#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 27:
Panel Discussion: Housing Blocs- Preserving Ordinary Modernism Across the Atlantic
This panel presents the efforts to preserve modernist mass housing in the United States and the former Yugoslavia, showing that supposed deep cultural and political differences mask a common cause. The remaining mass housing on both sides of the Atlantic face similar problems: public opinions and lack of awareness of modernist architecture, threats to affordability posed by gentrification and lack of government investment in maintenance. Presented in conjunction with the Housing Blocs project, this panel will bring together experts and housing advocates from both sides to discuss how international solidarity might benefit efforts on each side.
Panelists will include Michael Allen (USA) and Vladana Putnik Prica and Jelica Jovanović (Serbia), with others to be announced.
Cheryl Johnson is a long-time residents of Altgeld Gardens a public housing development located on the far south side of Chicago. She is a mother of two, grandmother of one. Ms. Johnson is the daughter of the late Hazel Johnson, “Mother of Environmental Justice,” who founded People for Community Recovery over 40 years ago and now Cheryl has taken the reign to continue to fight for environmental justice and equality in Chicago. Cheryl has been with PCR for the past thirty-three years as an administrative assistance to project manager and now the executive director of PCR. Website
Michael R. Allen is Director of the Preservation Research Office, a heritage consultancy, and Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis. He also is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, where hd dissertation examines attitudes toward the conservation of public housing architecture in the United States.
Vladana Putnick Prica is a Research Associate on the Faculty of Arts at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and a scholar focusing on 20th century art and architecture in the former Yugoslavia, including housing typologies and World War II memorials.
Jelica Jovanović is an architect and PhD student at the University of Technology in Vienna, working as an independent researcher. She has served as General Secretary of DOCOMOMO Serbia and is coauthor of Bogdan Bogdanović Biblioteka Beograd – An Architect’s Library with Wolfgang Thaler and Vladimir Kulić.
During the 1970s there were several communes, squats, and centres, which sprung up in London. Those spaces were quintessential for the progression of queer politics in the UK, but their existence is not well-documented or commemorated. Today, several of these spaces have languished into oblivion; their effects on their respective surroundings, however, are still visible.
Speaker: Filippos Toskas, Urban Historian; LinkedIn, Twitter
Lightning Talk: Writing LGBTQ+ Narratives in Museums
This presentation will explore how historical LGBTQ+ narratives are reconstructed in museum interpretation in the UK. It will highlight that whilst many museums have special tours to highlight LGBTQ+ stories from with their collections, this information is still often missing from permanent, written, interpretation.
Speaker: Amy Saunders (she/her), History and Heritage PhD Student, The University of Winchester; Twitter
Lightning Talk: The Challenges of Adapting 20th Century Concrete to Increased Flooding
Concrete is the most commonly used building material of the modern world and it comes at a high carbon cost. As the experimental materials used in the post-war period are nearing the end of their designed life, the current cycle of demolition and rebuilding of those deemed unadaptable to modern needs raises carbon emissions and worsens climate impacts. Are these buildings truly too complex and unsustainable to be adapted to the realities of increased flooding due to the climate crisis?
Speaker: Emily A. Ditsch, Postgraduate Student, Conservation Studies of Historic Buildings, University of York; LinkedIn, Twitter
Lightning Talk: Decolonizing Guam’s Heritage Preservation
For this presentation I will focus on recent projects of the Guam Preservation Trust (GPT) as one aspect of Guam’s decolonized heritage preservation. These projects have succeeded in reviving vernacular architecture, creating alternate narratives, establishing new generations of indigenous archaeologists, implementing place-based education programs, and bringing the history of the CHamoru people to the national stage in the United States of America. This presentation will also include an ethnographic analysis of testimonies from residents, architects, authors, students, teachers, and youth who were involved with GPT projects in order to draw attention to the vision and significant barriers of preservation in Guam.
Speaker: Kyle Riordan, PhD Candidate at The Ohio State University Anthropology Department; Email, Instagram
Lightning Talk: Examining Germany's Difficult Heritage Interpretations: Has it really worked?
Germany is often considered a leader in its interpretation of its uncomfortable past through its innovative and often interjecting monuments and memorials (Denkmäler). In 2017 the right wing nationalist party, Alternative für Deutschland, gained seats in the federal Bundestag for the first time, anti-immigrant and anti-semitic hate crimes are on the rise, and racist ideologies continue to grow within the country. This talk will look at examples of memorials and places dedicated to Germany's difficult heritage, how naming it might alone may not be enough, and how the US can learn and adapt from Germany’s practices.
Speaker: Kelsey Maas (she/her), Associate Director at Preservation Utah; Instagram, LinkedIn
This talk focuses on interpretation of the lives of enslaved people at Good Hope Estate, one of the many places in Jamaica where built heritage is intrinsically tied to a long history of colonialism and forced labor. Heritage professionals on the island have long conveyed a recognition of the transformative power of appropriating colonial heritage for speaking the truths of hardship, but, more importantly, of the triumph over it. This is the context through which the proposed talk on the work at Good Hope Estate is best understood, and these strategies of interpreting historic sites are the key takeaways of the talk.
Speaker:Ke Vaughn Harding, Designer | Historic Preservation Specialist; Bio