The Heritage Community Investment Program (HCIP) invests funds, provided by the City of Edmonton, into the stabilization, increased professionalism, and innovation of heritage in Edmonton, for Edmontonians.
The HCIP includes four distinct grant streams: Operational, Project, Project Accelerator, and Travel Grants to individuals and heritage organizations working to connect citizens to the stories of our city.
We are responding to needs arising in the heritage sector due to COVID-19. Guidelines for the summer grant intake were adapted. The Travel Grant stream was temporarily replaced with an Online Learning Grant stream so that heritage practitioners could take part in learning opportunities from the comfort of their own homes. The Project Accelerator Grant is now two sub-streams, Digital Heritage Experiences and Individual Seed. The purpose of the division increases the number of virtual heritage assets for Edmontonians to explore. This adaptation provides the necessary funding to heritage practitioners to undertake initial research and planning towards a larger heritage project.
Thank you to the Edmonton Community Foundation for their support.
We are pleased to announce the Spring and Summer 2020 Project Accelerator Grant and Online Learning Grant recipients.
Project Accelerator (Spring 2020) Grant Recipients
Ground Zero Productions (http://www.gzpedmonton.org)
Jasper Place Community History Project
Ground Zero is developing a community collection about the history of Jasper Place. Funding will support a series of engagement strategies that will share the stories collected and encourage more research contributions. Specifically, the grant would support: 1) development of a project-specific website with excerpts from oral histories, 2) six-panel travelling display, 3) community mapping workshop.
John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights (https://www.jhcentre.org)
“Paint the Rails” Augmented Reality Mural Project
The “Paint the Rails” Augmented Reality Mural Project will result in augmented reality animation for a series of public murals on permanent display at five Edmonton Transit Centres through an initiative known as “Paint the Rails.” Augmented reality (AR) can take the murals to another level by creating custom animations and effects that enhance messaging. “Paint the Rails” is a multi-mural initiative shared in partnership with the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, Edmonton Transit Service, and diverse local communities, bringing local history to life through storytelling, community bridge-building, and visual artwork.
Edmonton Women Sheltering Women (http://www.enable.org/winning/)
Edmonton Women Sheltering Women Book Launch
The history tells the inspiring fifty-year story of Edmonton women’s struggles who need safe shelter and of the Edmonton women who took action to create shelter in 1969. This funding will support the promotion, launch and wide distribution of the book through various media, including e-books.
Strathearn Community League (https://strathearncl.org)
Park Adventures
The Strathearn Community League brings together an enthusiastic team from within its community and Holyrood, Bonnie Doon, Cloverdale, and Strathcona, to promote awareness of Edmonton’s rich history as seen through the eyes of elementary school children. Four five-minute micro-documentaries will be created, focusing on a historical figure, natural history, and positive interactions between children in four local parks. Plans include a special event for local Grade 6 students to gather at Tiffany Shaw-Collinge’s pehonan area to connect to the centuries of history of this place.
Brandon Wint (http://www.brandonwint.com)
My Body Is A Poem/The World Makes With Me
My Body Is A Poem/The World Makes With Me will be a video essay that combines cinema, poetry, personal and lyric essay to depict the nuanced experience of being Black and disabled in Edmonton. The project wishes to showcase Black and disabled/Crip aesthetics and to render an intimate self-portrait of a poet simultaneously. This project will also use research to chart and depict the historical evolution of Edmonton’s social and political relationship to Blackness and disability.
Project Accelerator (Summer 2020) – Digital Heritage Experiences Grant Recipients
Michelle Lavoie
Edmonton Queer History Interactive Map and Website
This project will result in an interactive multimedia website (scalable to iPhone) that draws on archival research (from the Edmonton Queer History Project and The City of Edmonton Archives), and oral history (from LGBTIQ seniors and knowledge holders) to present LGBTIQ+ community stories and tales about people, events, and places that shaped Edmonton’s queer past. This website aims to celebrate Edmonton’s LGBTIQ+ history to promote and support LGBTIQ+ intergenerational and public dialogue through audio, videotaped and written stories, archival texts and photographs, and community artwork.
Chollo Community Society of Edmonton
South Sudanese Canadians: New Canadians from a New Country
Independent in 2011, South Sudan is the world’s newest country. Immigrants from this African country comprise the latest of Canadians. Among 20,000 South Sudanese Canadians, the majority live in Alberta and a third in Edmonton, making Edmonton a significant centre of the South Sudanese Canadian community. Despite this, the community is not well-known to fellow Edmontonians. This project aims to be the first project in Canada to shatter this community’s obscurity through oral history and documentary footage. Edmontonians of diverse backgrounds will identify with finding Canada a new home safe from genocide and Edmonton, a city of struggle and success.
Elizabeth Letendre
Digital Memoir of Elder Elizabeth Letendre
This project will create a digital memoir of Elder Elizabeth Letendre, Indigenous knowledge and language keeper, educator, and community builder in Edmonton.
Elaine Yip
Headstone Addresses
This project will create a visual map and visualization for “Headstone Address” in the context of the Qing Ming Grave-sweeping Festival. A combination of archival research and documentation shares historical connections for Edmonton’s Chinese diaspora. The searchable and interactive database visual map will be available for future use.
Celia Taylor (empressofblandingsproductions.com)
Hardboiled
Hardboiled is a narrative mystery podcast set in Edmonton in the year 1936 and an affectionate homage to the noir detective radio serials popular in the 1930s and 1940s. With Hardboiled, the project team will re-create the glamour, mystery, and melodramatic narration that enthralled our grandparents’ generation. It will spotlight queer narratives and emphasize the diversity and multiculturalism that has always been part of Edmonton’s history.
Megan Tsang
REN Project
REN is “human” in Chinese. The REN Project will provide a channel for people in the Chinese community to share stories, start conversations, and emotionally connect over topics not widely discussed. The REN Project will feature stories and photos of everyday people shared alongside personal stories of identity, struggles, and life. By touching on topics such as mental health in Chinese Canadians and intergenerational family relationships, this project will allow others to resonate with these shared experiences and create a sense of belonging in the community.
Project Accelerator (Summer 2020) – Individual Seed Grant Recipients
Rebecca Lippiatt (rebeccalippiatt.com)
Edmonton in the Time of COVID
This project is a collection of stories and photographs that tell the story of how a North Central Edmonton community navigated the first pandemic in 100 years. This material will allow Edmontonians to reflect upon the Covid19 pandemic and provide a sense of understanding of how we journeyed through this historical event.
Crystal Fraser
Residential School Legacies: A Photo Essay of Forgotten Spaces in Alberta
During the 5th anniversary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, “Residential School Legacies” seeks to share with Edmontonians and Albertans the legacy of Indian Residential Schools in Alberta. This project includes travel to all 25 sites in Alberta. Thousands of children were institutionalized in Indian Residential Schools. This project serves to examine how Alberta has commemorated these spaces in light of TRC recommendations about commemoration and heritage. Photographs will be taken of each site, in consultation with the First Nation or a local Indigenous Knowledge Keeper. This photo essay will be published online at www.activehistory.ca.
Yong Fei Guan
Goji Paradise
This project involves spending five months researching and creating a series of heritage plants to grow and plant 99 Goji berry trees as a symbol of Chinese heritage in Treaty 6. This process will be presented in Edmonton Chinatown through the Chinese Benevolent Association, Multicultural Family Resource Society, McMullen Gallery, Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA).
Online Learning (Summer 2020) Grant Recipients
Jean Middleton
Project Management Series (the University of Alberta, Faculty of Extension)
The Project Management Series will assist the recipient in learning skills for managing resources, engaging with stakeholders, and transitioning projects to operations. Becoming more adept at these skills will enable greater focus on the content of programs and engaging with the community in the applicant’s role at the Alberta Aviation Museum, as the museum reopens after COVID-19 closure with limited resources and the need to re-evaluate the delivery of all programs.
Marlee Yule
Environmental Studies (Athabasca University)
As a new employee at the Canadian Energy Museum, the recipient will take this course to understand the scientific and social history background of Environmental Sciences, which will aid in the interpretation of the history of energy and the environment in Edmonton, Devon, and Leduc.
Stephanie Huolt
Leadership Communications and Managing Organizational Change (the University of Alberta, Faculty of Extension)
The purpose and intended outcomes of these learning opportunities would be to increase the recipient’s leadership and managerial knowledge and skills to be best able to effectively lead the current staff team at the Canadian Energy Museum in her new role as Executive Director and to assist the governing board in transitioning from a highly operational board to a governing board.