Daniel: ––like that in a little while.
Waiter: In a little bit, but just water for now?
Lorraine: Yeah.
Daniel: Thank you.
Waiter: I’ll leave you alone. Flag us down if you guys need anything. I know you guys are getting some stuff done.
Lorraine: *laughs*
Kevin: All right. Thank you.
Lorraine: So we had initially thought something would grow out of that whole world of the Canadian and the literary. And people we were thinking alongside said to us, Well, our work doesn’t necessarily respond to the Canadian––we’re doing other things––or in some cases the Canadian may itself suggest things that are restrictive, even politically restrictive. And so we were encouraged to think more broadly. Over to you.
Daniel: Oh, over to me.
Lorraine: *laughs*
Daniel: Yeah, well, as Lorraine said: We started out with literature as a theme, and because we were interested in the literary thought as broadly as possible, we were thinking, Well, how do communities understand themselves as community? Well, it’s through story.
Lorraine: Right.
Daniel: It’s through the social glue that make people say, We’re “us,” or, This is what this place is like.
Lorraine: But that doesn’t have to be in the literary; it does not have to be in words.
Daniel: And because we worked with a number of Indigenous colleagues, those were in wampum, or they were visual art, and we work with people who are more musically inclined–
Lorraine: Or theatre.
Daniel: Theatre.
Lorraine: Yeah.
Daniel: So, narrative became a large way to just say, How do you tell your story? How do you say we’re a community and we care about something together?
Lorraine: Right.