The concept for Play It By Ear was inspired by visiting the park, observing how it’s used, considering its location and history, and thinking about what playful objects might offer to visitors of all ages.

Our main observations about the park can be divided into four categories, which we will explain below.

A very clear first observations is that Butler Memorial Park is between things, in a decade of great change. This isn’t the first time this park has encountered change – this isn’t even the first time that the park has been renovated! But it’s safe to say that the next 10 years will bring significant changes to the neighbourhood.

People using Butler Memorial Park are literally between things. Some are new residents, between their old home and a new one. Some are between jobs, or between situations. Some are between bus connections, transferring at the Bus Station next door. Others are walking between home and work, or between doctors appointments, or between Stony Plain Road and 100a Ave NW.

There are still more subtle in-betweens that visitors to Butler Memorial Park are navigating. The park is Between the Between.

Another observation had to do with the age of BMP visitors. The Call for Artists described wanting a new public artwork that caters to families and children, but no matter what time of year we visited, we saw more seniors than kids. This might have something to do with the Wellness Centre next door to the park. This observation struck us as an opportunity to carefully consider Play for All Ages – one of our favourite subjects.

We began asking ourselves: what does play look like for seniors? How does senior play overlap with how children play?

When visiting Butler Memorial Park, it became clear how many different people intersect in this tiny park. People come from all different backgrounds, ages, cultural groups, religions, orientations, and motivations. We recognized early on that we are visitors in this park, and that we can never see a complete picture of everything this neighbourhood represents to people who live here – especially over time.

Our hope for this project is to create an artwork that provides the structure for a neighbourhood to speak for itself. This is usually done through conversation and engagement with a community.

When meeting with Ground Zero Theatre at the Orange Hub (a few blocks from Butler Memorial Park) we were talking about how hard it is to interview people about something as broad as their home community. Ground Zero shared their strategy of starting an interview with an object or a photograph – an object catalyst to trigger memories and stories.

_{A photograph we found jammed behind one of our signs in Butler Memorial Park. What does it mean? This is the ultimate “object catalyst.”}

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Our final and perhaps biggest observation about Butler Memorial Park has to do with how people use the park. When we first visited, several people were living there in tents or structures erected along the park perimeter. Whether or not they’re living in the park, many regular visitors choose a bench and sit there for hours, sometimes alone, but often with friends. It occurred to us that, BMP is like a living room or a front porch. Some of the people using the park live in apartments nearby, so BMP is like their backyard. It is part of the deep domestic.

We were sitting in Butler Park one afternoon. It was a late Summer day, and there was garbage, everywhere. We watched a gruff woman coordinate a cleaning effort for the park, rousing her friends from naps and pulling people away from their bike rides to help pick up litter.

We were curious about why she was going to so much effort to clean a public park. Surely the City was responsible for clearing the garbage. When we asked her, she replied simply, “This park is my home.“

We thought of this woman many times when developing the concept of Play It By Ear. We wanted to make something that would enhance her living space, offer some joy and moments of connection. (We also talked to the City about coming to clear away the garbage).

These four main observations influenced our concept for an interactive sound sculpture in Butler Memorial Park.

More to come!