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 #DismantlePreservation was hosted July 26-30, 2021! The unconference worked to continue pushing cultural resource conversations in a range of directions and featured current students/recent graduates from around the world! 

Click on the presentation title to view the recording or visit this link to check out the full recording playlist. Click here to learn about the other presentations and presenters.

Presentations hosted on July 26, 2021:

Documentary Viewing & Discussion: Clarissa Uprooted: Youth & Elders Uncover the Story of Black Rochester

Watch the 25-min. documentary, Clarissa Uprooted: Youth & Elders Uncover the Story of Black Rochester, and listen to an intergenerational panel discussion to pull out themes and answer questions. Clarissa Uprooted depicts the Third Ward as a microcosm of Rochester, NY’s, and many northern US cities’, history – from neighborhood comradery, international jazz music and thriving black-owned businesses, to redlining, urban renewal, and other racist backlash. The talkback will feature some of the elders who lived this history and the youth who are living with the consequences today. The documentary features Teen Empowerment Youth History Ambassadors interviewing and working with elders who lived in the thriving Clarissa St. community during the 1940s-60s, through redlining and then displaced by urban renewal/removal. Participants will get a window into the lived experience of African American resilience and resistance in the face of racist policies, and how youth and elders are working together to use history as a tool to help our community repair the harm. The documentary shares the following themes: Black joy, agency & prosperity, Racist policies, resistance & uprising, Power of Sankofa, Intergenerational preservation through storytelling, making connections between then and now, History as a tool for change.

Clarissa Uprooted (2020) is a collaboration between the Center for Teen Empowerment, Clarissa Street Reunion Committee, and Rochester Community Television (RCTV) produced by their Youth Media Team; Website

Lightning Talk: Your Turn on the Saw

After a fifteen-year career teaching English, a new preservation student finds confidence through the WPA-era work of log builder Henry Steiner.

Speaker: Jennifer Brennock, grant writer; Squeaky Wheel Grants

Lightning Talk: Preserve Black Space: Who is telling your story?

Nedra Deadwyler shares how she became a preservationist and what it means to be BIPOC in the field.

Speaker: Nedra Deadwyler, Cultural Worker and Preservationist; Civil Bikes Website, Nedra’s Website, LinkedIn, Instagram

Panel Discussion: PhDs Place in Preservation

Have you ever considered pursuing a PhD or wondered what role they play in the preservation movement? Learn from a panel of current PhD students or recent doctoral recipients why they chose to pursue a Phd, how it has informed their advocacy efforts for cultural resources, and whether or not they would make the PhD pursuit again. Let’s stretch our perception of PhDs beyond the academic stereotypes and gain an understanding of how some people are pursuing higher education to dismantle preservation.

Moderator:

Anna Gasha (she/her/hers), PhD student;LinkedIn

Panelists:

Cai Barais, PhD student; LinkedIn, Twitter

Schuyler Carter, Doctoral Research Assistant, Urban Planner, Historian & Genealogist; Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn

Laura Dominguez | PhD Candidate & Board Member, Latinos in Heritage Conservation; Website, Twitter, LinkedIn

Meranda Roberts, PhD. (She/her); Website, Podcast, Twitter

The 2021 Dismantle Preservation (un)conference was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Alphawood Foundation, Museum Hack, and Ilene & Norman Tyler.