Paul Donald

A ghost, a poltergeist, a restlessness from the past haunting the present. A diminished and nervous settler leaves chalk outlines of abandoned sites that exist as an ever accumulating but inevitably eroding history, marking the land yet in danger of disappearing over time (just as the signs of colonization fade from consciousness by naturalizing into the landscape). “Unsettler” is an action of coming to terms with troubling origins and uncertain futures. The repetitive work, the opacity of intent, and the allusion to a potentially infinite duration of (failed) colonization serve as kinds of survey markers to a psychic condition.