From April 15 – 21, ICOMOS Canada, in partnership with Parks Canada and CCUNESCO, is coordinating a series of events for the 2021 edition of the International Day for Monuments Sites and World Heritage Day. The theme for this year is “Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures.”
Join us to take part in a national conversation exploring the complex narratives around heritage, inclusion, and diversity.
Calendar of Events
ICOMOS Canada Wood Committee Monthly Zoom Talk with Dr. Cecil Chabot (English only)
Thursday, April 15th
4PM – 6PM EDT
We are pleased to welcome Dr Cecil Chabot to present for us. Cecil is a SSHRC postdoctoral research fellow at Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs in Montreal, Quebec, where he teaches in the First Peoples Studies program. He is also Executive Director of the Moose River Heritage and Hospitality Association (MRHHA), a grassroots community organization that unites First Nations community members around a mission of “building a future with our shared past”.
Cecil will be talking about one of the MRHHA’s current projects in Moose Factory. What happens if decolonization is not founded on a vision that transcends not only colonialism but also itself? Will it risk extending colonial paradigms of division and difference into the past and future, while ironically imposing new patterns of uniformity and assimilation? These are two of many questions that the Moose River Heritage and Hospitality Association has to address as it leads efforts to restore and repurpose Moose Factory’s historic log-timber St. Thomas Church, built by Hudson’s Bay Company craftsmen with Cree assistance in the 1860s, on the site of the fur-trade company’s second oldest post.
Moose Factory, established by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1673, is in Northern Ontario at the mouth of the Moose River where it flows into James Bay. This restoration effort is part of a larger initiative that will explore and commemorate the unique Indigenous and intercultural history and heritage of this subarctic region that is arguably Canada’s oldest continuous Indigenous-European “middle ground”.
For registration, please email [email protected].
#ComplexPast Canada Twitter Chat
Sunday, April 18th to Wednesday, April 21st
ICOMOS Canada is hosting a four-day Twitter Chat with the hashtag #ComplexPast inviting people to share their stories, photos and videos on World Heritage Sites in their communities. Our aim is to showcase the complexity of values when it comes to heritage and highlight that memory is diverse and complex.
Table ronde sur le patrimoine invisible avec Héritage Montréal (Français seulement)
Lundi, le 19 avril
13h00
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry disait que l’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. Alors qu’une des missions d’Héritage Montréal est d’élever le regard, nous vous proposons d’aborder la question du patrimoine invisible, qu’on ne sait pas voir ou qu’on ne veut pas voir. La notion de patrimoine invisible regroupe également celui qui est oublié, qu’il soit remarquable ou non. Le patrimoine méconnu d’épisodes entiers de notre histoire reste parfois à mettre en lumière.
La conférence débutera par une présentation de la thématique par Dinu Bumbaru, directeur des politiques d’Héritage Montréal. Il présentera le mont Royal dont la forêt dite naturelle cache une valeur plus démocratique qu’écologique. Un panel de discussion suivra avec nos invités :
- Bernard Vallée : Animateur en histoire et patrimoine à Montréal Explorations, ancien membre du Conseil du patrimoine de Montréal (2012-2018) et de la Commission de toponymie (1987-1995).
- Marie Dina Salvione : Chargée de cours au DESS architecture moderne et patrimoine; chargée de projet à l’Institut du Nouveau Monde et membre du COPA d’Héritage Montréal.
- Frantz Voltaire : Écrivain (Une brève histoire des communautés noires au Canada, 2007) et réalisateur (Les chemins de la mémoire, 2002 – prix de l’ONF), il a été membre du Conseil des arts de Montréal, président-fondateur, en 1983, du Centre International de Documentation et d’Information Haïtienne, Caribéenne et Afro-canadienne (CIDIHCA) et éditeur de la maison d’édition CIDIHCA.
Cliquez ici pour vous inscrire.
Emerging Professionals 5 à 7 (bilingual)
Tuesday, April 20th
5PM – 7PM EDT
The Emerging Professional Working Group (EPWG) from ICOMOS Canada is organizing a 5 à 7 event on April 20th, 2021, within the context of the International Day for Monuments and Sites that this year is framed around the topic “Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures.”
The event starts with a short introduction by Kelsey Maas (Associate Director at Preservation Utah) about the Kick-off Workshop “Diversify / Decolonize Heritage!” hosted by the EPWG of ICOMOS and the ICOMOS Germany Working Group the past July 2020. This workshop arose from the pressing need to reconsider how we memorialize and represent history, together with the current heritage designation processes considering racism, colonialism, enslavement and oppression. Following this introduction, various academic and professional projects in the Canadian context are presented to generate a conversation among the participants and the attendees of the event.
World Heritage & Contested Memories: What do communities value? (bilingual)
Wednesday, April 21st
7PM – 9PM EDT
World Heritage Sites don’t exist in a vacuum. Rather, they part of the fabric of communities, tied to the memories of the people who frequent them day in and day out.
Join us for a discussion with Canadian World Heritage Site Managers to explore the relationship between the values that communities assign to a particular site and the values that make these a UNESCO World Heritage site.