i5 Collective - History and Focus

The Inquiry Collective (i5) came together while working on a project in Northern Ontario. The senior member of the group, V. Jane Gordon was conducting an inquiry process workshop investigating the part of Canada where two icons of Canadian stone meet i.e. In the area around Manitoulin Island and the la Cloche mountains of Killarney Park where the precambrian shield meets the UN world biosphere reserve of the Niagara Escarpment. The inquiry process needs organizational, documentary and computer technology support and the pooled talents of the individuals of the i5 collective naturally rose to the surface of the larger group. These five individuals recognized that they were like-minded with similar intellectual and inquisitive capacities, and with complementary skills in organization, the arts and technology. The five artists founded a co-educating, co-mentoring collective using the Inquiry Method on the final day of the La Cloche /Manitoulin workshop in August of 2005.

The inquiry method emphasizes the space between the hand and the body as a site from which artist's investigation and research can be authentic and fruitful. Sites chosen for investigation are both literally and figuratively "touch stones" where the i5 collective continues to focus on stone as a kind of world membrane manipulated by the human hand throughout the history of our species and through which cultural practices pass. The oldest proto-architectural stone structures on the planet are on the tiny Island of Malta home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. i5 will spend 14 days in Malta inquiring into the stone remnants of the Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum, Ghar Dalam, Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, Gganitja, and Tarxien all listed by UNESCO in its world heritage sites. In addition Malta, always an important strategic site in the Mediterranean, has Roman Ruins and many mediaeval stone sites as well as the Baroque City of Valetta, another UNESCO world heritage listing, with its centuries of fortifications.