Interested in learning more about our 2015 line-up of participants?
Check out their bios below:
Ali Piwowar – Prairie ArchiCulture: Adaptive Reuse of Wooden Crib Grain Elevators in Saskatchewan
Ali Piwowar is in her second and final year of the professional Master of Architecture program at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University in Ottawa. She completed her Bachelor of Architectural Studies degree at Carleton in 2013.
Ali has spent the past three summers as a researcher at Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) working on the Cultural Diversity and Material Imagination in Canadian Architecture (CDMICA) project and the Parliamentary Precinct: West Block Rehabilitation project under the direction of Dr. Stephen Fai. She was also awarded a Heritage Canada, The National Trust, Young Canada Works grant as a researcher at CIMS.
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MArch degree, Ali’s thesis research focuses on the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the wooden grain elevators in Saskatchewan—her home province. Ali presented her research at Heritage Saskatchewan’s 2015 Forum this past February.
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Karen Prytula – Heritage Has Left the Building
Karen Prytula is the author of her self-published book “The Journals of John Allen Snow”. Because of her passion for local history she writes the newsletter for the “Old Walls Society” and is the Director of Communications for the Lanark County Genealogy Society. She has co-authored chapters in an upcoming book called “At Home in Tay Valley”. She has another book of the same genre due out at the end of the year; “Captain in the County”. Karen sits on the Tay Valley Township 200th Anniversary Working Group, and is part of the Legacy Trees Committee. She is also the Heritage Keeper for Goulbourn Township which is part of rural Ottawa, and has several other projects of a historical nature in different stages of completion.
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Chris Uchiyama – Heritage Hoarders? Archaeological Cultural Heritage Resources in Ontario
Chris Uchiyama, M.A. is a Heritage Consultant and Licenced Professional Archaeologist with more than a decade of experience working on cultural heritage aspects of planning and development projects. Chris holds a B.A. in Archaeology from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a graduate of the Heritage Conservation Graduate Studies Programme at the School of Canadian Studies, Carleton University. Her thesis examined the practice of cultural heritage impact assessment and related policy and legislative frameworks across Canada. Chris owns and operates her consulting company, Chris Uchiyama Heritage, in Ottawa.
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Glenn Patterson – Reimagining the Community Sound Archive: Cultural Memory and the Case for “Slow” Archiving on the Gaspé Coast
From Montreal, Glenn Patterson is a 3rd year PhD student in ethnomusicology at Memorial University. His undergraduate and master’s degrees are in applied mathematics and electrical engineering. A guitarist, old-time fiddler and banjoist, he co-founded a blog on old-time fiddle music from the Gaspé Coast with a fellow-musician in 2010. He has worked on several community-based projects to promote Gaspé’s musical culture, particularly among it anglophone minority communities. These include yearly participation in the Douglastown Irish Week; as a producer for an audio-documentary for the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network; and as a co-producer with Laura Risk and the Douglas Community Centre on the CD Douglastown: Music and Song from the Gaspé Coast which was awarded Quebec’s Prix Mnémo for projects deemed remarkable in the domain of research of traditional music in Quebec. His research explores themes of cultural memory, proactive archiving, and collaborative research epistemologies for social action.
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Tina Chu – The Suburbs as Transitional Space: Mapping Edge City Heritage through Contemporary Art
Tina Chu, Engagement Officer at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, is energized by distinct
and meaningful partnerships that integrate the arts into existing initiatives in unexpected and
enriching ways. She possesses a broad professional history of working with diverse peoples
in various settings including McMaster University’s Arts Matter and Artists Anonymous, The
Print Studio, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton Youth Arts Network, and Gallery 1313.
Chu graduated from McMaster University (2008) with Combined Honours in Linguistics and
Cultural Studies Critical Theory.
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Amanda Sherrington – Industrial Heritage in Northern Ontario: Case Study of the Controversial Inco Superstack
I am completing my M.Sc. in Conservation of Monuments & Sites at the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (KU Leuven, Belgium). In the context of my independent thesis research within my second year of study at the RLICC, my current studies aim to identify the effectiveness of the City of Barrie’s (Ontario, Canada) planning policies in determining and evaluating the impacts of intensification on the city’s heritage. I previously completed my B.A. (Hons) at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) in the program of History & Theory of Architecture.
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Sarah Gelbard – Marginal Vernaculars and Place-Making Tactics
Sarah Gelbard is an urban and architectural scholar, critic, and designer. She is currently pursuing a PhD at McGill’s School of Urban Planning with a primary research interest is in alternative place-making practices, traditions, and tactics. Her historical-theoretical approach draws from feminist and critical-radical theory and applies it to readings of socio-cultural appropriation and occupation of space. She is a graduate of Carleton’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism where she completed her Master’s thesis on the dwellings of the Jewish Diaspora. Sarah is also co-director of yowLAB, a partner and designer at Impromptu Playground, and a regular contributor to the Centretown Buzz and Spacing Ottawa. Recent work include Brutal Heritage (Centretown Buzz), Set the Stage (Awesome Ottawa), Practice Space (TEDxElginSt), Dynamic Maze (ElectricFields/Nuit Blanche), and Park(ing) Day.
Twitter: @sbg_arch
Web: gelbard.ca
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Desirée Valadares – Rebuilding Identity: Architecture as Evidence in Forillon National Park
Desirée Valadares was trained as a landscape architect at the University of Guelph, the University of Edinburgh and the Rotterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst. She is currently based in Montreal and is completing a Post-Professional Masters degree in Urban Design and Housing at McGill University.
Desirée is interested in studying the social acceptability and ethical responsibility of the architect with regard to demolition, commemoration, preservation and adaptive reuse in sites of trauma, loss and grief. Previous research projects have considered the social implications of conservation and formal heritage designation on contemporary and former inhabitants of national parks, historic sites, World Heritage Cities and protected sites.
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Allister Morrison – Canadian Law as Heritage: Perspectives at Odds over the Protection of Aboriginal Rights
Allister is a second year Masters student within the Canadian Studies program at Carleton University and works for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) as a land claim researcher. As such, his academic interests include ideas around Indigenous and non-Indigenous conceptualizations of land, Aboriginal law in relation to Aboriginal rights and title, Indigenous identities within Western institutions and decolonizing practices within Western organizations. In his spare time Allister is a singer-song writer, volunteers at the Wabano Aboriginal Health Center and actively supports efforts to educate employees at AANDC about Indigenous cultures and peoples on Turtle Island and their varying concerns.
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Trina Bolam – Healing Heritage:
Commemorating Canada’s Indian Residential School System
Trina Cooper-Bolam is currently a student in Carleton’s Cultural Mediations PhD program. Her research draws on critical historiography and decolonization theory to analyze museological representations of the Indian residential school system. Her MA thesis in Canadian Studies examined Canada’s federal heritage infrastructure in relation to its engagements with the history of Indian residential schools. She is a mature student with a decade of professional experience with the Aboriginal Healing and Legacy of Hope Foundations–organizations mandated to transform the legacy of the Indian residential school system.