EVENTS

The Building Inclusive Cities Symposium was held from October 13 – October 27, 2022 and consisted of five knowledge exchange events. We hosted four arts-based workshops with cross-sectoral groups of planning, heritage and museum professionals. Each workshop began with a facilitated experience of the Block by Block: Stories of Migration, Life, and Change in Four Toronto Neighbourhoods exhibition in the Toronto Reference Library’s TD Gallery, followed by activities and dialogue focused on a discrete theme. The symposium culminated in a panel discussion, titled “How Oral Histories Inform Equity-based Community Planning and Heritage Policies and Practices” at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.

WORKSHOPS

Engaging migrant communities as makers of cultural heritage

Learning Goals:

  • Move away from the current focus in planning on sites that need to be preserved towards the meaning, cultural heritage value and current use for people. We need to understand values, personal connections to places- what makes them important to social life, community life. This requires a shift in thinking towards understanding cultural heritage as a dynamic and ongoing practice, rooted in relationships.
  • Encourage workshop participants to prioritize relationships, new forms of sharing, deep listening in communities in order to shift definition of cultural heritage (methodological shift)
  • Move institutions towards meaningful community consultations so that we get cultural heritage right in redevelopment- we have to understand sense of place more deeply. What non-physical aspects of a place should redevelopment aim to preserve?
  • Heritage is not only about commemoration, it is also about preserving ongoing and evolving cultural practices. BxB isn’t only an archive – it’s also a conversation about the future, future use, future placemaking. Heritage is dynamic, flowing, alive.
  • Encourage inclusion of marginalized perspectives, voices in heritage planning, including those of migrants

Establishing and maintaining non-extractive co-creative practices

Learning Goals:

  • Highlight the BxB process of informed consent, shared authority and ongoing relationships
  • Inspire participants to consider their own practices
  • Collectively identify barriers to non-extractive co-creative practices in a range of professional settings (e.g. money!! Short windows of time)
    • Conversely, identify what resources are available as part of a large organization or institution and how they can be mobilized to conduct non-extractive research (e.g. money as well)
  • Consider the impact of a non-extractive co-creative practice on research outcomes
  • Highlight importance of compensation, reciprocity (where to start with that- making relationships visible, meeting community goals, training and hiring, creating professional opportunities)

Researching lived experiences with care, respect and understanding

Learning Goals:

  • Highlight the BxB process of informed consent, shared authority and ongoing relationships
  • Highlight what kind of research outcomes might be possible when you research with care, respect, and understanding (i.e. the beautiful descriptions that we get from our oral histories, because they are told on the the storytellers’ own terms)
  • Decentre experiences that you might consider “normal” or “quotidian” in favour or letting people tell you what is normal or quotidian for them
    Inspire participants to consider their own practices
    • Discuss what researching with care might look like in different fields. How does it happen throughout the research process?
  • Collectively identify barriers to researching professional settings (e.g. money!! Short windows of time, particular research methods (e.g. surveys)
    • Conversely, identify what resources are available as part of a large organization or institution and how they can be mobilized to conduct careful research (e.g. money as well)
  • Highlight importance of compensation, reciprocity (where to start with that- making relationships visible, meeting community goals, training and hiring, creating professional opportunities)

Channeling community-centred research into effective change

Learning Goals:

  • Highlight how Block by Block practices — such as emphasizing oral history methodology, and hiring researchers from the community — can result in results that authentically represent storyteller and community experiences
  • Discuss where professionals can integrate the results of community centred research (e.g. community benefits frameworks, deputations, focus groups, policy recommendations, changing organizational practices, …?)
  • The stories that we’ve collected have material value. How can it benefit work towards a more equitable city?

PANEL

Date, location, other logistic details

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BUILDING INCLUSIVE CITIES PANEL

Dr. Zhixi Zhuang

Panel Moderator

MCIP, RPP, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University

Brannavy Jeyasundaram

Discussant

Co-Executive Director, Toronto Ward Museum

Xu Yingsi

Panelist

Community & Youth Development Specialist, West Neighbourhood House

Tamara Anson-Cartwright

Panelist

Program Manager, Policy and research, Heritage Planning, Toronto City Planning Division

Shiralee Hudson Hill

Panelist

Museum Administrator, City of Toronto

Bryan Peart

Panelist

Golden Mile Coordinator, Working Women Community Centre

Dr. Thy Phu

Panelist

Professor of Media Studies, Department of Arts, Culture, and Media, University of Toronto Scarborough

Tamara Anson-Cartwright

Program Manager, Policy and research, Heritage Planning, Toronto City Planning Division

Tamara Anson Cartwright is a Program Manager, Policy and Research, in Heritage Planning in the Urban Design section of Toronto’s City Planning Division. Tamara and her team advise Toronto Council on numerous heritage policies and legislative amendments, such as the identification and evaluation of heritage properties for inclusion on the City’s Heritage Register and Heritage Conservation District studies. Prior to joining City Planning in 2015, Tamara was a Conservation Advisor in the Ontario Public Service for over 25 years.

Shiralee Hudson Hill

Museum Administrator, City of Toronto

Shiralee Hudson Hill is an award-winning museum planner known for creating engaging and inclusive experiences. She is currently a Museum Administrator with the City of Toronto, leading operations at Fort York National Historic Site. Before this, she spent over a decade advancing interpretive planning at the Art Gallery of Ontario, advised on cultural projects worldwide as a consultant with Lord Cultural Resources, and managed community arts initiatives with Arts Etobicoke. 

Angela Koh/XuYingsi 

Co-Chair, West End Coalition for Housing Justice

Angela Koh/XuYingsi has worked with various community groups, grassroots organizers, and non-profits overseas and in Canada. She is currently part of the Community Response & Advocacy Unit at West Neighbourhood House, and is engaging in city-wide coalition building around Inclusive Development as the Co-Chair of the West End Coalition for Housing Justice. 

Bryan Peart

Golden Mile Coordinator, Working Women Community Centre

Bryan Peart is the Golden Mile Coordinator for Working Women Community Centre operating the Victoria Village Hub. He has been living and working in the Golden Mile for 17 years and is currently in his 4th year of the Creative Industry at the Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the founder of many grassroots groups and initiatives that have led him to achieve the Ontario Medal of Honor for volunteering. As an entrepreneur, Bryan is currently facilitating food handling certification to residents all over Ontario.

Dr. Thy Phu

MCIP, RPP, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University

Dr. Thy Phu is a Distinguished Professor of Race, Diaspora and Visual Justice at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. From 2016-2019, she was Director of the Family Camera project, which engaged local communities in the archiving of photographs and their stories. She is currently a Co-Director of Refugee States, a community-led partnership project, funded by the SSHRC Race, Gender, and Diversity Initiative, which is creating a counter-archive of narratives of forced migration. 

Dr. Zhixi Zhuang

MCIP, RPP, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University

Dr. Zhixi Zhuang is an Associate Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University. Founder of the DiverCityLab (www.divercitylab.com), her research explores the growing urban diversity and how city-builders can incorporate equity and inclusion into their practices. Her work focuses on the lived experiences of immigrant and racialized communities, emphasizing their agency for cultural recognition, as well as social, economic, political, and spatial inclusion. Thus, in turn, sheds light on municipal policies and governance.

Brannavy Jeyasundaram

Co-Executive Director, Toronto Ward Museum

Brannavy Jeyasundaram is a writer and museum professional living in Toronto. Brannavy is an interpretive planner at the Royal Ontario Museum and was previously the co-executive director of the Toronto Ward Museum. In 2023, she wrote and curated “We Will Remember This”, a collection of literary essays published by Nova Dance and Dance Collection Danse. Much of her work is motivated by an effort to understand diasporic will and memory.