Environment (7)
By Julius Booth On July 23, 2013 | 0 Comments
Julius Booth - HCW's summer intern - has been working on the Uts'am-Witness book project. Check out his video clip "The Witness Ceremony" below!
I’ve been asked as a summer intern at Hello Cool World to write a blog entry about the Uts’am Witness project. Here we go.
The Witness project began in 1997 back when video cameras were clunky and produced footage not fit for 1080p monitors. One of those cameras just happens to be in the editing room right now. I have been transferring hours of footage from tapes of the early Witness Ceremonies using the antique camera and a newly purchased cord that is specifically capable of plugging into the camera and a USB port.
The footage is very cool. I’ve known Kat and Nancy for a long time, seeing them much younger is an interesting experience. As a child from the 90’s there is a surprising lack of home videos in my family, so any footage from that time is a treat to see. The Witness weekends are cool to watch as well. There are songs, dancing and even drum-making lessons. The weekends remind me of a regular summer camp. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went canoeing and told ghost stories around a fire.
Before combing through the hours of footage that chronicle the Witness Project, I was editing my own little trailer/piece for the book. Despite being brand new to Final Cut Pro at the time, coupled with the computer troubles that have been haunting the Hello Cool World office for the last week, I think I did a mighty decent job. Unfortunately, the photos are a bit blurry because I had to screenshot them off a PDF of the Picturing Transformation book BUY IT NOW!!! My piece is about what a traditional witness ceremony is and how it was adapted for the Witness Project. You can watch the video here:
Look for my name in the book! JB
Julius Booth is our Hello Cool World summer marketing intern. Every day, he bikes along the sea wall and is fed amazing lunches which make up for his lack of pay. He is heading to McGill in the fall for his first year of University.
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By Katherine Dodds On October 23, 2012 | 0 Comments
Strong Words from Chief Ian Campbell at yesterday's Defend our Coast Rally. Heartening to see so many people come together, and to see ceremony and protocol being "served' to the politicians!
Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of Good Company Communications and HelloCoolWorld.com. Trained in renegade advertising & branding through her work with Adbusters in the '90s, Kat's early induction into the possibilities of the web-world was inspired by the term hypertext, which she immediately found comforting. She is dedicated to cause-related communication and to the development and use of tools that promote democratic processes.
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By Katherine Dodds On July 28, 2012 | 0 Comments
Wow, has it really been over a year that we've been working on this book? We were told it's a long process, and guess what - it is! Exciting though. We just got our second round of re-writes into our publisher, and now, it's really hitting us that in June of next year this book is going to be born! 
While the camping trips to Sims Creek are now over, and the area has been returned to its ancestral name Nexw-áyantsut, our greatest hope is that the process of making this book can be a way to start up a new phase of the Uts'am/Witness Project, one that concentrates on using media to encourage dialogue. We hope to upgrade this website to make it more interactive and to have a story gathering feature. We also hope to have more 'digital extensions' AKA short videos documenting the ongoing work that has been re-ignited by the book process.
Here's a tiny excerpt from the beginning of the book:
Prologue: Picturing Transformation, Nexw-áyantsut
Uts’am/Witness Stories
Once upon a moment in time immemorial, during a decade from 1997 to 2007, a particular piece of land witnessed a transformation. At first known simply as the “Witness Project,” a community formed around an “invitation to witness” during camping weekends on the sandbar at Sims Creek, deep in the northern part of Squamish Nation’s traditional territory. At the project’s conception there was an urgent feeling over contested logging practices in what was being described as British Columbia’s “war in the woods.”
As a formal project, Uts’am/Witness was co-founded by Squamish Nation Hereditary Chief Bill Williams/telàsemkin-siyam; the late mountaineer and wilderness educator John Clarke; and photographer and artist Nancy Bleck. In 1997 Witness came into being officially when Nancy became the artist-in-residence at the Roundhouse Community Centre during the summer of its inaugural year. Out of this seed, the decade-long project grew—with a few unexpected turns. As Nancy said, “It was supposed to be a feel-good art project. But it became political in its very first breath.”
The Witness project was always evolving, defying definition and a clear beginning, middle and end. More than a project, it was a journey.
For Nancy, the journey began by getting to know the land through the camera. For John, it was in sharing his infectious love and knowledge for the land with others. And for Chief Bill, it was about cultural survival. Drawn together by a passion for the land, their commitment to experiencing it, recording it and sharing its significance culturally and spiritually, the three of them collectively conceived a project that none of them could have imagined or enacted alone. As John recalled, “I met Nancy in the best possible way, around a campfire. But when we met Chief Bill, now that was the magic weekend when everything changed.” The process of coming together that emerged from the project transformed one particular battleground into a place of peace
A sandbar became a longhouse, and a sandbar, as sandbars in the wild are known to do, disappeared. What reappeared was the rich traditional history of this special place. A new space of collaboration was opened up, and the public was invited in to witness.
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Now that this milesone has been crossed, there is still lots of work to do! Nancy is working on getting the latest final scans into D & M (and working on a new peice) and Chief Bill is working on getting a Squamish language glossary to be added to the book. And of course now we are into the fundraising stage! Read on...
By David Ng On November 22, 2011 | 0 Comments
Check out the new trailer for the Uts'am Witness book, Picturing Transformation, Nexw-áyantsut!
Click here to Support the book by buying a presale now.
Check back soon for more updates!
David has been working with Hello Cool World since he was 14. Now the video editor for all the youth projects, he edited both the "Talk About it Show" and "That's So Busted" for the Super Power Project.
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By Katherine Dodds On September 13, 2011 | 0 Comments
This morning Nancy, Chief Bill and I deliver the manuscript of the book and 201 photo scans to Douglas & McIntyre!
Here is the manuscript with a river rock from Sims as paper weight!
Many thanks to all who have helped to get us here so far.
This is just the beginning of the editorial process. Over the next year, the book will be put together and we will be expanding this website. So watch for updates, pre-sales of the book and launch of our book trailer.
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Hoy chexw'a
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