Le Chemin du Rois: A Self-Reflexive Procession through the American Bottomland
The history of this place is continually eroded by the very river which has birthed it. Ancient and contemporary metropolises have been established, abandoned, and forgotten (Cahokia by the Indigenous Mississippian Culture, Kaskaskia by the French, East St. Louis by the Americans, etc.) Archaeologists, historians, and architects have attempted to collect the shattered remnants. But what histories are worth remembering? What legacies are worth preserving? The beauty of the American Bottomland is not found in its resistance to time, but rather in the mystery of its many lives.
This proposal seeks to preserve the embedded histories of this place through a legacy of action. It facilitates a pilgrimage along the historic path of Le Chemin du Rois in order to establish a memory which is only discovered through its experience. It is a self-reflexive procession which addresses the universal and the particular. It is a journey which reflects on the place and on the individual. The procession seeks to create something which is both universal (memory) and particular (experience). The legacy of human movement along Le Chemin du Rois is continued with new purpose.
