This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at McGill chapter.
This week’s campus celebrity is partially the campus itself – at least, the spaces on campus, and how they are being transformed through the McGill Spaces Project. MSP is a student led group that seeks to utilize and reimagine McGill’s spaces on campus. Her Campus McGill got the chance to interview a campus celebrity in her own right, Emilie Langlois-Patterson, a founding member of MSP. She was gracious enough to lend her time to explain what exactly this project entails and how it all came to be.
Anna Stuber for Her Campus McGill (HC McGill): Can you explain what McGill Spaces Project is? How was it founded?
Emilie Langlois-Patterson for McGill Spaces Project (ELP): The project was founded last year, as a joint initiative between students and people from the McGill Office of Sustainability. They realized that the Sustainability Projects Fund covered few sustainability projects that had to do with space and saw the opportunity to do something creative and fun that would hopefully engage the whole campus on this notion of space.
As for what the project is, I’ll give you the official blurb (written by smarter people than me):
The McGill Spaces Project (MSP) is a student-led initiative that seeks to critically reimagine McGill’s spaces and places. Through cross-campus collaboration and creative placemaking, we aim to highlight the rousing potential of underused areas around downtown campus.
HC McGill: What are the goals of McGill Spaces Project?
ELP: There are many! To creatively rethink space on campus. To foster interaction with the whole campus when doing this. To engage students and enable them to bring some changes to space themselves, or simply to enable them to write about the subject through Applied Student Research. To have fun. To meet interesting people who also are anxious to do stuff with the space where we study, hang out, sometimes live in.
HC McGill: What has been your most challenging or most accomplished project so far?
ELP: We’re only getting started! Last year we led a James Walk (a riff on Jane Walks) with students and faculty to get them to start thinking about our favourite subject: spaces! I think the best is yet to come, and shortly! I won’t reveal any punchlines – but keep your eyes open! A space you hate or never notice may soon be getting a makeover!
HC McGill: How do you determine what to fill a space with? Can you explain the process behind choosing a space?
ELP: It depends. Sometimes it’s random. But we have this ambition to do a situational analysis that will make an inventory of dreary, in-need-of-TLC spaces that could very well become a good reference for us.
HC McGill: What are the projects hopes for the future?
ELP: To do what we’ve set out to do! (and what the SPF has enabled us to do): Create fun pop-up placemaking events. Permanently change some spaces. Interact with students. Build new relationships. But most of all – start a tradition at McGill so that the MSP grows and gathers new members every year. We won’t ever run out of spaces to transform. Hopefully we don’t run out of students with big ideas
HC McGill: How can students get involved and find you guys on campus?
ELP: The usual way (on Facebook, by coming to weekly meetings – just send us a message on Facebook for details) and the fun way: come to the next MSP event! Do something fun and weird in a space you’ve never noticed before!
Images contributed by interviewee.