Walking Gottingen – An immersive soundwalk project
Walking Gottingen is an immersive soundwalk, a portal of lived experiences, an array of voices and textures, a story of a street and of a neighbourhood. Walking Gottingen will use storytelling and natural sound to provide a complete experience for listeners as they walk down Gottingen Street in North End Halifax. They will be guided to certain landmarks and institutions, all while hearing the voices of the people who made the neighbourhood what it is today. Listeners will hear stories of triumph, stories of joy, stories of family, stories of adversity, and stories of change. Walking Gottingen will educate and inform newer residents of the neighbourhood of its profound history. The audio walk will also challenge anti-black racism[1], xenophobia[2], and postcolonial[3] sentiments among the Halifax community. Listeners will hear moving, intimate descriptions of an area that has been the home of African Nova Scotians, immigrants, and members of the Mi’kmaq First Nation. But, the neighbourhood is changing. Walking Gottingen will preserve the neighbourhood’s history in its current incarnation as it confronts gentrification and displacement. Walking Gottingen is the passion project of Jayde Tynes, Francella Fiallos, with assistance from Sarah Poko. Walking Gottingen is funded and supported by the Inspirit Foundation, Halifax Community Investment Fund, Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group, and CKDU-FM.
[1] As writer Ta-Nehisi Coates put it, anti-black racism is the belief that there is something wrong with Black people. It’s about systemic and institutional violence, it’s about historical and cultural inequalities, it’s about economic disparities experienced by Black people.
[2] A fear or distrust of people from different cultures
[3] Colonialism in Canada may be best understood as Indigenous peoples’ forced disconnection from land, culture and community by another group. It has its roots in Canada’s history but it is alive and well today, too. (From the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women).
Jayde Tynes
African Nova Scotian and Indigenous Journalist Jayde Tynes is a reporter with CBC Nova Scotia and the host of a podcast that explores African Nova Scotian identity called My Blackness, My Truth that can be found on iTunes.
She studied commerce at Dalhousie University and is completing a Master’s degree in journalism at the University of King’s College. She was the diversity and outreach programming coordinator at CKDU. She has been organizing and participating in social justice activism in Nova Scotia for over nine years. Three generations of Jayde’s family have resided in the Gottingen Street area. Her work has been featured on Common Dreams, Star Metro Halifax, Diagnol, The Coast: Halifax’s Weekly News Paper, Popular Resistance, The Signal, Signal Radio, Information Morning NS and CBC Online.
Francella Fiallos
Francella Fiallos is the programming and development director at CKDU, Dalhousie University’s campus radio station.
She has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of King’s College and a bachelor of journalism degree from Carleton University in Ottawa. She has received training in audio storytelling from the Association of Independents in Radio and the Centre for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Her work has been featured on CBC Radio, Examineradio, The Coast, and rabble.ca. She is a Polaris Music Prize juror.
