“The breaking of listening is the breaking of well-being. You can’t be loved if you are not heard.”
These poignant words are shared by Hugh Brody in this inaugural episode of The Long Table at Upstart & Crow.
Brody is a celebrated writer, anthropologist and film-maker who has spent many years immersed in communities of Indigenous peoples in the Arctic and Subarctic Canada. His books include The People’s Land, Maps and Dreams, The Other Side of Eden and a collection of short stories, Means of Escape.
Brody’s beautiful new book, Landscapes of Silence: From Childhood to the Arctic (Faber & Faber), is both memoir and an object lesson in the importance of listening, something that in these noisome times seems like a lost art.
Here, he is in conversation with Coast Salish artist and advocate Jada-Gabrielle Pape (BA, MEd) of the Saanich and Snuneymuxw Nations, and renowned documentary maker Gary Marcuse.
In this reflective, powerful and confronting discussion, they explore the harms of silence and the reasons behind it, whether in family dynamics or the ongoing colonial project in Canada. They speak to knowledge versus wisdom, information versus stories, and the deep need for changing what is listened to amidst the silence.
Please note: This conversation includes discussion of suicide, dispossession and other forms of trauma.