Garry oak, Quercus garryana, leaf in front of the sun the 2017 August 21 89% eclipse in the south-western corner of Ruckle Provincial Park, east of Grandma Bay, down the road from KEXMIN field station on Salt Spring Island * photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
a self-portrait from the August dryness of the oak woodlands of Hwmet’utsun [HUL’Q’UMI’NUM’] on the Gulf Island of ?UÁN [SEN?O?EN], south-western British Columbia
scholarship & activist vitae: BROCHU-INGRAM curriculum vitae 2024 February
art & design practices: BROCHU-INGRAM arts cv 2024 February
Spanning an arc from ecological to urban environmental planning and design extending to public and other kinds of site-based ecological art, I experiment with decolonial forms of research, knowledge stewardship, modelling, and dialogue centred on social and environmental injustice and goals for justice.
My strategies centre on learning from both traditional Indigenous knowledge (which was a major part of my upbringing) and new forms of empirical science, combining craft and design techniques with collaborative and community-based art practices, and participating in the making of culture that challenges neocolonial and neoliberal notions of public space and lands — in the context of increasingly queer ecologies.
These days, much of this work passes through KEXMIN field station focused on the Gulf Islands and situated on the cusp of both Saanich and Hul’qumi’num (including Cowichan) territories. I grew up in a Saanich-majority community, just to the south, and to which I continue to contribute.
These scarlet emperor runner beans, Phaseolus coccineus, evolved in cool mountain conditions in Central America and are increasingly grown in Vancouver and other parts of the South Coast of British Columbia (including in containers on roof tops). On this green roof on Vancouver Harbour, stalks grew to over 3 meters in height and produced copious dried beans that were superb for soup. The seeds were plant in the first week in May and the stalks were producing beans until late November. In warmers parts of the South Coast and further south in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the stalks can survive a winter and become perennial.