Monday, April 16, 2012

WEEK 16: Portals to the Park

This month we are faced with the BIG TASK of uniting multiple threads of content produced within the studio that ended last month. It brings to mind the immensity of designing for NPS: an enormous agency with an untouchable legacy. One touchstone for us has been the reality that much of the NPS system is comprised of small parks that are pretty firmly embedded in their communities. San Juan Island National Historical Park is familiar, like a favorite aunt, whereas the “Crown Jewel” parks have the arms-length coolness of rock stars. And we are in the lucky position of understanding the complexity of NPS through San Juan Island – an extension of our own backyards here in the Pacific Northwest.

We’ve been framing much of our investigation as one of portals: SJI-NHP is our portal into the NPS system; the park provides a portal to National History through its interpretation of the boundary dispute between the United States and British Canada. The ferry terminal in Anacortes provides an entry point to the San Juan Islands, and pathways within the park create thresholds of ecological understanding. But how do we represent the diverse manifestations of thresholds in a clear, graphic presentation?

Last week, within the pages of the novel River of Smoke, I found a description of portals that may provide some guidance:

…gateways are not merely entrances and exits – they are tunnels between different dimensions of existence. Here, as at the threshold…I was visited by the feeling that I was stepping into a realm that existed on some plane other than the ordinary.
Amitav Ghosh (2011)

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