IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
In large multicultural cities such as Toronto (Canada), places are layered with diverse histories and memories, and numerous constituents – policy makers, urban planners, residents, community leaders, researchers – engage in the co-production of place-based heritage. “Building Inclusive Neighborhoods” is a multi-year community-responsive project led by a team of University of Toronto scholars, who research arts-based and community-driven mobilizations of place-based knowledge for social change. The project specifically focuses on community serving organizations – e.g. neighborhood land trusts and newcomer agencies – that employ place-based memory work to preserve sites of value, trigger local policy change, raise awareness of pressing social needs, or otherwise to activate communities. We argue that heritage making extends beyond museum walls and cultural policy, resulting in a diverse community of practice situated across city spaces, and fueled by the concrete needs and cultural practices of residents. The goal of the project is to produce outputs relevant to cultural community organizers serving, and that increase visibility of their heritage-related work. In this presentation, we offer an overview of the project’s framework grounded in community-based research and critical heritage studies, as well as memory work in multi-sensorial and multi-cultural urban environments. One of the methodological highlights of the project is a public-facing collection of guided interviews with practitioners from community serving organizations. This collection will preserve in accessible format the creative and social justice-driven practice of these community leaders, contributing to greater awareness of this emerging practice. The team describes the community-centered approach to developing the collection, including reflections on the process.
Irina’s research covers histories of volunteer women in art museums and practices of eating out in museums, intersections between food and museums (co-editor, Food and Museums, 2026), the material culture of food (co-editor, The Handbook of Food and Material Cultures, 2023), and community-centered place-making. A new area of research centers on Romania, highlighting its pre-Communist history as a significant nation making period through two areas: food and museums. She teaches histories of exhibitions, museum interpretation, and food and material culture. She is managing ed., Museum & Society
Maggie is an artist-curator and organizer who has worked with a diverse range of Canadian cultural organizations. She co-founded the longstanding collective Department of Public Memory, authored the Ontario Arts Council’s handbook on best practices in community-engaged art and served as Lead Curator of Toronto Ward Museum’s multiyear Block by Block project, for which the museum received the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation. She recently co-founded the Community Cultural Spaces Trust, the first cultural land trust in Canada to acquire property. Maggie researches place-based memory activations and citybuilding. She teaches Museum Studies at U of T.
Lena Mortensen is an anthropologist at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She specializes in community-based cultural heritage and placemaking, and maintains research and teaching interests in cultural tourism, value, commodification, material culture, archaeological ethnography, and heritage management. Her publications center on long term fieldwork in Honduras and newer research based in Toronto, and she has participated in a range of heritage-related research projects across Canada. In all her work, Lena centers community-based, participatory and collaborative approaches.
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Tuesday 7th July, 2026