small talks & city blocks small talks & city blocks

In this episode, we invite Annmarie Adams, professor and Stevenson Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science including Medicine, and Ipek Türeli, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Architecture at McGill University to join us. Professors Adams and Tureli discuss with us the built environment as a site of control, communicating to people how they should move and behave, and often effectively segregating people along lines of gender, race, and class. They brought up how the field of architecture is dominated by the idea of a lone (usually male) genius, and gave examples of women architects who promote the work of the collective over that of the individual. To learn more about Annmarie and Ipek’s work, check out their McGill Faculty pages: https://www.mcgill.ca/architecture/node/1539/faculty/adams, https://www.mcgill.ca/architecture/node/1539/faculty/tureli.

We sat down with Jennifer Fix, a Vancouver-based associate in urban planning and design at the integrated design firm DIALOG, while she was in Montreal for the World Design Summit. At the summit, she gave two talks: “Femopolis: Cities For Women, By Women, With Women” and “Engaging As If Cities Are For Everyone.” We asked her about her “Femopolis,” where women are the protagonists of the city and we talked with her about her work, exploring the benefits of participatory, generative design that involves the community. To learn more about Jennifer’s work, follow her on twitter @j_urbanfix.

Our conversation with Montreal-based artists Caroline Alexander and Cynthia Hammond about their exhibit “Safety Strategies: Space, Gender and the City.” The memory maps and accompanying written reflections displayed in this exhibition contribute to the larger feminist project of making gendered urban experiences visible, shared, discussed, and understood as fundamental to the design of more equitable, inclusive, and safe cities. Check out safetystrategiesproject.org to see scans of all the pieces that were on display, and cynthiahammond.org to see more of Cynthia Hammond’s work.

We spoke to Kathryn Travers, the director of Women in Cities International, and Ayesha Vemuri, a researcher on rape culture and the social media practices of feminist activists in India, about the important work being done by Blank Noise to reclaim urban space, the parallels between street harassment and resistance in different global contexts, and about the complexities of social media and technologies as tools in movements to end street harassment.

We got to talk with Holly Kearl about how she founded the organization Stop Street Harassment, how we can tackle street harassment globally while still responding to the nuanced needs of each community, and she gave us a bunch of tips on how to respond to street harassment as it happens to you.

Nous avons eu l’occasion de discuter avec Holly Kearl de la fondation de son organisation Stop Street Harassment et de comment on peut combattre l’harcèlement de rue à l’échelle global tout en étant sensible aux besoins de toutes les communautés. Elle nous a aussi donné plein de trucs pour faire face au harcèlement de rue.