About The PlaceDive Podcast

The PlaceDive Podcast brings attention to unloved urban spaces and brings untold urban stories into the light. We mix long-lost archival history with everyday people’s personal experiences to show a side of urban space you haven’t seen before. This first episode is about alleyways, and the Bishop/Mackay alleyway in Montréal in particular.

Future episodes will be about secretly wonderful underpasses, street corners, parking lots, bridges, and more! We’ll be focusing on spaces across Canada and looking for personal stories, so if you’ve got a story, let us know! If you have a passion for urban spaces, cities, story-telling and an interdisciplinary approach to art and design, check out our website www.placedive.com.

Team

José Alavez is a cultural geographer and cartographer. His work lies at the intersection between maps, arts, technologies and narratives. During his professional and academic career, he has explored how the use of life stories and cartography can help to explain the meanings associated with places and mobilities.

Mira Baba is a landscape architect and urbanist. Her interest is to elevate the human experience in urban spaces by drawing on the unique  specificities and stories of a landscape. By bridging design, creative technology and research, her aim is to create playful and experiential spaces that are in harmony with their surroundings.

Anja Novkovic is a place-based artist, storyteller, and cultural mapper. Her artwork focuses on the intersections between place, narrative, illustration, and cartography. She is interested in shining a light on the spaces, people, and narratives we normally ignore.