From left to right: Melika Korei, Jonathan Lévesque, Jordane Zakrzewski, Olivier Lauzon and Jimmy Minh Bang Pham, all students in modern architecture and heritage preservation, Université du Québec à Montréal ($5,000)
This study trip ended a year of studies in modern architecture and heritage preservation at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). The tour started in Prague and continued through Brno, Zlin and Vienna before ending in Ljubljana. We visited several remarkable modern buildings and urban complexes that we had been studying during our university training. In addition to these visits, we attended several conferences and participated in meetings with representatives of organizations and professionals working to protect and safeguard modern architecture in Central Europe.
The last three days were devoted to the 15th International Conference of Docomomo. This was an important event that was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on the theme "Metamorphosis, Continuity of Change". This symposium represented a unique opportunity for us to discuss the subject of our research with specialists from around the world and thus helped conclude our trip in the best way.
Desirée Valadares, Doctoral Student, Architecture, Center for Race & Gender, University of California, Berkeley in conjunction with Landscape of Injustice, University of Victoria, British Columbia ($3,000)
Broadly, my dissertation broaches cultural landscape studies, historic preservation and demilitarized landscapes. More specifically, I work on themes related to race, redress and reparations as they relate to World War II internment in U.S. (Alaska and Hawai’i) and Canada (primarily, British Columbia). I focus on the aftermath of wartime civilian internment and explore unexplored linkages between redress movements in British Columbia, Alaska and Hawaiʻi to demonstrate critical distinctions in the wartime and post-World War II experiences in Canada and the United States.
I study the preservation of extant World War II internment camps in western Canada and in western U.S. using three empirical case studies: (1) Tashme Internment Camp in West Kootenay, British Columbia; (2) Funter Bay near Juneau, Southeast Alaska and; (3) Honouliuli National Monument in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi thus constructing a historical genealogy of transnational grassroots alliances and coalitions forged among geographically disparate groups confined outside the boundaries of legal and civil rights.
Aaron Cathers, Master Degree Student, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and the Federal University of Western Para, Brazil ($2000)
My Master’s thesis project examines the production of ceramics in an ancient Central Amazonian village site (700-1100 AD) in Brazil to shed light on the ways that pottery traditions contributed to complex social dynamics and creation of different social spaces. The historical period in question marks an era of intense change throughout Amazonia as societies rapidly expanded and began to modify the tropical environment.
Building on recent ceramics research suggesting that Central Amazonians maintained vast regional socio-political networks, I will investigate ceramics production from an intra-site perspective to better understand how the social lives of potters were organized at the village-level and gain insight into the role they may have played in the region’s broader dynamics. Furthermore, this research will also make an important contribution to discussions on immovable heritage since these societies intentionally reused their discarded ceramics as construction materials to build earthwork residential complexes and reshape the topographies of their landscapes. In this way, Central Amazonian ceramics production and consumption was uniquely connected to the creation of distinct social spaces and conceptualizations of place.
Étienne Issa, graduate student in Architecture Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
The jury was impressed by the quality of Mr. Étienne Issa’s proposal. A graduate student in Architecture at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. Étienne is truly passionate with respect to the use of stone as a noble material having helped shape the identity of ancient cities. He is eager to understand the ancient as well as contemporary carving techniques that could allow for its renewed use in the production of contemporary architecture. He will be travelling to Florence, Italy, to study stone carving techniques that were used yesterday and are used today in designing buildings and public places.
Ashley Rudkevitch, anthropologist, master student in Planning of the arts, University of Waterloo, Ontario
A grant was awarded to Miss Ashley Rudkevitch, anthropologist and master student in Planning of the arts at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, for a project in the small town of Yellowknife, located in the Northwest Territories. Ashley is undertaking a study to determine the impact of the growing influx of tourists on the fragile historic fabric of this small northern town, a subject of great interest to many of the other small towns and historical sites located in the remote areas of Canada.
Mr. Evan Taylor, PH.D. student, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Massachusetts, USA, recipient of the 2015 cultural heritage grant ($3000)
As a relationship between people, past, and place, heritage can be directly linked to nationalism, conflict, and other processes of identity boundary-making. More recently, scholars and practitioners have remarked on the changing conditions in which we encounter heritage - it has become highly "commodifiable", alienable, and thus made available to new and diverse communities. My project confronts the need to develop new forms of conservation that re-center local understandings of "care" in the management of heritage places. I will undertake this project in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Old City of Acre, in Israel, where nationalism and hyper-commodification are at the core of community concerns. In Acre, a mixed Jewish and Palestinian city, the thought of community-based initiatives in heritage management are welcomed, but are not currently part of standard practices due to restrictions on time and resources among official managing bodies.
This proposed project will follow up on a period of ethnographic research and will consider practical ways that community members can play an active role in managing their heritage while recognizing its economic value. Working closely with community partners and heritage professionals, I will facilitate the development of long-term community-based strategies in heritage interpretation, conservation, and management. This experience will lay the groundwork for sustainable heritage practice in Acre, offer a model for socially just heritage management elsewhere, and provide me with the practical experience of merging critical research and social justice in the applied field of heritage management.
Ms. Cynthia Eunice Aleman, Master student in Architecture and Architectural Sciences, Laval University, Quebec, recipient of the 2015 cultural heritage grant ($1 500)
My thesis project focuses on the development of the land properties of the Ursuline Sisters in Trois-Rivières. This case study aims at understanding how this Religious Community’s land and property buildings have evolved through the years to support the development of its monastery and mission. My research also aims at understanding how these actions and their economic, social and political relationships have influenced the urbanization of the city. Today, the Ursulines must provide for the future of their built heritage, a common challenge to all religious communities established in the Province of Quebec.
In order to take advantage of recent developments in terms of methodology and practice, I wish to participate in the summer school "Sewing a Small Town Architecture: The Renaissance of a Historical Center" to be held in Turin, Italy this year and in the 22nd Congress of the International Seminar on Urban Form also to be held this year in Rome, Italy, on the theme "City as Organism: New Visions for Urban Life" during which I will be lecturing on the subject of my research.
Mr. Akira Inman from Port Hope, Ontario, stone carving student at the City and Guilds of London Art School, UK, is recipient of the 2014 Cultural Heritage Grant.
I am now enrolled in the Heritage Stone Carving program at City and Guilds of London Art School. I have been awarded this year’s Heritage Grant which has provided me with additional financial help so I could focus on my studies entirely. This is a two year intensive program that prepares their aspiring carvers by introducing them to traditional techniques of stone carving while weaving in the fundamentals of drawing, anatomy, clay modelling and art/architectural history throughout its curriculum. With other programs such as wood carving, conservation and fine arts being taught at this intimate school, the like-minded students have an opportunity to share ideas and techniques from their respective fields or previous careers/education. This dynamic adds an element that would not exist in any other carving program and is quite unique, placing stone carving into perspective and its relationship among the arts and science. Graduates come out with a very comprehensive understanding of stone carving in different architectural styles, including the nuances between the different styles of carving anatomy, ornaments and drapery, which I plan to focus my studies on. My time here at the City and Guilds will complement my years of experience in masonry and will lay a career path in restoration stone carving. After school, I plan to apply my skills in carving shops here in the UK or abroad where I will continue to learn and refine these learned techniques through work experience and I hope to one day take them back with me to Canada and my business that I left behind.
Mr. Dustin Valen, phd student, McGill University, Montreal, recipient of the 2013 cultural heritage grant
From left to right: Louise Mercier, Michel Bonnette, Dustin Valen and Marie-Josée Deschènes in front of the bust of Frederick G. Todd in Quebec
Home to countless monuments and memorials and characterized by their natural-looking landscape forms, Canada’s early public parks allude to a style of landscape gardening developed in England over the course of the 18th century. Now a century old, Bowring Park in St. John’s, Newfoundland, designed in 1913 by Canada’s first resident landscape architect Frederick Gage Todd (1876-1948), too, is a kind of cultural repository: recalling a period of tumultuous change in Canadian society at the turn of the century, and giving firm expression to St. John’s collective memory through the display of a diverse collection of memorials, heritage buildings and monuments spread throughout the park. In the wake of recent controversy over remediation work completed from 2004-07, Bowring Park is now a heritage landscape at risk of being irrevocably transformed. Towards one possible guide for the future development of Bowring Park, exploring the 18th century origins of the informal park style and the specific role that these landscapes played in organizing large collections of antique monuments will form the basis of a trans-historical preservation strategy for the Canadian national historical parks; showing how an improved understanding of historic design principles can serve as a blueprint for the park’s future growth and evolution.