Global Urban Wilds

Global Urban Wilds (2021)

Jill Didur

“Global Urban Wilds” is a locative media app set in Montréal’s Champ des Possibles. Framed by sixties-era industrial buildings that once housed the city’s garment industry, the Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway tracks, and the walled garden of le Monastère des Carmélites of the Plateau-Mont-Royal of Montréal, the Champ des Possibles was designated as a protected parkland in 2009, the result of a community-led movement to retain it as an informal green space. This site-specific locative sound walk and app affords visitors an experience of ‘embodied knowing’ – learning through immersion and sensory encounter—in dialogue with the app’s design and content that highlights the history of the Champ’s many human and nonhuman influences.

As visitors move through the urban wild and interact with app's haptic, sound and visual content, they trigger sounds and recorded conversations with local historians, activists, and artists about the significance of the urban wild to the community and the impact of globalization and settler culture on the land over time. Content unlocked when a visitor’s position is sensed by GPS can be retained after leaving the Champ and revisited through the app remotely.

Global Urban Wilds is downloadable for remote and in-person use in Montréal's Champ des Possibles. The app is optimized for use with iPhone X, 11 and 12. Visitors are encouraged to wear headphones for optimal listening.