I Was Waiting to Hear From You is a proposed site-specific project consisting of adhesive vinyl transfers modelled on text bubbles used in SMS communications and affixed to the glass windows of 6 bus shelters within the CBRM, along the Sydney to Glace Bay route. The vinyl text bubbles will include one or more phrases expressing common sentiments used in text conversations (eg., “Where are you?”, “I’m in Glace Bay”, “Why didn’t you answer my call?”, etc.), each followed by a ‘reply-in-progress’ bubble. Different messages will be presented in each shelter, each in a different language represented here on the island. Translations in English of each ‘conversation’ will be accessible on the web.  

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A proposed CBRM-based project, I Was Waiting to Hear From You addresses the shared experience of text messaging which crosses social and cultural borders around the globe and within our own community. Today, an estimated 5-6 billion people worldwide use SMS, with roughly 23 billion texts being sent every 24 hours. It is a pervasive technology that serves to bring people together, accommodating itself to diverse languages and social customs, yet linking all of us in the universal need to stay in close contact with one another.

 

In recent years, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality has experienced considerable community growth, particularly with the rapid expansion of an international student population at the University of Cape Breton. While the island is no stranger to cultural diversification with its many, varied communities, including Mi’kmaq, Acadian, Gaelic and African Nova Scotian communities, the recent population growth has seen the region wrestle with the challenges of building adequate infrastructure to accommodate public needs. Collectively, we need to work together to achieve this goal.

 

For newcomers to the CBRM, the experience of being in a foreign country and community can be exciting, stressful and alienating, especially when faced with the challenges in question. I Was waiting For You speaks to the common experience of shared communications and networking with this in mind. It acknowledges that common technology through which so many of us universally connect. The messages presented through the project are familiar ones; simple expressions that speak to our humanity and the need to stay in contact with one another. They are hopeful; but they are also touched by a measure of anxiety, signified by the three dots of the reply bubble that keeps us on edge, unsure of what the responses will be to the messages we send. Here lies a common experience in a time when we are all uncertain of what the future will hold; a time when we all need each other.

 

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