Welcome to CHARTS, the Centre for Humanities and Arts Research in Transdisciplinary Space based at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. CHARTS was developed by Dr. Shauna McCabe, Canada Research Chair in Critical Theory in the Interpretation of Culture at Mount Allison University, to establish ways of thinking about the knowledge generation associated with artistic and creative practices, and in so doing, facilitate the advancement of interdisciplinary critical and creative investigations of spatial culture and built environments.

This research focuses on the imaginative and symbolic quality of space, on landscape as layered and dynamic, examining the forces that shape built landscapes and what architecture might contribute to our understanding of real and imagined places. Here, “architecture” is used in broad sense, encompassing formal and informal practices, not simply buildings, but the creative forms and critical ideas that underlie and infuse the imagination and experience of spaces, beyond their functionality. For spaces are in no way static, but liquid – constantly shifting and changing, like Graham Swift’s Waterland, by “simultaneous accretion and erosion: neither progress nor decay.”

A key focus of CHARTS is on creative activity as critical research, central not only in shaping perception of place, but actively intervening in the imagination and experience of everyday life.  The goal is to create a platform for production and experimentation as well as the dissemination of cross-disciplinary research practices that build new forms of knowledge. Taking advantage of its home within a progressive institution that has prioritised creativity as a strategic element linking disciplines, CHARTS pushes boundaries and definitions of research and supports collaboration, innovation and the dissemination of ideas locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The program also draws on its surrounding context, a community with thriving levels of arts and civic activity, to show the relevance of critical theory to contemporary visual and built landscapes, exploring ways in which forms of critical and creative research interface with the public domain and diverse public experience.

The research blends methodologies drawn from specific disciplines which offer transdisciplinary insight into the representation of space, such as geography, architecture, fine arts, literature, film, philosophy, physics, history, anthropology and sociology, as well as interactive media explorations of wireless applications. The research program facilitates research in the humanities and arts with the intention to create versatile scholars capable of engaging with issues from multiple perspectives and using diverse platform for creative and critical research with regards to the investigation of cultural space.