Upcoming Events

THE FUTURE OF ONTARIO PLACE COLLOQUIUM

Join the Future of Ontario Place Colloquium, a series comprised of four sessions working towards reimagining the future of the site through an understanding of its public identity, design values, and future challenges.

4: THE FUTURE OF CONSERVATION: CRITICAL APPROACHES IN THE HERITAGE FIELD

Increasingly, heritage practitioners are bringing social, economic, and cultural systems into their work and advocating for pluralistic approaches which consider a multitude of perspectives. In the absence of a Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for Ontario Place, how can we learn from cutting-edge approaches which consider both material and non-material systems? How can Ontario Place’s public value shape its future?

Featuring an announcement of the “Ontario Place: A Call for Counterporposals” design challenge winners!

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MODERATED BY JAVIER ORS AUSIN

Javier Ors Ausín is an architect with experience in architecture, urban planning, and project management. He joined World Monuments Fund in 2017 where he oversees the Modern Architecture initiative, the Jewish Heritage program, the Crisis Response Program, and a diverse portfolio of conservation field project. Javier has developed his career as an architect and heritage specialist in Spain, India, and the US, including work at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington DC. He has presented research at the Royal Geographical Society, the Society of Architectural Historians, and ICOMOS, and has been a guest critic in many universities. Javier holds a Master in Architecture from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia in Spain, and a Master in Critical Conservation from Harvard University.

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

DESIREE VALADERES

Desiree Valadares is a Canadian-trained landscape architect and a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley in Architectural History. Her dissertation brings a landscape-based perspective to the study of Second World War internment camp ruins that are recovered and formally commemorated amidst unresolved Indigenous land claims settlements in Hawai’i, Alaska and British Columbia. Desiree has practiced at US/ICOMOS, the National Trust for Preservation, and the U.S. National Park Service in the Pacific and Alaska Regional Offices. In 2013 she completed an archival and oral history thesis on the long history of Ontario Place at the University of Guelph, that centered themes of land ownership, jurisdiction, private rights and public access. Desiree is currently serving a 3 year term as an Advisory Member of the Cultural and Historic Landscapes Committee of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA). She will return to Canada in 2022 as an incoming Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in the Geography Department where she will continue to research and teach about critical heritage, racial geographies and contested landscapes in Canada and elsewhere.

PHILIP COTE

Philip Cote, MFA of Moose Deer Point First Nation is a Young Spiritual Elder, Indigenous Artist, Activist, Educator, Historian and Ancestral Knowledge Keeper. Philip is a graduate of OCAD University’s Interdisciplinary Art Media and Design Masters program.

He is engaged in creating opportunities for art-making and teaching methodologies through Indigenous symbolism, traditional ceremonies, history, oral stories, and land-based pedagogy. His art and teaching philosophy evolves from his practice of experiential learning and the transmission of Indigenous Knowledge.

Philip has shared his knowledge with numerous institutions from York University, the Art Gallery of Ontario, University of Toronto, OCAD University, Peel District School Board and the TDSB.

Philip is also a tour guide with “First Story” since 2005 providing an Indigenous history of Toronto covering the last 13,500 years and as far back as 130,000 years.

Philip has won numerous TABIA awards for his public Street Art Murals Across the City of Toronto.

SHIKHA JAIN

Shikha Jain is an architect with an extensive portfolio on cultural heritage of India that covers Conservation, World Heritage and Museum Planning of 50 plus projects, largely realised through her organisation DRONAH. She has led multiple Modern Heritage projects in Chandigarh funded by the Getty Foundation, USA

As an international expert on World Heritage, she has advised government organisations in Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, Myanmar and UNESCO Offices at Jakarta, Indonesia and Myanmar. She has worked as consultant to the UNESCO New Delhi and, represented Ministry of Culture, India as a Heritage Expert on the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.

She graduated in architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi followed by a Masters in Architecture from the Kansas State University, USA and Doctorate from De Montfort University Leicester. She is Vice President, ICOFORT, ICOMOS and Advisory Committee Member, MSc. UNESCO C2C at WII, Dehradun.