VIRTUAL ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Climate change is reshaping both the physical environment and the cultural meanings attached to urban places. In New York City—a place with a complex environmental legacy, from longstanding inequities to ambitious city-wide contemporary climate policies—youth inherit not only a landscape but narratives about the city’s past, present, and future. Drawing from a participatory photovoice project, this presentation explores how inherited environmental narratives intersect with youth visions of “The Future of New York,” highlighting sociocultural and environmental legacies embedded in urban spaces. Through photo-narratives, ten adolescents explored themes including calls for change, stories of success, care and community, and the imagining of climate-just futures, culminating in a public exhibition. Youth engaged with places meaningful to them, unpacking environmental narratives marked by degradation, resilience, and possibility. Photographs of recently remediated areas, for example, were interpreted as signs of positive change while simultaneously evoking a history of environmental neglect—patterns that youth recognized as disproportionately affecting low-income neighborhoods. Juxtaposed feelings of worry and hope emerged in parallel to the dual legacy of a city celebrated for climate leadership yet marked by uneven environmental burdens. Through personal and collective reflection, youth actively (re)negotiated inherited environmental narratives by envisioning futures grounded in urban green equity, belonging, and coexistence between humans, nature, and infrastructure. This project underscores the need for further research on how inherited environmental narratives shape youth engagement with climate justice and demonstrates the value of participatory visual methods in illuminating young people’s contributions to the evolving environmental heritage of their communities.