In early 2020, we applied to the Edmonton Arts Council to make a new “discoverable” artwork for Butler Memorial Park in Edmonton/Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

According to the Call for Artists, “the vision for public art in this park is discoverable, playful, and even playable artwork. The artwork should engage people of diverse ages and backgrounds as they wait for transit or visit the park.” They went on to say that “research by the City of Edmonton shows that the community envisions this park as more than just a place to wait, but also as a gathering place where small community events can be programmed.”

We read this, and thought about what it means to work at human scale, how people of all ages play, and why an intervention of this sort would be enjoyable to design and create. We applied, and a jury selected us as the winners of the project. And so began our relationship with Butler Memorial Park…

It was clear, even in the depths of Winter, that Butler Memorial Park is much-used. It’s one of the few public parks in the neighbourhood, and it’s an important meeting place for many members of the community.

It was also clear that Butler Memorial Park is “rough.” Especially before the redesign, many people in the neighbourhood told us that they were afraid of the park. We realized quickly that the park is shared by many people who have never had a chance to meet each other, to talk, or understand where the other is coming from. This was one of the first motivators for the concept behind Play It By Ear…. but we’ll return to that later.

The edge of the park features a telecommunication tower next to the AGT/Telus building. An imposing force in the space, this tower ties the place back to communications technologies. The brick building itself has probably stood onsite for many decades, watching as the surrounding neighbourhood grows and changes.

On the other side of the park, a new Bus Station for Edmonton Transit was under construction. One of our first points of research was riding the bus to get a good understanding of the experience of Transit-going Edmontonians entering and leaving the park.

Butler Memorial Park was named for Richard D. Butler, a volunteer firefighter and town councillor who was killed in 1958 when responding to a resident with a firearm. The park was named in his honour, and we later met his grown kids and heard more about their Dad.

During our first few visits to Butler Memorial Park, we made sure to spend time at The Orange Hub, a building for community organizations, non-profits, and artist-run centres. There, we met with community organizations and asked locals about their understanding of the neighbourhood and the park specifically. We learned about the demographics of West Jasper Place, and how it was a townsite separate from Edmonton until 1964. We arranged meetings with the local Wellness Centre, discussing seniors in the area and specific wellness needs of the area. We learned about the community as a hub for New Canadians, as well as offering a “gateway to the North” for many Inuk folks traveling south from the Northern Territories. We walked Stony Plain Road as pedestrians, ate the most amazing Caribbean food, and found an incredible thrift store.

West Jasper Place is a neighbourhood in transition. Light Rail Transit Lines are scheduled to intersect the neighbourhood in the coming years, and it’s inevitable this accessibility will alter the personality of the place – for better and for worse, depending on whose perspective you’re seeing from.

Whenever researching a new place outside our own city, we are aware of our role as guests. As artists from another place, we can offer fresh eyes, but the more we learned about West Jasper Place, the more we abandoned any hope of learning to understand the community. Instead, we began to embrace the impossibility of understanding. West Jasper Place is too many things to too many people, and that is a strength. We don’t need to understand, we just need to make space for modest moments of playful connection – for the community to speak to itself, in its own voice.

We began to hatch a concept for an artwork in Butler Memorial Park. This was in March 2020. Little did we know that the whole world was about to change.