Perambulator

Perambulator is a performance art project by British walking artist, Clare Qualmann. The project explores peoples’ experiences getting around with strollers, or prams as they’re called in England. According to her artist’s statement, “the project invited other pram users (predominantly mothers) to walk together exploring and highlighting the everyday awkwardness of pram use in the city.” As they walked, they encountered obstacles such as curbs that were too high, cars parked on the sidewalk, and barriers intended to keep mopeds and dirt bikes off walking trails but also making it very difficult for people with strollers. Here in St. John’s in winter, multiply this “everyday awkwardness” exponentially. The photo above is my daughter-in-law with my grandson. She agreed to pose with him but in reality they rarely dare to go out walking in winter because it’s so dangerous.

Not long after I moved to St. John’s, 28 years ago, I went to see satirical singer-songwriter, Nancy White, in concert at the Arts and Culture Centre. I still remember vividly my reaction to her song “Stroller Ladies” about pushing a stroller around Toronto, where residents are legally required to shovel their own sidewalks but some don’t. She fantasizes about what she would do if she were the judge doling out penalties for not shovelling: she would condemn offenders to be “sent to live in Moncton where you’ll soon regret your crime, you’ll be caring for twin babies… there’ll be no sidewalks shovelled…” Well, I actually did have twin babies in Moncton and I wanted to stand up and yell, “In Moncton, the City clears the sidewalks!!”

Writing the above made me start wondering whether I was remembering Moncton through rose coloured glasses so I looked online and found a map showing the sidewalks they clear, colour coded for levels of priority. Have a look. In downtown Moncton, they clear every single sidewalk except for a few dead ends on the outer edges.

Compare that with the map showing downtown St. John’s sidewalks to be cleared. (I won’t even go into whether they actually are cleared. I’ll save that for another post.)