmonton Heritage Festival to bring the world together." The organization alleges its members have been "exposed to noticeable defamation attempts, bullying, and harassment" since it applied to participate, and said it "made several attempts" to address concerns raised by the Ukrainian community. The post says it is "embarrassing" that the city is "not able to guarantee public safety at a public event."
• The city has disconnected two of the temporary water bottle-filling stations it set up earlier this year and says they will be relocated after consultation with stakeholders. The station in front of the Stanley A. Milner Library downtown and the one next to Bissell Centre West on 96 Street were "quietly and suddenly disconnected" during the recent heat wave, Postmedia reports. Jim Gurnett of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness called the decision "heartless" and questioned why no alternative was offered. "It just says the lives of people who are struggling to survive on the streets do not matter to somebody in the administration that decided to shut them down," he said. The city said peace officers carry water bottles for distribution to vulnerable people during extreme weather events.
• Two zookeepers from the Edmonton Valley Zoo travelled to B.C. last month to release 277 northern leopard frog tadpoles that were born at the zoo as part of a breeding program aimed at preventing the local extinction of the species. The northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens) is considered at risk in western Canada and is one of the most endangered amphibians in British Columbia, according to the city. The Edmonton region's population is estimated to have been completely lost by the 1980s.
• Edmonton teen Sumair Uppal, who started with the Edmonton Dragon Boat Racing Club last summer, will represent Canada at the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Thailand from Aug. 7 to 13. "He's a wonderful young athlete, and we know that he's going to make our country proud," his Edmonton coach told CTV News. Uppal is raising money to pay for the trip via GoFundMe, and has already raised more than $3,000 of his $5,000 goal.
• According to the latest Consumer Debt Index from MNP, the proportion of Albertans who are concerned about their ability to pay their debts, especially as interest rates rise, has reached an all-time high. More than half (51%) of Albertans report that they are $200 or less away from being unable to meet all their financial obligations, up from 47% last quarter. Donna Carson, a licensed insolvency trustee for MNP, said Alberta is averaging 1,500 insolvencies a month in 2023.
• A controversial photo of Premier Danielle Smith posing with a man wearing a "Straight Pride" T-shirt at the Calgary Stampede prompted her office to release a statement expressing her support for the LGBTQ+ community. "The premier didn't read his shirt and obviously doesn't agree with its message," it said. Kristopher Wells, an associate professor at MacEwan University, said it is "unconscionable" that Smith's staff would allow her to pose for such a photo. But Lizette Tejada, the Alberta NDP's anti-racism, diversity, and LGBTQ2S+ critic, suggested the blame falls on Smith herself. "Danielle Smith clearly had no problem with the hateful message she posed with."

For Irfan Chaudhry, some of Edmonton's recent difficulties in implementing its anti-racism strategy follow a familiar pattern.

"The work is so focused on doing the document versus doing the actual doing, that years can go by where all you can actually really show for your efforts is the document versus the actions from the document," he told Episode 226 of Speaking Municipally.

Chaudhry, who is currently the vice-president of diversity and inclusion of Hockey Canada, joined the podcast to discuss a Taproot story about the end of the city's Anti-Racism Advisory Committee. He also commented on the city's progress in implementing its new anti-racism strategy, which city council approved in February 2022.

For some, including Chaudhry, there have been too many strategies and not enough action. He also noted that most of the documents from past anti-racism initiatives are not viewable on the city's website. This includes Racism Free Edmonton, a 2010 campaign that Chaudhry worked on involving 14 organizations, including school boards and post-secondary institutions.

"I think there's importance in having those documents… because you can see where maybe there were some promising pieces and maybe there are pieces that we shouldn't be doing," he said. "Otherwise, we're going to be doing exactly this, we're going to be recreating something."

While fighting racism is not a purely local matter, municipalities can play an important role as a convener, dealing with logistical matters that can prevent people with lived experience and expertise from coming to the table. Municipalities can also step in when other levels of government are absent, he added.

"I think municipalities have a very, very strong role to play, (which) is to supplement and provide consistency to anti-racism work specifically," he said. "We've seen in the past, relying just on provincial funds or federal funds isn't sustainable because at any given time with a change of government, that could go away."

While there needs to be more action, Chaudhry said it's a positive step that the city is still working on implementing an independent anti-racism body. A temporary advisory panel has been working on recommendations about the establishment and function of the independent body since February.

"The fact that anti-racism work is still being pushed, it hasn't lost focus, I think that to me is a positive," he said.

Hear more on the July 7 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast.