Current Members:
Wendy Allen has always loved hearing people’s stories about their lives. As an affiliate of Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling she has made short videos based on oral history interviews with international students and volunteers working in international development. Now working with the talented Eric Craven, the Director of Atwater Library’s Digital Literacy project, she has developed a sound and video piece, titled “Whose Square?”, about the Cabot Square Project based on an interview with Nakuset, the Executive Director of the Native Women’s Centre of Montreal. You can view this and other projects by Wendy here.
Ramsay Blair has participated in digital literacy project programs of all kinds (video, audio, animation – you name it!) for the past 8 years. Ramsay also continues to work on reading and writing at RECLAIM Literacy Council where he also mentors new learners. You can view some of his work here.
Karin Turkington has been creating a podcast of a Legal Memoir that she has spent the last four years writing. She has an undergraduate degree in Women’s Reproductive Health from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Science degree in Capacity Development and Extension from the University of Guelph where she studied women’s mid-life transitions from a Jungian perspective, using the work of James Hollis. Her passion is adult learning and development, and she has worked in sexual health and food security, as well as having taught communications at an Ontario college and ESL at a Montreal Women’s Centre. Developing her skills in digital media is the current project in her on-going love of learning.
Marlene Chan is currently exploring ageing as a creative practice, experimenting with technology through digital literacy and educating herself in the creative use of various technologies and social media. Rather than limit older adults as objects, her research and activities are motivated, inspired and guided by the personal narratives and experiences of lifelong learners and change agents across the lifespan. This has sparked an interest in the Age Friendly University Global Network based at Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland as a catalyst for change in higher education.
Eric Craven is the Community Development Librarian at the Atwater Library and Computer Centre in Montreal, where he also did his graduate studies in Information Science at McGill University. Eric’s work focuses specifically on using digital media to disrupt normative expectations and perceptions in the community. Eric has spent the past 7 years as coordinator of the Digital Literacy Project, creating programming that directly responds to the community’s needs, helping participants learn to express themselves and finding new ways to talk about things important to them. The program helps participants build their own communities and work towards their own goals through creative digital media projects. Eric has worked with a wide range of academic and community stakeholders, bringing different groups of people together, ages 6 through 96, to express themselves through digital art and media. In addition to his work with communities and digital culture, Eric is also a musician and composer who has been working in the Montreal music scene for the over two decades.
Dr. Cynthia Hammond is professor of Art History at Concordia University and an artist who works with living memories about the built environment and urban landscapes. She has been an active collaborator in various projects with the Atwater Library digital literacy program including Promenade Parlante, two performative, art-walks that focused on creatively sharing the urban knowledge of older Montrealers with the wider public. Right now she is leading a project called “La Ville Extraordinaire”, which focuses on older Montrealers’ knowledge of urban change, and memories of shaping the city.
Shauna Janssen is an associate professor in Theatre at Concordia University, director of the Institute for Urban Futures, and core member of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. Her research focuses on performative urbanism as a critical spatial practice that rethinks urban sites, discourses, and themes such as spacial agency in the public sphere, gender, class, race, migration, gentrification, and the right to the city. She was a core researcher in the Promenades Parlantes project in collaboration with Cynthia Hammond, Eric Craven, and the digital literacy program participants.
Samantha Leger is an undergraduate student at Concordia University studying Studio Arts and Psychology. She has worked with Atwater Library in a number of capacities over the last couple of years and currently works with Eric Craven, supporting various projects at the Atwater Library including updating this website and helping the seniors in the Digital Literacy program.
Previous Members:
Julie Zielinski Pieters has lived on and off in Montreal since 2001. Originally from the UK, she has worked 25 years for an airline based in BC and Ontario. After retiring from “meeting the world on a daily basis” she started workshops at the QWF and began writing non-fiction essays and poetry prose. From a personal and universal perspective the stories delved into trauma, mental illness, addictions and resilience. Her involvement with the Atwater Digital Storytelling group has expanded her knowledge of media possibilities and her present projects have focused on the grieving process in: Quiet Rain and 7 Stages of Grief on Top of a Lufa Box.
Lilian Harper is publicity-shy but admits to enjoying the digital literacy programs for seniors at Atwater Library and Computer Centre. She is a graduate of the University of Manitoba and worked for many years in the aerospace industry. Lillian has contributed to the Living History project in many ways and continues to help everyone move their ideas forward. You can see some of her contributions here.
Wanda Potrykus is a writer, editor, translator, poet and amateur oral historian. A graduate of McGill, she has spent most of her career in the marketing communications industry. In her spare time she writes feature articles and poetry and tries hard to improve her digital literacy skills at the Atwater Library. Some samples of her writing can be found here.
Isha Levy is an undergraduate student at Concordia University majoring in Communication and Cultural Studies. She spent the summer of 2018 working with Eric Craven and the seniors at the Atwater Library, and collaborated on the development of this Living History website.
Doug Dumais was the Assistant Media Facilitator at the Atwater Library in 2018-19 while he was completing his MA in Art History at Concordia University. He was the project manager for Promenade Parlante, an oral history research-creation project that involved many members of the Living History group.