I'm writing to inform you about another upcoming seminar by a Craig Dobbin Visiting Scholar.

From Dundas Street to Dublin: Performing Spatial Research through Scenographic Choreography

by
Andrew Lochhead, Toronto Metropolitan University

Thursday, 23 October at 1:00 PM, Room B210, Newman Building

(abstract and bio below)

We look forward to seeing you there.

Best wishes,

Paul Halferty <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

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Abstract:

This talk is an introduction to scenographic chorography - an interdisciplinary creative, critical, and embodied walking practice I've developed as part of my doctoral research into practices of spatial performance, commemoration, and interpretation. Focussing on the urban landscape of Toronto, Canada, I explain how scenographic chorography has been shaped by my involvement in public history and memory activism campaigns such as the campaign to rename Dundas Street, and a desire to demonstrate to a wider public why who, what, and how relationships to the so-called past, can shape present realities, and work toward imagining justice-based futures. In the process I share examples of scenographic chorography as a form of doing, presenting, and animating research. and why I feel it may be a useful methodology for investigating and telling the stories of UCD's Belfield campus.

Andrew Lochhead is a PhD Candidate at Toronto Metropolitan University, artist, and arts administrator. As a researcher, and arts and heritage professional, Andrew has been an outspoken advocate for understanding how monuments, place names, and other forms of commemoration shape people’s relationships to urban space and to each other.

His work as part of the public history campaign around the name of Dundas Street has contributed to ongoing and high profile conversations about who or what Canada’s largest city remembers. These efforts have resulted in recent decisions to rename public assets, such as Yonge-Dundas Square, and the adoption of a new commemorative framework for Toronto.

Andrew’s scholarship and activism have been featured prominently in a number of documentaries including CityTV’s “What’s in a Name?” and BBC Scotland’s BAFTA Award-winning, “Scotland, Slavery, and Statues.”

His research is currently supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship.