Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge: Excerpts from Chapters I and II

Pam Hall’s work in rural locations in Newfoundland and elsewhere has been ongoing since the late 1980s. Drawn deeply to place and to the labour of practice (and the practice of labour), she has worked with and around rural knowledge-holders, especially in the fisheries, for many years. Her parallel interests in the body, especially the female body, have also provided sites for her exploration of what knowledge might be, who “makes” it and who has the power to “name” it as knowledge and thus provide the basis for its value. Her work as an artist and a scholar has always been interdisciplinary, often been collaborative, and relies on and reveals a deep and profound attachment to this island and those who have invited her to make it her home for almost fifty years.