JIA members have been invited to speak this Saturday October 22nd, 2022 on a panel at the National Trust Conference in Toronto.
What happens when historic places we take for granted suddenly come at risk? Often this is due to development pressures and gentrification. But what if the risk also stems from a shift in our societal values towards these places? We are now eager to understand Indigenous connections to places, and other marginalized voices; It is now dawning on us that the cultural aspects of places – how businesses, uses, events and more recent traditions may actually be the factors that make them matter to us today, beyond the buildings and landmarks. These forward-thinking case studies begin to tackle these questions as they unpack innovative, intuitive, and sometimes unconventional efforts to reframe the actual complexity of our connection to well-established neighbourhoods and parks, and why we need new relevant approaches and tools to conserve them.
Moderator: Elana Zysblat (Principal, Ance Building Services & President, BC Association of Heritage Professionals, Vancouver, BC)
Speakers:
- Dane Gardener-Williams (Black Urbanism TO) – Toronto’s Little Jamaica: Arresting Residential/Commercial displacement and Leveraging Heritage in a Cultural District
- Jonathan Cha (conseiller principal en aménagement et conservation, Société du parc Jean-Drapeau, Montréal, QC) – La conservation et la réconciliation, deux ingrédients de la réinvention des parcs canadiens
- Jessica Chen (City Planning Professional & Founder, Jia Foundation) & Karen Cho (Documentary Filmmaker, Montreal, QC) – The Chinatown Movement in Canada: Working to Save Montreal’s Chinatown… and Beyond
- Matthew Canaran (Project Manager, Friends of Allan Gardens), Brendan Stewart (Board Member, Friends of Allan Gardens & Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture, University of Guelph) & Michael McClelland (Board Member, Friends of Allan Gardens & Principal ERA Architects) – Reinventing Toronto’s Allan Gardens: A Place Horticultural Excellence, Philanthropy, Refuge and Protest