The Edmonton Heritage Council has teamed up with internationally recognized heritage consultant and course instructor Catherine C. Cole to present a new series of 90-minute virtual workshops over the span of several months in 2020 and 2021.

Get the full picture of what it takes to plan and deliver community heritage projects with Wide Angle Lens: Empowering Community Heritage Practices.

Classes are offered one Thursday per month, with The Final Product on March 11, 2021 as the last remaining session (afternoon and evening options), and registration is required.

Next session:

Session 5: The Final Product (March 11, 2021 at 2:00 PM or 7:00 PM)

A broad range of dissemination approaches both physical (e.g., exhibitions, publications, heritage designations, community mapping, walking tours, archival and artifact collection, artistic outputs such as video ballads, poetry, music and dance, and visual arts) and online (e.g., project websites, virtual exhibitions, Virtual Museum of Canada/Community Memories, collections, podcasts, social media, blog) and how to decide which approach is most appropriate for the subject, audience, goals & objectives. Guest speakers: Christina Hardie, curator of the EHC initiative Edmonton City as Museum Project; Tom Long, North Wind Heritage Consulting.

Tom Long is a Certified Interpretive Guide and Trainer who specializes in Living History villages and creative ways to engage the public, skills honed for nearly twenty years at Fort Edmonton Park and several other museums. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Canadian History and training from the National Association of Interpretation, Museum Hack, the Disney Institute, and the Alberta Museums Association. Do you want to talk about comics with him?

Prior to shifting her focus to the histories of this place, Christina Hardie worked as a professional actor. She has worked as an Interpreter at various natural history sites in the city, served as Programs Coordinator at John Walter Museum, and has worked for the Rupertsland Institute for Métis Excellence researching and writing about historic Métis communities in Alberta. Prior to becoming the Curator of the Edmonton City as Museum Project, Christina undertook her own ECAMP adventure exploring the history of Mill Woods through oral history interviews related to natural spaces and the childhood experience of growing up in the community.

*COMPLETED* Session 1: Edmonton Stories (November 19, 2020 at 2:00 PM or 7:00 PM)

The first webinar in the series discusses the ‘Edmonton Story’, including what has and has not been studied and why. Universities, museums, and archives have traditionally been dominated by white men. History is written by literate people based primarily upon the written record. The stories of women, BIPOC residents, and working class people have received less attention. Participants will be encouraged to share their thoughts about important stories that are missing in the Edmonton narrative. Guest speaker: Donna Coombs-Montrose, Alberta Labour History Institute.

*COMPLETED* Session 2: 10 Steps in Project Planning (December 10, 2020 at 2:00 PM or 7:00 PM)

*COMPLETED* Session 3: Working ‘With’ and ‘In’ Communities (January 14, 2021 at 2:00 PM or 7:00 PM)

This session covers the difference between the concepts of consultation, engagement, collaboration, partnership, community research, representation, inclusion, voice, and shared authority. We will discuss the difference between working ‘in’ communities, as a community member, and working ‘with’ communities as an outsider, and how that impacts projects. Today researchers cannot study a BIPOC community without either being a part of the community or working in close collaboration with community members: “Nothing About Us Without Us.”

Guest speakers: Don Bouzek – Ground Zero Productions (afternoon and evening session), Soni Dasmohapatra – consultant (afternoon session), Azkaa Rahman – City of Edmonton (evening session).

*COMPLETED* Session 4: Research (February 11, 2021 at 2:00 PM or 7:00 PM)

How to conduct primary and secondary research, with a focus on oral history. The webinar discussed the limitations of current archival resources and how to improve representation within archives by building community collections, as well as how to use archival sources such as newspapers, photographs, and artifacts in research.

Guest speakers: Terry Morin, Archives Manager for Enoch Cree Nation and Elyse Abma-Bouma of Edmonton Heritage Council. Please read the Q&A with Elyse at this link. This session also gave attendees the opportunity to discuss archival and oral histories with each other and breakout session facilitators with expertise in the area. Facilitator Catherine C. Cole also answered some questions earlier in 2021 about the course.