Urban Imaginaries Ottawa

a reflection on the politics of the imaginary, on who can take part in them, and of who is represented within the city

Overview

‘Urban Imaginaries Ottawa’ is an art design and research project started by the Urban Imaginaries Lab. This project puts the idea of the urban imaginary in touch with our urban setting: the city of Ottawa. The project aims to investigate the different cities that make our city, to identify existing and silenced social conflicts, to promote a wider understanding of them and reflections on what the city is, as well as collective understanding and action on the multiple possibilities of what the city could be.

It does this by exploring and promoting the exploration of our urban environment, through the collective discussion of existing urban imaginaries, and through the creation and discussion of new ones for Ottawa. Field explorations, counter-mapping of the city, public events, and creative sessions are what the project puts into practice to promote collaborative knowledge-sharing and building.

keywords: community-based design, counter-mapping, design anthropology, rehearsing futures, urban imaginaries, cartography

Cities are geographies that cannot be grasped in their totality. They have at least as many meanings and configurations as they do inhabitants. Even accessing some of them requires imagination and creativity. It requires the understanding that cities are not only material, but also practiced, represented, and sensed. Each one of these dimensions is filled with infinite possibilities for a city to be, to be experienced, and to become.
As a term and concept, urban imaginary becomes a platform for exploring the city’s multiplicity of meanings. Urban imaginary speaks to the making and remaking of a city's public culture. It speaks of the processes that inform the place-based narratives that emerge both within the city and because of it. It promotes reflection on the politics of the imaginary, on who can take part in them, and who is represented within the city.
The project aims to engage the local community in reflecting and discovering the different meanings the city holds, while exploring overlooked situations and experiences, to unveil tensions and allegiances and the co-existence and agency of past, present, and future in the making of the urban experience, and to inform the making of futures for Ottawa.
The desired outcome is the collective creation and discussion of new urban imaginaries for Ottawa.
The First Edition took place from February to May 2022 in partnership with Arlington 5 , a local coffee-house. It consisted of a series of activities at the intersection between art and design, that, alongside the local community, explored, counter-mapped, and reimagined the city. There were soundwalks, urban walks, critical mapping sessions, creative workshops, and radio show episodes.
It also engages students from “IDES5500 Design Anthropology” and “COMS5218: Sound, Space, and the City” Master’s Courses in the process.
The Second Edition explores the theme: ‘Financialization of housing’ in partnership with Project Project Collective and engages students from the Master’s course: “IDES5500 Design Anthropology”. A series of activities will take place to explore, counter-map, and reimagine the city. This includes urban walks, critical mapping, and public events to collectively reflect and discuss both the current context and possible futures.