place names
The Writing Lesson
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description
The Writing Lesson makes reference to the visual typography of the heavy metal subgenre known as black metal in creating a vernacular mode of writing to illustrate place names in Western Canada and Washington with indigenous origins. Early iterations of black metal music created in Norway sought to resurrect aspects of indigenous pre-Christian spirituality that had been violently displaced in the Christianization of Scandinavia by acts such as the destruction of pagan temples. Through a rudimentary photographic process using a hand cut stencil, the light of the sun has burned the names of places such as Masset, Skidegate, Chilliwack, and Yakima onto black paper with the hope that more will be revealed than concealed.
