A Totem Pole on a Pile of Garbage

Dorit Naaman and the Belle Park Project

created for Environmental Racism is Garbage Symposium, May 2021

Project Description

At the entrance to Belle Park stands a totem pole. The pole is alone, implanted in concrete and surrounded by a fence, lacking explanation or context for those who glimpse it or happen upon it. Carved by unnamed Indigenous men incarcerated at Joyceville Penitentiary, the pole was gifted to the city of Kingston in 1973. It does not resemble Northwest Coast style totem poles; instead, many of its images make visible Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe histories, worldviews and stories significant to those who created it. Belle Park, the home of this pole, was a golf course (until 2017) built on a landfill (until 1974), built on a wetland (until 1954). Having stood there so long, in a space that has seen so much change, what does this pole have to tell us? A Totem Pole on a Pile of Garbage (13mins, 2021) is a single channel video that captures one day of the pole. Overlaid on the video, community voices are heard speaking to the totem pole, asking questions to it, and reflecting on it.