COHDS

Queer Oral History
2025-11-07 13:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Gabryelle Iaconetti and Liam Devitt
The workshop and discussion will offer reflections on methodological and ethical approaches to undertaking queer oral history in research. How does one conduct oral history interviews with queer narrators? What is particular about queer oral history? How has oral testimony been significant in the figuration of queer histories?
This panels brings together historians Gabryelle Iaconetti and Liam Devitt, who use oral histories in their various research milieus related to queer labour and activism.

Gabryelle Iaconetti is a third-year PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, working under the supervision of Dr. Rachel Berger. She holds a BA and MA in History from Concordia University and MISt (Master of Information Studies) from McGill University. Her research interests lie at the intersections of bisexual history, oral history, queer space, queer theory and archives.
Liam Devitt is a labour historian, writer, and research worker based in Tiohti:áke/Montréal. Their MA thesis “Gay Steel Mill” (Concordia University, 2024) examined how deindustrialization affected queer communities in Cape Breton. Currently, they are the Associate Director of “Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time” (deindustrialization.org), a SSHRC Partnership grant project examining histories and contemporary lived experiences of deindustrialization. They are also General Coordinator of their union, CARE (PSAC 12501), organizing for job security, fair wages, and workplace justice.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
This is a hybrid event.
To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.
For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in the COHDS Sunroom (LB-1019). You will find us on the tenth floor of
Concordia’s Library Building, 1450 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec.
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Oral Histories of Migration and Motion: Rábanos Olas Jacarandas Aleonarse
2025-11-12 15:00 - 17:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
with Nico Contreras, Sonia Bustos, and Priscilla Opazo Castillo

Rábanos Olas Jacarandas Aleonarse (2025, 10min) is an audiovisual collage born out of oral histories of migration, community, and the transformative power of art. Through blending interviews and choreographic exploration with Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal-based artists Sonia Bustos and Priscilla Opazo, the film shares interlinking reflections on political consciousness, navigating shifting identities across countries of origin and settlement, and engagement in processes of change. Glimpses of Chile, Mexico and Canada coexist in a shared space and time, in a moment of exchange between creative voices.
The film screening will be followed by a discussion with the creators.

Priscilla Opazo Castillo, an artist and educator from Chile, has lived in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal since 2017. A self-taught dancer currently training at the Nyata Nyata Centre, she weaves her path between popular education and artistic research. Her creative experience, collective and multidisciplinary, is rooted in an identity fragmented by colonization, exile, and violence, yet rises in resonance with other marginalized voices. A committed feminist, she envisions art as a living territory of resistance, healing, and memory, where movement frees bodies, rekindles their connection to the earth, and nurtures a shared collective consciousness.

Choreographer and performer born in Mexico and now based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal), Sonia Bustos is interested in socio-political engagement and the recognition of performers’ creative work. Her artistic research focuses on feminist perspectives, the Tercera Raíz in Latin America, memory, theatricality, and the relationship with the audience. Pillars of her artistic process include varied bodily states, the use of voice/text, the presence of memory-bearing objects, and non-danced body approaches. Sonia is the interpreter-creator of stage works Intérieur brut, Je ne vais pas inonder la mer, Luz : Dentelle, Luz : Terre and Luz : Écho (in progress). She holds a Master’s degree in dance (UQÀM) and a Bachelor’s degree in theatre (UNAM).

Nico Contreras is an Ecuadorian Canadian interdisciplinary artist, social worker, and current doctoral student in Social and Cultural Analysis at Concordia University. A facilitator of reflection and dialogue through creative practice, he believes in the power of art to transform our conceptions of self and society. His most recent film SAN HEN, a love letter to Montréal’s Latinx community, premieres at the Toronto Latin American Film Festival 2025.

REGISTRATION
Register now
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (ALLLAB), COHDS
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Intimate Maquettes: Artistic Interventions in Post-Violence Contexts
2025-11-14 14:00 - 16:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Pablo Gershanik

“At the very moment your life changes forever, what other stories are taking place—on your street, in your neighborhood, in your city, in your country, across the map of the world?…
– Intimate Maquettes Lab”

The Intimate Maquettes Lab is a participatory artistic practice that explores how personal and collective memories of violence can be re-imagined and re-signified through small-scale narrative and audiovisual reconstruction. Developed over the past decade, the Lab engages individuals, families, and communities who have been protagonists of challenging experiences in a process of symbolic reconstruction, where symbolic cartographies of memory become a shared stage for testimony, reflection, and dialogue. Each participant creates a maquette in the interest of exploring the link between personal and collective history, giving form to images, memories, absent elements, mythologies, and desires. These maquettes act simultaneously as archive, witness, and metaphor, opening new pathways for public conversation about trauma, justice, and reparation. In this talk, I will share the conceptual framework of the Intimate Maquettes Lab, situating it within applied theatre, object-based performance, and trauma-informed artistic placemaking. I will also share aspects of my research motivated by key moments that have emerged throughout labs developed across Europe, North America, and Latin America, reflecting on the methodological and ethical challenges of working at the intersection of memory, art, and social repair.

Pablo Gershanik is an actor, clown, director, and academic whose work bridges visual theatre, memory, and justice. He trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (Paris), holds a Master’s degree in Dramatherapy from the University of Paris, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Arts at Concordia University (Montreal). He is a 2025 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar. Pablo is the creator of the Intimate Maquettes Lab, an artistic and trauma-informed intervention presented in museums, universities, and cultural institutions in North and Latin America, Europe and China.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
This is a hybrid event.
To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (ALLab), COHDS
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

How to Say ‘Longing’ - Cancelled
2025-11-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
with Jad Orphée Chami and Noël Vezina

Join us on Wednesday, November 19th, at 7 PM, at the ALLab, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, for How to say ‘longing’, a contemplative performance by movement artist Noël Vézina and composer Jad Orphée Chami.
This intimate exploration of dualities—music and movement, composition and improvisation, the said and the unsaid—delves into the boundaries of closeness, vulnerability, and technology. Using a MIDI controller, a chain of touch-sensitive sensors, the performers weave a digital soundscape that shifts with their physical interactions, crafting a dialogue of embodied listening.

Jad Orphée Chami is a Lebanese-Canadian artist-researcher, composer and performer born in Beirut and living in Montreal. He notably composed the original music for the feature film Antigone by Sophie Deraspe, which represented Canada at the 92nd Academy Awards. He was nominated at the age of 21 for the Iris prize for best original music at the 22nd Gala Québec Cinéma, notably alongside Jean-Michel Blais and Howard Shore. After having provided the soundtracks for more than fifteen short films and three web series, he composed his second film score in 2023 in collaboration with director Eli Jean Tahchi for the documentary Dorchester: In the Midst of the Fray, produced by Jonah Mallak (Nemesis Films).
In addition to his music work for the image, he composes and designs works for the contemporary scene, notably for the École de Danse Contemporaine de Montréal and for the Acts of Listening Lab in collaboration with the Center for Restorative Justice. He explores through research-creation the dialogue between music and oral history. In 2022, he is part of a trio of artists commissioned by the MAI for the realization of the work Justement (en)raciner on the theme of Justice, among others alongside Kimura Byol-Lemoine, Angelina Guo and Moe Clark. The same year, he presented with Noël Vézina the performance How to say ‘longing’, mixing dance-theatre, music and new technologies, at the RIPA performance evening. The testimonies of the disappeared from Lebanon are central to his approach. He is affiliated with the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and is developing his oral history performance Rhapsody for the disappeared.
He is also interested in contemporary issues of art and presents conferences on themes such as the question of the author, the ethics of research-creation and gender and sexuality in music history.

Noël Vezina is a queer, interdisciplinary, dance and movement artist based in Montreal (Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang). Largely self-taught, her process is highly intuitive and organic. Approaching performance as a tool to connect deeply, to herself and to others, her work often takes on ephemeral and intimate forms.
Noël’s latest accomplishments include: presenting Stardust and Parallax with Festival Quartiers Danses (2021), sharing a first version of a cloud, a distance (September 2020), creating We live together now – a video performance presented by Sanskar Festival (August 2020) and Festival Bouge D’ici (March 2021), performing 05062020live via Zoom for National AccessAbility Week with the DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada (June 2020), and her ongoing collaboration with A Safe Space, initiated by Nicholas Bellefleur in 2019. In February 2020 she hosted the first of many editions of 5×8/6 – a free-from experimental performance evening that takes place in her kitchen – where she premiered Soft Warm Light (an autobiographical solo piece in progress).
Noël is one sixth of the winning team of the 2021 Dansathon in Liège, recognized for their imagining of ‘the future of dance’ through a new interactive performance experience The
Living Room. They will continue questioning the place of technology in promoting embodiment soon, with the support of the Maison de la Danse de Lyon, Sadler’s Wells and the Théâtre de Liège.
Noël strives to be radically soft, honest and vulnerable. She values not-knowing and never perfecting. To be kind and loving is essential.

REGISTRATION
Register now
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (ALLLAB), COHDS
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Brown Bag Metting: Listening and Perspective-Taking
2025-11-20 12:30 - 14:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
This Brown Bag Meeting will be an informal, lunchtime conversation between Mireille Paquet (Concordia Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration; Director of IRMS) and Luis C. Sotelo Castro (Director of the Acts of Listening Lab, Department of Theatre, Concordia).
The session will explore the intersection of Perspective Taking and Active Listening, two frameworks that resonate strongly with the work of both IRMS and ALLab. Rather than a formal lecture, the gathering is designed as an open, reflective exchange, encouraging questions and dialogue from participants.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
This is a hybrid event.
To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.
For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in the ALLAB (LB-1042). You will find us on the tenth floor of Concordia’s Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec.
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

CONECTADAS: la doble vía de la escucha y del habla / Connected: The Two-way Path of Listening and Speaking
2025-11-21 11:00 - 12:30 | Concordia University LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
Held in Spanish with consecutive interpretation by Franklin R. Bonivento.
In this event Constanza Ramírez Molano ends her residency at the ALlab by presenting two interviews carried out with the method CONNECTED. This method proposes a journey from the intimate to the collective through narration, listening, and dialogue. It begins with mutual recognition between interviewer and interviewee, giving value to personal stories of care and attachment to life. Listening is understood as an act of hospitality and ethical responsibility, welcoming the other’s words without imposing prejudice. The testimonies, recorded in audio or video, become shared memory when brought into collective reflection, where the personal acquires common meaning and transformative power. Finally, the social circulation of these voices opens possibilities for new forms of citizenship and the construction of peace.
Creators of the method: Luz Marina Monzón, Hugo Andrés Rincón, and Constanza Ramírez.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
This is a hybrid event.
To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.
For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in the ALLAB (LB-1042). You will find us on the tenth floor of Concordia’s Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec.
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Immersive Oral History Capture: Setup, Recording, and Archiving
2025-11-26 14:00 - 17:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Frankie Ray

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn the essentials of setting up and recording oral history interviews with both video and audio. We will cover how to prepare a recording environment, assemble and test a recording rig, and troubleshoot common technical challenges. Beyond capturing the interview itself, participants will gain practical skills in file transfer, organization, and archival best practices, ensuring that valuable stories are safely preserved for long-term use. Participants will practice setting up tripods, microphones, and recorders, then conduct short mock interviews to apply these skills in real time. Cameras available to participants will be Sony FX6, Canon XA40, Blackmagic and JVC 3CCD. The session will conclude with a focus on safe file management: offloading to a computer, creating backups, and preparing files for the archive. No prior technical experience is required; this workshop is designed for anyone interested in documenting, preserving, and safeguarding oral history materials.

What we’ll do:
§ Why technical setup matters for oral history
§ Demonstrate a short 10-minute oral history video/audio project from our archives
§ Equipment set up: build camera & mics
§ File offload and management for editing
§ Best Practices in Archiving Audio- and Videofiles
§ Tear down gear and put it back safely

Perks:
§ Everyone gets to touch gear
§ Make a check list for oral history kit for everyone to take home

Frankie Ray is a Montreal-based videographer and DJ, with professional experience across music festivals, music videos, and film productions, including Netflix, HBO, the NFB and Crave. Trained as a certified 2nd Assistant Camera in ICG669/IATSE, Frankiebrings both technical expertise and creative insight to their work. Outside of their personal work, Frankiehas always put a focus on accessible, hands-on training. At COHDS, Frankie combines their professional background with a commitment to supporting researchers, artists, and storytellers in capturing and preserving stories with care and technical confidence.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
Register here.
This technical workshop has a maximum number of sixteen participants. To have your name added to our waiting list once this maximum number is reached, please contact: cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in the COHDS Media Lab (LB-1042).
You will find us on the tenth floor of Concordia’s Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec.
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Dancing Life Stories/Dancing Biographies/Forming the WE
2025-11-28 15:00 - 17:00 | Dance Studio, MB 7.265, 1600 Blvd De Maisonneuve West, Montreal, Quebec, H3H 1J5, Canada
With the DANC 202 Cohort: Charlotte Bisson, Nathaniel Cancela Edsell, Florence Cross, Homeyra Esmaeilzadeh, Leonardo Giraldo Rodriguez, Anaïs Girard, Elle Golfinopoulos, Sophie Groleau-Rouleau, Nasiriyah Hamilton, Joselande Josue, Adaline Kuranko, Camille Moon, Fredlyne Pierre, Pooya Ratnam, Amy Staples, Kaiya Thomas-Bynoe, and Cameron Weaver.

Join us for an afternoon of dance as students from the Department of Contemporary Dance bring embodied auto-biographical narratives to the Acts of Listening Lab. Such storytelling in motion – based on life history interviews that students conducted with one of their peers – constitutes what Christine Thurner once called “emphatically fragile, deliberately contingent narrative acts.” These gestural narratives break free of the frame of linear, literary (auto)biography. Seen in relation to one another they form a complex and rich society.

This event is based on students’ coursework in the Department of Contemporary Dance, who, under the guidance of Professor Lília Mestre, are exploring the possibilities of danced life narration, this time in a collective improvisation setting.

Please note that the event will take place in the Dance Studio (MB-7.265) of the Department of Contemporary Dance, 1600 Blvd. De Maisonneuve Ouest.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
Register here.
For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in the Dance Studio (MB-7.265) of the Department of Contemporary Dance, 1600 Blvd. De Maisonneuve Ouest.
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Exploring Diaspora Communities: Oral History, Storytelling, and Digital Mapping
2025-12-01 11:00 - 14:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
In June 2025, the University of Debrecen (Hungary) and Concordia University’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize our collaboration on a large-scale research oral history project that explores the memories and lived experiences of Hungarian Canadians in Montreal and beyond.

We are delighted to host a research showcase and storytelling panel to share early findings of the project, including an interactive map that brings to life the one-hundred-year-old history of Hungarians in Montreal. Featured speakers will include Dr. Balázs Venkovits (University of Debrecen) and Sonya Di Sclafani (Concordia University). We are honoured to welcome a panel of Hungarian-Canadian elders, who have graciously agreed to speak to their life histories and reflect on their memories of making Montreal home.

The event is organized in collaboration with the Hungarian Consulate in Montreal. It will take place at Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145) on Monday, December 1st (11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.), followed by a reception (12:30 p.m. – 14:00 p.m.). The Hungarian ambassador, His Excellency, Mr. Miklós Lengyel, will be in attendance.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register.
This is a hybrid event. To attend in person, please contact: invitation.mtr@mfa.gov.hu (As space is limited, in-person attendance is by invitation only.)
To attend online, please register here.
For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
The event takes place at Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation, J.W. McConnell Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. (LB-145).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Stories Matter 2.0: Working with COHDS’ (very own) Innovative Oral History Software
2025-12-05 13:00 - 15:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Kelann Currie-Williams
This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to using Stories Matter— a free, open-source oral history database software that allows for the archiving of digital video and audio materials, and enables oral historians to annotate, analyze, and evaluate audio and video recordings of interviews. First developed in 2010 at COHDS, this second iteration of the software known as Stories Matter 2.0. provides previous and new users the ability to recover old databases and create new workspaces for various oral history projects. Participants will be supported via guided walkthroughs and live demos on how to build their projects using a software that emphasizes orality and individual interviewees as central to the narration of stories.

Kelann Currie-Williams is a writer and PhD Candidate at Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, working at the intersections of Visual Culture Studies, History, Black Studies, and Cultural Studies. Their research focuses on the image-making and photographic preservation histories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Canada from the late 19th to late 20th centuries. Kelann was a 2023-2024 scholar-in-residence and 2024-2025 Student Representative at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

REGISTRATION
Register now.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory.
This technical workshop has a maximum number of sixteen participants. To have your name added to our waiting list once this maximum number is reached, please contact: cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person at the COHDS Media Lab (LB-1042).
You will find us on the tenth floor of Concordia’s Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec.

COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

LISTENING/RECORDING/REGISTERING
2026-01-14 17:30 - 19:00 | ALLab, J.W. McConnell (LB) Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. LB-1042-03 (10th floor)
With Nalini Mohabir

Take part in an active listening session with Nalini Mohabir, inspired by artist Joyce Joumaa’s SIGHTINGS 45 installation. Together we will listen to previously restricted audio excerpts from a 1969 rally in the Hall Building’s mezzanine at the outset of the Sir George Williams Affair. Mohabir, associate professor in Concordia’s Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment and co-editor of Fire That Time: Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation, will guide participants through the recording, attending to the voices and perspectives of its speakers while situating the material within a broader political moment and localized space. We will also reflect on the act of acute listening to institutional archives, and the implications for transcribing the past into the present.
Hosted in the immersive Acts of Listening Lab, the session will consider how we listen to and work with archive, sound, and modes of register. Please sign up in advance at the email address above.
This event is presented in conjunction with SIGHTINGS 45: POWER. FORWARD. REVERSE. REWIND., a project by Joyce Joumaa on view on the ground floor of the Hall Building until February 1st, 2026.

Nalini Mohabir is an associate professor in the department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at Concordia University. She teaches in the fields of feminist and postcolonial migration geographies, and her research is primarily in the field of Caribbean studies, with a focus on indentureship. She has published articles in various publications including Small Axe, Habitat International, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, and Interventions. She has been working with long-time collaborator Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), on a series of publications about the Sir George Williams “Affair” including the edited collection, The Fire That Time: Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation (Montreal: Black Rose, 2021), a special issue of Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (March 2022) on the legacies of the 1969 Sir George Williams student protests, and an upcoming anthology (with Ronald Cummings and Christiana Abraham) on the visualities of the protest.

REGISTRATION
To register, please contact: juliaeilers.smith@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (ALLab), COHDS COHDS/ALLab is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

COHDS Choir: Sounds of Home, Sounds of Elsewheres
2026-01-15 18:00 - 2026-04-23 20:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Sara Lucas
“Sounds of Home, Sounds of Elsewheres” is a community choir project led by Sara Lucas, open to COHDS members who want to sing together beyond their research. The repertoire will explore storytelling through song, focusing on how personal and community histories are shared and passed down.
The project embraces the idea that everyone can express themselves through sound and movement, using an inclusive approach to developing natural voices. Songs will be learned mainly by ear, so no singing or music-reading experience is required. Rehearsals will emphasize breathwork, harmony, and unison singing, encouraging diverse forms of expression and joy. The group will work toward a performance for COHDS’ 20th anniversary in October 2026, with participation encouraged but not mandatory.
Sara Lucas is a composer-performer and vocalist with twenty years of ensemble experience. She has toured internationally with Callers and LADAMA, produced multiple albums, and taught community-based music programs worldwide. More at: https://www.saralucas.net/
We will be meeting from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on the following dates:
January
Thursday, January 15 Thursday, January 29

February
Thursday, February 12 Thursday, February 26

March
Thursday, March 12 Thursday, March 26

April
Thursday, April 9 Thursday, April 23
If you’re interested in participating, please reach out to Sara Lucas at: sara.lucas@mail.concordia.ca

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom) and LB-1042 (Acts of Listening Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Deep Listening to Life Stories
2026-01-22 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Steven High
The workshop will invite you to engage deeply with a videotaped interview of a Rwandan genocide survivor recorded as part of the Montreal Life Stories project. We will explore different ways of interpreting an interview recording and transcription including narrative analysis, life course visualization, analysis of emotion, etc.  We will send the interview link to those registered ten days before the workshop. It is essential that everyone attending listen to the interview and take some notes for reference.
Steven High is Professor of History and has published extensively in oral history. He co-founded Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) and led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories project from 2005 until 2012, where he worked in close partnership with survivor groups, which recorded the life stories of 500 survivors of mass violence, as well as the Living Archives of Rwandan Exiles and Survivors.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Please note: All those registered will need to be provided with the following link upon registration for this workshop and no later than Monday, January 12:
Interview with Valerie Fernandez
REFUGEE YOUTH WORKING GROUP
https://vimeo.com/showcase/11167762
Password: [REDACTED]

Screening of Hommes-relais, Becoming Ruby and Red Girl Rising
2026-01-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Vladimir Chindea and HotDocs

We are pleased to present, in collaboration with HotDocs, three Citizen Minutes documentaries: Hommes-relais, Becoming Ruby, and Red Girl Rising. Each of these films runs approximately ten minutes and speaks directly to COHDS’s core values of inclusion, resilience, solidarity, and hope. Together, they are sure to captivate viewers and evoke powerful emotional engagement.
Hommes-relais explores experiences of grief and adaptation within the Quebec immigration process, following a group of men who meet regularly to share their stories and develop tools to navigate life in a new home.
Becoming Ruby follows Ruby Chopstix, Canada’s first drag artist-in-residence, as they confront the challenges of underrepresentation and create a showcase that opens space for other queer BIPOC performers.
Finally, Red Girl Rising highlights the work of Mohawk matriarch, retired teacher, activist, and humanitarian Joyce Jonathan Crone, whose compassionate efforts in her Huntsville, Ontario community help bridge divides and strengthen Indigenous education.
Following the screening, we are honoured to host a roundtable discussion with Vladimir Chindea, director of Hommes-relais.

Vladimir Chindea is a Romanian-Canadian filmmaker currently completing the MFA in Cinematic Arts at Concordia University. His work explores themes of migration, memory, and existential inquiry. He directed/produced the short film Remember (2022) and regularly collaborates on both narrative and non-fiction projects as an assistant director. Vladimir holds a BA (Honours) in Philosophy and International Relations from the University of British Columbia. Trained as an ‘Homme-relais’ himself, it was the light of the CRIC community and the felt inspiration from Juan Manuel that guided him to direct this documentary debut.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (Acts of Listening Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Cooking with COHDS: Molisan Winter Remedies
2026-01-30 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
With Cassandra Marsillo

This workshop will centre on making two different types of pasta shapes and accompanying recipes typical to Molise, a small region in Southern Italy with a big, historic presence in Montreal. Cavatelli and taccozze are integral parts of Molisan winter remedies. The recipes used for this workshop were collected through oral history interviews with community members for the cookbook Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage.
Cavatelli are the perfect pasta for hearty sauces to get you through the winter. Their shape allows them to hold a lot of sauce in their ridges and grooves. Taccozze are the typical pasta used to make scattone, a very particular dish that is said to cure all ailments. Participants will make enough for 2 portions of cavatelli and taccozze each. As we shape the pasta, participants will listen to the stories of these dishes from the original oral history interviews (in Italian). Additional historical information, final recipes, and translation will be provided.
Finally, as winter is the perfect time for storytelling over a steaming hot bowl of something delicious, participants will be invited to share stories of their own winter remedies of all kinds!

Cassandra Marsillo is public historian, artist, and educator, based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), telling and listening to stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore, particularly in relation to the Italian-Canadian experience and traditions from her family’s region, Molise.
Currently a doctoral student at Concordia University, Cassandra graduated twice from Concordia University with a BFA in Studio Arts and an Italian minor, and a BA in Honours Public History. In 2019, she completed her Master in Public History at Carleton University, Her research project, The Yellow Line: Italo-Canadian Oral Histories from Montreal’s Backyards and Schoolyards, was an archival photo, installation, and oral history pop-up exhibit, presented at the Casa d’Italia in March 2019.
Her latest project is an oral history cookbook on the stories and recipes of Montreal’s molisani, Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage, which she completed in collaboration with the Federazione delle associazioni molisane del Quebec, photographer and artist Vee Di Gregorio, chef Joseph D’Alleva, and pastry chef Erica Marsillo.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
As part of our exploration of Molisan foodways and oral histories, we will be preparing and eating a small meal together. Given space constraints, we need to limit the number of participants to sixteen. We will purchase food items based on the number of registered attendees. Should you be unable to attend, may we ask that you let us know at least one week in advance? We’d then be able to calibrate our food purchases accordingly and/or offer your spot to a participant on the waiting list.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at “The SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation,” LB-145, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Interpreting the Underlying Dynamic in Oral History
2026-02-05 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Steven High
This workshop will introduce you to ways of interpreting the underlying interviewer-interviewee dynamic that structures the oral history recording. It is an interview after all. Yet we tend to be so focused on the words spoken by our interview partners that we submerge the underlying dialogic that is its structuring force.
Steven High is an award-winning historian whose research on the structural violence of deindustrialization has put Canada at the centre of important global conversations about what a “just transition” might look like after past failures. His use of oral history ensures that his interpretation is grounded in the lives of working people. He is currently leading a large transnational project investigating the politics of deindustrialization (see the website: deindustrialization.org). He has published many books and articles on this topic, including Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class (2022) and Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt (2003).
His second area of expertise involves the methodology, theory and ethics of oral history, particularly as it relates to mass violence. Steven High co-founded Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) and led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories project from 2005 until 2012, where he worked in close partnership with survivor groups.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Working with Communities: A Conversation on Navigating Relationships
2026-02-06 13:00 - 15:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
Photo description: Marjorie Villefranche in a collective oral history interview at La Maison d’Haïti

With Philippe Blouin, Michael Ferguson, Cassandra Marsillo, Tesfa Peterson, Léa Denieul Pinsky, and Désirée Rochat

This conversation explores a central topic: How do oral historians navigate the web of relationships that tie them to the community they are working with?
Over many years, the six panelists have worked closely with the Mohawk Mothers and Duplessis Orphans (Philippe Blouin & Léa Denieul Pinsky); a Lebanese community in Leamington, Ontario that has maintained deep connection to its homeland (Michael Ferguson); Molisan Italian-Canadians in Montreal, who are telling stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore (Cassandra Marsillo); the Institute for People’s Enlightenment in the Grenadian village of LaDigue that cultivates inclusive and intergenerational spaces for learning (Tesfa Peterson); and Black communities in Quebec whose knowledge activism has generated practices of community archiving and popular pedagogy.
Some of the panelists are members of the communities they study; others have been welcomed into the community. Yet, for all panelists, relationality lies at the core of their commitment to non-extractivist research. Their research affords an extended contemplation of the principle of “Shared Authority,” so foundational to our work at COHDS. In essence, they write, we are reflecting on what we are doing to try and “make oral history a more democratic cultural practice.” (Zembrzycki, 2009)
By attempting to tell complex and layered histories that centre knowledge generated by and with communities, researchers develop multi-faceted ways to work collaboratively. In this conversation, we will reflect on experiences of working in community toward a shared goal – to shed light on history. The discussion will centre around five questions:

𖥔 How do we reaffirm ongoing commitments as projects evolve?
𖥔 How do we manage different temporalities and rhythms due to the multiplicity of actors involved?
𖥔 What kind of challenges emerge from sharing authority?
𖥔 How are positionality and relationality negotiated?
𖥔 How do we protect vulnerable community members from other forms of extractivism?

These questions will act as a springboard into a broader conversation with the audience. This conversation will be moderated by Barbara Lorenzkowski.

Philippe Blouin (he/him) is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. As part of his doctoral research in anthropology at McGill University, he studied the role of the Two Row Wampum as a diplomatic protocol based on respect for difference in the Mohawk Mothers’ and Duplessis Orphans’ searches for unmarked graves. He coordinated the publication of the oral history book, The Mohawk Warrior Society: A Handbook on Sovereignty and Survival (2023 PM Press) and published articles in journals such as The South Atlantic Quarterly and PoLAR: Political, and Legal Anthropology Review.
Michael Ferguson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Concordia University. His research focuses on the history of migration and slavery in the Ottoman Empire, the modern Middle East, and its diasporas. He has worked with two different communities on oral history projects: Afro-Turks (who trace their history through enslavement) in the Turkish port city of Izmir and a Lebanese community in Leamington, Ontario.
Cassandra Marsillo is an oral and public historian, artist, and writer, based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), telling and listening to stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore, particularly in relation to the Italian-Canadian experience and traditions from her family’s region, Molise. In 2019, she completed her Master’s project–The Yellow Line: Italo-Canadian Oral Histories from Montreal’s Backyards and Schoolyards–in Public History at Carleton University. The project culminated in an exhibit co-curated with the project’s six narrators. She is the author of Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage, a community project done in collaboration with the Federazione delle associazioni molisane del Quebec. Currently, she teaches in the Department of History at Dawson College and is pursuing her PhD at Concordia University on the development of Italian-Canadian cuisine and food identity in Montreal.
Tesfa Aki Peterson is a public humanities researcher and community-based scholar whose work centers Caribbean history, feminist postcolonial thought, and participatory storytelling. As a student in the PhD Humanities program at Concordia University, her current project traces the life and legacy of Helen Louise Langdon Norton Little, a woman born in LaDigue, Grenada in the late nineteenth century, whose life connected Grenada, Montreal, and the American Midwest. Helen Little was active in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Montreal and was the mother of eight children, including civil rights leader Malcolm X. Grounded in community knowledge and Caribbean feminist and postcolonial perspectives, her work asks how public humanities can preserve and honor lives that have been marginalized by colonial archives, while creating inclusive, intergenerational spaces for learning in both Grenada and the diaspora. Since 2020, she has collaborated with the Institute for People’s Enlightenment in the Grenadian village of LaDigue to organize lectures, storytelling sessions, and public conversations that center local voices and oral histories. Additionally, the project also extends to Montreal through an oral history and ritual storytelling podcast documenting Grenadian women’s community organizing. Across storybooks, podcasts, workshops, and public events, Tesfa’s work models a decolonial public humanities rooted in care, collaboration, and community memory.
Léa Denieul Pinsky is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). Working collaboratively with artists, community leaders, and activists, she conducts research on place, memory, and indigenous-settler alliances. Her current postdoctoral projects, carried out with the Mohawk Mothers and the Duplessis orphans, aim to develop community-centred memory work and ethics of care as tools for repairing urban sites marked by state-perpetrated violence.
Désirée Rochat is a community educator, transdisciplinary scholar, and Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Concordia University. She works to document and transmit histories of Black communities’ activism in Quebec in the 20th century, with a focus on knowledge activism. Her collaborative approach bridges historical research, community archiving and popular pedagogy to preserve and promote Black community archives. She co-edited Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper, with historians Sean Mills et Eric Fillion. Her latest project, “Black lives in/and archives” fosters an archival ecosystem to cultivate archives of Black lives.
Barbara Lorenzkowski is an oral historian of childhood and youth whose work explores the ways in which global processes of migration, displacement, and violence have shaped small people’s lives in outsized ways. She recently published the co-edited anthology Small Stories of War: Children, Youth, and Conflict in Canada and Beyond (with Kristine Alexander and Andrew Burt, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023) and is currently completing a FQRSC-funded book project The Children’s War, a large-scale oral history project on children’s sensuous and emotional life-worlds in Atlantic Canada during the Second World War. Dr. Lorenzkowski is the Lead Co-Director of COHDS.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
This is a hybrid event.
To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.

LOCATION
The round-table conversation will take place in our Sunroom (LB-1019) , Concordia University, Library Building, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W.
For any questions regarding this event please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Capturing Voices: Recording Audio for History
2026-02-13 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Frankie Ray

This workshop provides a hands-on introduction to the principles and practices of recording high-quality audio in a range of real-world contexts. Participants will gain practical experience setting up and working with multiple microphone types, including lavaliers, shotgun microphones, podcasting microphones, and built-in camera audio systems. Through guided demonstrations and exercises, the workshop examines how microphone selection, placement, and recording environment shape the clarity, texture, and intelligibility of recorded sound.
Participants will practice recording in both indoor and outdoor settings, rotating between the roles of recorder and speaker while capturing short audio samples across varied acoustic conditions. Emphasis is placed on critical listening as a methodological skill. The workshop also introduces basic audio workflows, including offloading recordings, performing foundational edits using Audacity, and organizing audio files for long-term storage and archival preservation.
Framed around the documentation of oral histories, this session equips participants with practical and transferable skills for recording clear, durable, and ethically sound audio materials. No prior technical experience is required.

Frankie Ray (they/them) is a Montreal-based videographer and DJ, with professional experience across music festivals, music videos, and film productions, including Netflix, HBO, the NFB and Crave. Trained as a certified 2nd Assistant Camera in ICG669/IATSE, Frankie brings both technical expertise and creative insight to their work. Outside of their personal work, Frankie has always put a focus on accessible, hands-on training. At COHDS, Frankie combines their professional background with a commitment to supporting researchers, artists, and storytellers in capturing and preserving stories with care and technical confidence.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom) and LB-1042 (Media Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Where Is the Joy in Oral History? 13th Emerging Scholars Symposium on Oral History, Digital Storytelling & Creative Practice
2026-03-20 08:30 - 17:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
COHDS is delighted to invite you to the 13th Emerging Scholars Symposium, a one-day, in-person event bringing together emerging scholars, artists, and community practitioners working in oral history, digital storytelling, and creative research.
This year’s symposium asks: Where is the joy in oral history? exploring joy as an emotional, political, and creative force in storytelling and oral history. At a moment often shaped by narratives of loss and crisis, the symposium creates space to listen for joy: in voice, memory, performance, ritual, and everyday exchange, without denying complexity or struggle.
Over the course of a day-long of activities, this event will feature conversations, short presentations, research-creation projects, and creative works by emerging scholars and artists, followed by discussion and collective reflection. Presentations will be in English and French.
All are welcome: students, researchers, artists, community members, and anyone interested in oral history and creative practice.
The Emerging Scholars Symposium is the highlight of the year, so we are looking forward to welcoming you!

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For more information, contact: cohds.chorn.symposium@gmail.com

LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

The River That is Not: Teaching Oral History and Photography through Fieldwork
2026-03-24 13:30 - 15:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Lea Kabiljo
This event marks the opening of The river that is not, an exhibition presenting a research project developed in collaboration with students from the visual arts program at the Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí, Ecuador, and presented at COHDS from March 9 to April 20.

Developed as a short-term teaching intervention, the project introduced students to an oral history and photography methodology through fieldwork conducted in residential areas surrounding the contaminated waters of the Río Burro and Río Manta in Manta, Ecuador. Students worked with residents who shared personal accounts related to environmental conditions, urban infrastructure, and long-term lived experience in the area.
The exhibition brings together selected photographic works and interview excerpts from the students’ fieldwork, alongside documentation reflecting their experience of engaging with oral history and photography as a research methodology in a community context. The opening talk will focus on the pedagogical dimensions of the project, with particular attention to the challenges and possibilities of leading field-based work with students.
Project collaborators: Alisson Aguayo, Solange Arteaga, Cristina Basurto, Fernanda Candela, Dayton Cantos, Eduarda Caviedes, Vivian Cedeño, Rody Chiang, Josue Chinga, Joshian Defaz, Hanna Ferrin, Erick Loor, Casimiro Loor, Luís López, John Mera, Kayla Moreira, Jose Pin, Jean-Paul Plua, Emily Quiroz, Yaritza Rodriguez, Jose Sanchez, Brithanny Santana, Sulady Seme, Camily Torres, Pedro Villamil, Kiara Villegas, Nikole Zambrano and Damian Sinchi (instructor)

Lea Kabiljo is an assistant professor of art education at Université Laval and a multidisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of arts, education, and oral history. Her research focuses on integrating photography and oral history as a research-creation methodology and examining the pedagogical potential of this approach.

The artist talk (13:30-14:00) will be followed by a Q & A (14:00-14:20), both of which will be held in the Sunroom. Afterwards, we will wander over to the Media Lab for the exhibit launch. Light refreshments will be served.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom) and LB-1042 (Media Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Symposium Channels of Testimony: Artistic Mediations of Listening
2026-03-27 14:00 - 16:00
How does art channel and reshape the way we listen to lived experience?
Join Amy Starecheski, Director of Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts, and Luis C. Sotelo, Director of Concordia University’s Acts of Listening Lab (ALLab), for a conversation with three artist–scholar teams funded by ALLab to explore bold new pathways for mediating testimony through creative practice. This symposium brings together innovative practitioners working at the intersection of oral history, performance, sound, and socially engaged art. Together, we’ll delve into the practical and theoretical challenges of transforming real-life stories into artistic forms

Speakers and Projects
T Braun and Franklin van Grieken
Sentir la Luz/Sense the Light
A research-creation project that investigates how digital mediation and virtual reality, sound, and light reshapes perception and listening in a group of people with visual impairment. This project is carried out in collaboration with Kim Sawchuk, Kara Paul, and Teatro Ciego.

Vanessa Terán and María Fernanda del Real
Sucúa Haven
Migrant Stories: Embodied Listening Lab
Inspired by Sucúa Haven, a collection of migration stories created with Ecuadorian in Connecticut (United States), a group of Latin diaspora participants in Montreal (Canada), as well as Ecuadorians and other Latin American immigrants in Quito (Ecuador), will reflect on their own migratory experiences and create performances of embodied testimonies that places Sucúa Haven stories in dialogue with their own.

Peng Hsu
Cucumbers, The Melancholy of a Turtle and a Girl’s Otaku’s Romance
A novel/play creative project that explores BBR. BBR, short for Broke Broke Recitation, is my translation of the Mandarin term 碎碎唸 (siu siu nian), a phrase commonly used in Taiwan and China to describe how women chatter incessantly about daily and seemingly banal trivialities. Theorized here as a technique of queer narration, BBR functions as a dramaturgical writing style through which the project examines housing justice, an endangered turtle, and the inarticulable experiences of constipation and yearning of romance.

Moderator
Luis C. Sotelo Castro
Director, Acts of Listening Lab (Concordia University)
Discussant
Amy Starecheski
Director, Oral History Master of Arts Program (Columbia University)

REGISTRATION

This is a hybrid event.
Register in person with this link

Register for zoom with this link

LOCATION
In-person at the 4TH SPACE, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Cooking With COHDS: Cantos y Coco – Preparing Alegría to the songs of Palenqueras
2026-03-30 14:00 - 16:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
With Hannah Pinilla

In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore the intersections of storytelling, music, and cooking through the preparation of alegría, a traditional coconut and panela sweet closely associated with Afro-Colombian palenqueras in Cartagena. Rooted in the history of San Basilio de Palenque—the first free Black town in the Americas—alegría is more than a confection; it is a symbol of resistance, memory, and cultural continuity. The workshop will unfold to the sounds of traditional cantos de venta and bullerengue rhythms, echoing the melodic street calls through which palenqueras sell their sweets in Cartagena’s plazas. Guided through the key steps of grating coconut, cooking panela to the perfect caramel point, and shaping the mixture into compact rounds, participants will explore the vital role of Palenqueras in shaping the music, culinary traditions, and cultural memory of the Colombian Caribbean.
Over alegría and limonada de coco, participants will reflect on the storytelling relationship between cooking and music—how songs, sounds, and shared rhythms shape the ways we remember and retell food traditions.

Hannah Pinilla is an oral historian and holds a MA in public history with a specialization in digital humanities at Carleton University. Her SSHRC-funded master’s research project, “El Sabor del Hogar: The Transformation of Identity and Memory Through the Food Practices of Colombian Migrants in Quebec,” engaged nine Colombian migrants, living in Montreal and Longueuil in oral history interviews facilitated through cooking sessions, to explore how the narration, preparation, and consumption of ‘home foods’ is a form of embodied and interactive diasporic memory work. Her research question were guided by her own lived experiences as the granddaughter of a first-generation Colombian-Canadian: how does the dialectical relationship between identity and memory manifest through food practice and what impact does it have on the process of home-building?

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
As part of our exploration of Columbian foodways and oral histories, we will be preparing and eating a small meal together. Given space constraints, we need to limit the number of participants to fifteen. We will purchase food items based on the number of registered attendees. Should you be unable to attend, may we ask that you let us know at least one week in advance? We’d then be able to calibrate our food purchases accordingly and/or offer your spot to a participant on the waiting list.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at “The SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation,” LB-145, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Faire parler les sons de la ville. Réflexions sur les ambiances et les paysages sonores en tant que récits géographiques
2026-04-01 13:00 - 15:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Violaine Jolivet

What story (city) sounds tell us? Reflections on ambiances and soundscapes as geographical narratives
This research presentation aims to show how the sounds produced and perceived by individuals and groups can be understood as possible narratives about the places we inhabit and study. Based on interviews conducted as part of my research in urban geography, I consider ambiences or soundscapes as narratives about territories, allowing for a descriptive and analytical approach to the neighborhoods and cities I study. Whether produced, designed, or experienced, sounds depend on our architectural, social, aesthetic, political, and technical environments, but above all on our sensory experience of space.

Violaine Jolivet has been a professor of geography at the University of Montreal since 2012, after obtaining a PhD from Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne 1 and completing postdoctoral studies in New York (CUNY). Her expertise lies at the intersection of urban and migration studies, using comparative methods. Her research focuses on transnational mobility, gentrification, and resistance to displacement in Havana and Montreal.
Documentaries – video and audio, sound maps, narrative cartography, and hybrid methodologies strongly influence her research.Looking on several of my past and ongoing research projects, she would like to discuss how sounds have influenced her practice and methods, particularly field recording and sound maps, and present some more general reflections on sounds as narratives.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Montreal Book Launch of Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare
2026-04-10 13:00 - 15:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Julie Norman

In this urgent and compelling book, Julie M. Norman and Maia Carter Hallward tell the story of Gaza from its early foundations, across decades of occupation, to the devastation of the ongoing war. Rather than focusing on elites or abstract politics, at the book’s heart are ordinary Gazans – students, aid workers, journalists, and teachers – whose first-hand testimonies vividly illuminate the realities behind the headlines.
Refusing to sensationalize or oversimplify, the book reckons with the legal, moral, and humanitarian debates surrounding Gaza, from war crimes investigations to the contested meaning of resistance and the politicization of aid. Combining a nuanced narrative with hard-hitting reflections from everyday Gazans, the book serves as a timely and necessary disruption of media cliches and political binaries, and from the perspectives of its own people.

Julie Norman is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at University College London and Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at the Royal United Services Institute. Previously she taught in the Political Science Department at
Concordia University and served as Co-Director of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

COHDS Postdoctoral Oral History Showcase: A Roundtable
2026-04-15 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Martín Giraldo-Hoyos, Camille Robert, Florence Darveau Routhier

This year, we are proud to highlight three outstanding postdoctoral researchers at COHDS and to showcase their work. Together, their projects reflect the breadth and vitality of oral history–informed scholarship: from collaborative research with Black farming communities in Colombia using oral history and digital storytelling, to historical studies of women, labour, and feminist movements in Quebec, and place-based, creative ethnographic research on poverty and gentrification in Sherbrooke.

Martín Giraldo-Hoyos is an FRQ-SC postdoctoral fellow in Concordia’s Department of Geography, Planning and Environment. His current project examines the intersections of oral history, soundscape ecology, story mapping, and digital storytelling to support collaborative research with Black farming communities in Colombia’s Cauca River Valley. This work builds on his PhD dissertation at McGill University, which analyzed the environmental history of emancipation in the region between mid-19th and early-20th centuries through geospatial methods, political ecology, and social history. Martín also produces documentary podcasts in collaboration with Afro-Colombian organizations and participates in grassroots archival cataloguing initiatives.

Camille Robert is a historian and postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University. Her research focuses on the history of women, work, unionism, and feminist movements in Quebec. In 2017, she published Toutes les femmes sont d’abord ménagères. Histoire d’un combat féministe pour la reconnaissance du travail ménager with Éditions Somme toute. She also co-edited, with Louise Toupin, the collective work Travail invisible. Portraits d’une lutte féministe inachevée, published in the fall of 2018 by Éditions du remue-ménage. Committed to contributing to the dissemination of history, she is a member of the editorial board of Histoire Engagée and collaborates with several media outlets and organizations.

Florence Darveau Routhier conducts her research in the Alexandre district of downtown Sherbrooke, a working-class neighborhood where revitalization initiatives are part of the ongoing gentrification process. Her place-based research aims to deconstruct the managerial perspective that approaches poverty and related issues “from the top down.” She therefore addresses the issues of poverty and the historical struggles associated with it as closely as possible, examining how they are experienced, using creative ethnographic methods and situated perspective epistemologies. She is a member of the Collectif d’histoire, d’éducation et d’archivage populaire de Sherbrooke (CHEAP), with which she conducts her research.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory.

LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Ethics in Research: How to Apply for Ethics Certification
2026-04-17 14:00 - 16:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Barbara Lorenzkowski, Tesfa Peterson, Franklin Bonivento Van Grieken and Derek Xavier Garcia
To obtain the informed consent of our research participants is both an ethical and institutional obligation for oral historians working at Canadian universities. This workshop seeks to demystify the process of applying for ethics certification. Three emerging scholars will reflect on their experiences in navigating this process and discuss how they have translated the ethos of “sharing authority” into the formal language of their ethics applications. Meanwhile, Lead Co-Director Barbara Lorenzkowski will provide hands-on guidance on how to prepare an ethics application for your own thesis research at Concordia. Registered participants will be provided with examples of successful ethics applications, including consent forms.
Barbara Lorenzkowski is an oral historian of childhood and youth whose work explores the ways in which global processes of migration, displacement, and violence have shaped small people’s lives in outsized ways. She recently published the co-edited anthology Small Stories of War: Children, Youth, and Conflict in Canada and Beyond (with Kristine Alexander and Andrew Burt, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023) and is currently completing a FQRSC-funded book project The Children’s War, a large-scale oral history project on children’s sensuous and emotional life-worlds in Atlantic Canada during the Second World War. Dr. Lorenzkowski is the Lead Co-Director of COHDS.
Tesfa Aki Peterson is a public humanities researcher and community-based scholar whose work centers Caribbean history, feminist postcolonial thought, and participatory storytelling. As a student in the PhD Humanities program at Concordia University, her current project traces the life and legacy of Helen Louise Langdon Norton Little, a woman born in LaDigue, Grenada in the late nineteenth century, whose life connected Grenada, Montreal, and the American Midwest. Helen Little was active in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Montreal and was the mother of eight children, including civil rights leader Malcolm X. Grounded in community knowledge and Caribbean feminist and postcolonial perspectives, her work asks how public humanities can preserve and honor lives that have been marginalized by colonial archives, while creating inclusive, intergenerational spaces for learning in both Grenada and the diaspora. Since 2020, she has collaborated with the Institute for People’s Enlightenment in the Grenadian village of LaDigue to organize lectures, storytelling sessions, and public conversations that center local voices and oral histories. Additionally, the project also extends to Montreal through an oral history and ritual storytelling podcast documenting Grenadian women’s community organizing. Across storybooks, podcasts, workshops, and public events, Tesfa’s work models a decolonial public humanities rooted in care, collaboration, and community memory.
Franklin Bonivento Van Grieken studied Anthropology (honor degree, 2019) and has a master’s degree in History (Cum Laude thesis, 2022) at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia. As a son, and grandson, of indigenous Wayuu women, and as a son of a Jewish man, his academic life has been focused on comprehending his own roots and finding ways to communicate them, as well as on Caribbean history, Wayuu people cosmovision, oralities, migrations, frontiers, and musicology. In that respect, he has explored different formats such as essays, creative narratives, and since 2015 he has been engaged in radio broadcasting and podcasting. This experience of creation has served as a form to make and show research: exploring the sound-essays, radio-documentaries, podcasting, among others. He has worked, too, in museography, writing books, fieldwork, and has always considered interdisciplinary work more of a conviction than an option, jumping between the boundaries of disciplines to have big conversations and to find methods and techniques to apprehend our reality, therefore finding new questions, new responses, and new audiences.
Derek Xavier Garcia is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Concordia University, Montréal, and a 2025–2026 Scholar-in-Residence at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He was previously a 2023–2024 Mellon Foundation Resident Scholar in Latino Studies at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His research falls at the intersections of the culture, memory, and history of Mexican American activist movements, particularly at the first Mexican American college in the United States, Colegio Jacinto Treviño (1969-1976). He has published in American Quarterly and Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Introduction à l’histoire orale
2026-04-20 15:00 - 17:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
Avec Lea Kabiljo
Cet atelier vous permettra d’explorer certains des éléments fondamentaux dans le domaine interdisciplinaire de l’histoire orale. Les participants découvriront une approche aux entretiens spécifique à l’histoire orale, l’éthique de la recherche et les nombreuses façons dont les histoires orales sont partagées avec le public. Cet atelier est fortement recommandé à tous nos nouvelles.eaux affilié.e.s, car il a pour but de présenter la méthodologie et l’éthique suivies par notre Centre.
Cet atelier offre des conseils sur la réalisation d’un projet d’histoire orale du début à la fin, y compris la planification du projet, les méthodes d’entretien, la gestion des données et le traitement des dossiers, ainsi que la diffusion de ceux-ci. L’atelier comprend également des moments interactif qui permettront aux participant.e.s de discuter des concepts clés et de mettre en pratique les stratégies d’entretien.

Lea Kabiljo, professeur à l’École d’art, Université Laval, est une chercheuse multidisciplinaire, dont l’expertise s’étend aux domaines des arts, de la pédagogie et de l’histoire orale. Elle porte un intérêt particulier à l’intégration de la photographie et de l’histoire orale dans sa démarche de recherche-création.
Titulaire d’un doctorat en éducation artistique de l’Université Concordia, sa recherche met en évidence une approche multidisciplinaire en examinant le potentiel pédagogique de l’histoire orale et de la photographie dans le domaine de l’enseignement artistique.
Ayant enseigné dans des milieux scolaires, communautaires et universitaires, Lea s’intéresse activement à la formation des enseignants, avec un accent particulier sur le développement des compétences socio-émotionnelles. Également reconnue pour son expertise en histoire orale, elle a dirigé de nombreux projets de recherche au Québec, ainsi que des initiatives d’envergure internationale.
Quadrilingue, ayant voyagé dans plus de trente pays et vécu sur quatre continents, Lea a développé une vision du monde ancrée dans les valeurs d’équité, de diversité et d’inclusion. Elle cherche constamment à appliquer ces principes dans toutes ses démarches, tant professionnelles que personnelles.

INSCRIPTION
Inscrivez-vous ici.
Veuillez noter que tous nos événements sont gratuits et ouverts à toutes et à tous. Cependant, vous devez réserver votre place. Pour participer à l’événement en présentiel évrivez à: cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LIEU
Le CHORN/ALLAB sont situés sur le territoire non-cédé de Kanien’kehá:ka à Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal.
En personne à LB-1019 (salle Sunroom), Centre d’histoire orale et de narration numérique (COHDS), Université Concordia, 1400 boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, pavillon J.-W. McConnell (pavillon de la Bibliothèque).

Personal Archives in the Interview Space
2026-04-30 14:00 - 16:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Kelann Currie-Williams and Derek Garcia

Much of oral history interview preparation rightly (and evidently) revolves around the audio and visual recording of the event. But what happens when the narrator brings their personal archives into the interview space?
Drawing from Monica Muñoz Martinez’s “vernacular history making,” personal archives are the objects—photos, drawings, notes, documents, digital creations—that individuals collect to preserve historical perspectives which may not be considered by institutional archives. This workshop envisions these moments of sharing as opportunities to learn with the narrator; despite the surprise they may bring.
How do you include these objects in the interview? How do you record their presence? How might a researcher design ethics around this possibility? Garcia and Currie-Williams will discuss their experiences interviewing individuals who brought more to the interview than what was expected, and how they effectively included these materials in their dialogue.

Kelann Currie-Williams is a writer and PhD Candidate at Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, working at the intersections of Visual Culture Studies, History, Black Studies, and Cultural Studies. Their research focuses on the image-making and photographic preservation histories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Canada from the late 19th to late 20th centuries. Kelann was a 2023-2024 scholar-in-residence and 2024-2025 Student Representative of the COHDS Administrative Board.
Derek Xavier Garcia is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Concordia University. His research falls at the intersections of culture, memory, and history of Mexican American and Chicanx activist movements. His dissertation explores educational activism at Colegio Jacinto Treviño (1970-1976), the first Mexican American college in the United States. Derek was a 2022-2023 Student Representative on the COHDS Administrative Board and is currently a 2025-2026 Scholar-in-Residence at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Cooking With COHDS: Palacsintá – Sharing Stories and Pancakes from the Hungarian Montreal Community
2026-05-01 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
With Sonya Di Sclafani

In Montreal’s Hungarian community, food is not only a reflection of stability, tradition, and assimilation, but also carries meanings of family, nostalgia, and joy. Palacsintá, a sweet or savory Hungarian crêpe, is a well-loved and easy dish that can be filled with jam, ground walnut purée, farmer’s cheese, cabbage, and meats. In this workshop we will learn to make palacsintá and create both a sweet and a savory filling. To accompany us, a member of the Hungarian diaspora in Montreal will be invited to share their recollections of palacsintá and other food practices of the community.
This workshop on foodways in the Hungarian diaspora forms part of my larger research project on the history of Hungarian-Canadian refugees and their descendants who made Montreal home in the mid-twentieth century. In my oral history fieldwork, I turn to women’s memories of foodways as a way of tracing the intergenerational, interethnic, and gendered dynamics of forced migration and homemaking by Hungarian Canadian women in the second half of the twentieth century. I hope that you can join us!

Sonya Di Sclafani is a MA student (History) at Concordia University, where she previously completed both a BFA in Photography and Art History and a BA Honours in History, with a minor in English Literature. She is interested in exploring experiences of migration, cross-cultural contact, East European history, and Jewish history. Her MA thesis examines the history of Montreal’s Hungarian diaspora, with a particular eye to gendered foodways and food as a means of cultural continuity and disruption. Drawing on newspaper and archival research, she has begun to map the culinary landscape of Hungarian restaurants and food speciality stores in Montreal that provided spaces for inter-ethnic encounters, fondly remembered in some of the oral history interviews she conducted to date.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
As part of our exploration of Hungarian foodways and oral histories, we will be preparing and eating a small meal together. Given space constraints, we need to limit the number of participants to fifteen. We will purchase food items based on the number of registered attendees. Should you be unable to attend, may we ask that you let us know at least one week in advance? We’d then be able to calibrate our food purchases accordingly and/or offer your spot to a participant on the waiting list.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at “The SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation,” LB-145, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Interpreting Oral History: A Masterclass with Alistair Thomson
2026-06-10 10:00 - 13:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Alistair Thomson

How do we make sense of the memories that we record as oral historians? How do we begin to transform stories into histories? In this workshop we’ll consider a range of ways of approaching the interpretation of memories. We’ll note the changing ways that researchers have used memory as a historical source. We’ll consider the factors that shape memory stories. We’ll try out narrative analysis with interview extracts (from Al’s interviews with migrants and war veterans) using the rich clues of sound, gesture, word and narrative form. We’ll think about how we might work with a set of interviews to find historical patterns and illuminate historical themes. And we’ll consider the ethical issues posed when we interpret people’s lives and stories. You’ll finish up brimming with ideas and enthusiasm for working with your own interviews (or other people’s interviews), armed with lists of further reading if you wish to deepen your understanding
Alistair Thomson has been teaching oral history since he ran an adult education interviewing workshop in regional Australia in 1985, and in 2018 received an Australian Award for University Teaching Excellence. Al is Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University and a former President of Oral History Australia and the International Oral History Association. His oral history books include: Anzac Memories (1994 and 2013), The Oral History Reader (1998, 2006 and 2015 with Rob Perks, and 2026, forthcoming with Alex Freund), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005, with Jim Hammerton), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011) Oral History and Photography (2011, with Alexander Freund) Australian Lives: An Aural History (2017, with Anisa Puri), Fathering: An Australian History (2025, with John Murphy, Kate Murphy and Johnny Bell), and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Oral History (2026, with Alexander Freund and Erin Jessee). Website: https://althomsonoralhistory.com.au/

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.
