Dr Cynthia Imogen Hammond, PhD
Associate Professor, Art History
Lead Co-Director, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling
Biography Teaching activities Recent book Publications Conferences and presentations Studio art practice
| Office: |
S-EV 3769 Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex, 1515 St. Catherine W. |
| Phone: | (514) 848-2424 ext. 5171 |
| Email: | Cynthia.Hammond@concordia.ca |
| Website(s): |
Cynthia Hammond: art, projects, spatial practice The Right to the City City as Palimpsest 25 x 150: Women artists and architects film project, in collaboration with Atwater Library and the Canadian Women Artists History Initiative |
| Availability: |
Office hours during the spring and summer terms are by appointment only. |
Biography
Dr Cynthia Hammond was born in 1969 in Hamilton, Ontario. Her parents, new immigrants to Canada, were settler-colonials from New Zealand. Hammond first studied painting, sculpture, and art history at McMaster University in Hamilton, and went on to do her MA in Art History at Concordia, graduating in 1996. She then graduated from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in 2002 and had the honour of winning the Governor-General's Gold Medal for a doctoral dissertation in that year. After teaching at the University of Western Ontario and at Carleton University, Dr Hammond held the first SSHRC-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Architecture, McGill University from 2004-06. After being hired by Concordia's Department of Art History in 2006, she became Chair of that department from 2013-16. Dr Hammond is presently the lead Co-Director of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS).
Dr Hammond is passionate in her teaching, research, and art. She cares about feminist art and architectural history, interdisciplinary practice and method, and histories of the city. Dr Hammond is dedicated to thinking critically and creatively about the role of women, animals, and biological life in designed landscapes and the built environment, as well as questions of exclusion and access. Her publications have explored a wide range of topics, including architecture, installation art, and photography, as well as the politics of public history and the notion of collective heritage. Dr Hammond's work, whether as a historian or an artist, is always grounded in the specifics of a given place, or site - a method that she explores in her book, part of which may be downloaded here.
Dr Hammond's current solo exhibition, Abundant with Bloom: L'univers floral des femmes de la famille Colby, is on view at the Colby-Curtis Museum in Stanstead, Québec until 8 September, 2018. Her most recent group art exhibition, Safety Strategies, was held at Studio XX in February 2017 (Montréal). Dr Hammond also works with various creative collectives (pouf! art architecture, Urban Occupations Urbaines, Points de vue, LEAP, Waters Lost, Waters Found, Feminist City Light Capers) on workshops and art projects that connect current-day residents with Montreal's urban history, directly engaging them with the city's often controversial processes of development and change (see http://cynthiahammond.org).
Between 2014-16 Dr Hammond received three "Curriculum Innovation" awards for cross-disciplinary teaching initiatives at Concordia University in the postindustrial neighbourhood of Point-Saint-Charles. Working with colleagues in Oral History (Dr Steven High), Theatre (Dr Edward Little) and Art Education (Dr Kathleen Vaughan) Dr Hammond developed place-based, community-engaged learning that combined the study of urban morphology, life stories, and creative responses to the neighbourhood. In 2015 Dr Hammond was honoured with an Outstanding Contribution to Student Life award, and in 2017 she received the Faculty of Fine Arts Teaching Award. In 2018 she received SSHRC Partnership Engage funding to support a one-year creative collaboration with the Atwater Library, the Living History seniors group (co-applicant Shauna Janssen). The resulting two public artworks will mobilize oral history and place-based research and creation in an intergenerational exchange.
Research & Teaching Interests
History and theory of architecture, landscape architecture, and the city
Urban landscapes and cultural landscapes
Gender and space
Feminist and posthumanist theory
Research-creation and interdisciplinary practice
Community-engaged scholarship and creative work
Painting and drawing
Distinctions & Awards since 2015 (see CV for full list)
Faculty of Fine Arts Teaching Award, 2017
Outstanding Contribution to Student Life Award, 2015
Photo credit: Mark Clintberg, 2015
Photo credit: Susan Brandoli, 2017
Photo credit: © David Ward, 2015
Teaching activities
Selected undergraduate courses
DRAW 399/499 Drawing from Sites with Actions
ARTH 270 Icons of Architectural History
ARTH 355 Studies in Architecture: House/Home
ARTH 381 Feminism and Art History
ARTH 450 Advanced Seminar in the History of Architecture: space, experience, architecture
Graduate courses
ARTH 610 Selected Issues in North American Art and Architectural History: "Montreal: City as Palimpsest"
ARTH 627 Feminism, Art, Art History
ARTH 636 Seminar in Architectural History: Special topic: Public Urban Landscapes: The History and Future of Parks, Gardens and Sustainable Urbanism
ARTH 611 Industrialization and the Built Environment: The Right to the City
ARTH 803 Thematic Questions: 'And Say the Animal Responded?' The Posthumanist Challenge for Architecture, Art, and Landscape Studies
Thesis Supervision
PhD – supervisor
Angela Arsenault, PhD Humanities (in progress)
Shauna Janssen, PhD Humanities (2014), “Urban Occupations Urbaines: Curating the Post-Industrial Landscape”
Nuria Carton de Grammont Lara, PhD in Art History (2012), “Cartographie esthétique de la globalisation sous-développée à travers l'art contemporain mexicain, 1990-2012”
PhD – co-supervisor
(with Dr Nicholas Roquet) Camille Rajotte, PhD in Art History, Université de Montréal (in progress)
(with Dr Jean Bélisle) Ronald Portanier, PhD in Art History (in progress)
(with Dr Katherine Romba) Gabriel Cheung, PhD in Art History, Queen’s University (in progress)
MA – supervisor
Chanelle Lalonde, MA in Art History (in progress), “A Plastic Ocean: Visibility and Affect in Contemporary Art”
Gabrielle Doiron, MA in Art History, “Constructing a Canadian Children’s Paradise: Nationalism and Gender at Play in Cornelia Hahn Oberlander’s Expo 67 Playground”
Muriel Luderowski, MA in Art History, “Sound, Deindustrialization, and Gentrification: The Changing Aural Landscape of Point St-Charles”
Laura O’Brien, MA in Art History (2016), “Artful Vandals: Urban Interventions, Street Art, and Spatial Feminisms”
Isadora Chicoine-Marinier, MA in Art History (2016), “Symbiose au jardin (art, environnement et communauté) :Les Paradis de Granby de Catherine Bodmer au centre d’art 3e impérial”
Jean-Philippe McGurrin, MA in Art History (2013), “Lieux d'intersections primates: Le Fondation Fauna, Québec”
Marie-France Daigneault-Bouchard, MA in Art History (2013), “The Staging of a Megastructure, Expo 67: Manic-5”
Noni Brynjolson, MA in Art History (2012), “Crossing Communities the Question of New Genre Public Art”
Lindsay Cory, MA in Art History (2012), “AgoraPHILIA: A Place for Assembly in Square Viger, Montreal”
Louis Perreault, MA in the Individualized Interdisciplinary Program (2012), “Sur la trace du renard : récit d’une exploration photographique du site des anciennes Canadian Steel Foundries”
E. Kirkman, MA in Art History (2011), “Fashioning Identity: The Hostesses of Expo 67”
Johnny Nawracaj, MA in Art History (2011), “For a Radical Posterity: Feminist and Queer Archiving Practices in the CWAHI and Bildwechsel Projects”
Maya Soren, MA in Art History (2011), “Reclaiming Le 9e: Public Heritage at the Eaton's Ninth Floor Restaurant”
Danielle Lewis, MA in Art History (2010) “The Inflatable Art-Architecture of Michael Rakowitz and Ana Rewakowicz”
Mark Clintberg, MA in Art History (2009), “Commodified Generosity and Relational Abductions: The Multiples of Felix Gonzalez-Torres”
Shauna Janssen, MA in the Individualized Interdisciplinary Program (2009), “Reclaiming the Darling Foundry: From Post-Industrial Landscape to Quartier Éphémère”
Susannah Wesley, MA in Art History (2009), “Finding the Sublime: Assessing Elizabeth Simcoe's Fires as an Art Practice”
Recent book
Hammond's first book, Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965: Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape (Ashgate 2012) explores cultural memory and public history in the world-renowned city of Bath, England, one of the few cities in the world to have been given World Heritage Status by UNESCO. Hammond approaches the past with the methods of the architectural historian and the site-specific interventions of the contemporary artist. Looking beyond and behind Bath's strategic marshaling of its past, and its reiteration of male architectural heroes, Hammond presents the ways that women of all classes shaped the built environment and designed landscapes of one of England's most architecturally significant cities. This book is also an intervention into the city's public memory. The author uses site-specific works of public art as strategic counterparts to her historical readings. Through them, she aims to transform as well as critique the urban image of Bath. At once a performative literature, an extensively researched history, and an alternative guide to the city, Architects, Angels, Activists engages with current struggles over urban signification in Bath and beyond.
Publications
Many of Dr Hammond's publications may be downloaded in whole or in part from: https://concordia.academia.edu/CynthiaHammond. For the full list of her publications, please see her CV.
Refereed articles since 2015:
(in press) “Drawings for a Thicker Skin: A Conversation with Marc Lafrance.” Body and Society, Special Issue: Skin. Ed. Marc Lafrance. Forthcoming. (3809 words)
(submitted) “Pourquoi pas?” The creation of working-class urban heritage in Pointe-Saint-Charles, Montréal.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’etudes Canadiennes, special issue on Critical Heritage Studies in Canada, guest editors Andrea Terry and Susan Ashley. 9838 words.
(in press) “‘The Garden will be Illuminated’: Gendered and Georgian Pleasures in Sydney Gardens, Bath.” Bath History XIV. July 2017. (5540 words)
With Kathleen Vaughan (lead author) and Emanuelle Dufour. “The ‘Art’ of the Right to the City: Interdisciplinary teaching and learning in Point-Saint-Charles, Montreal.” “Education and the Community” - special issue of Learning Landscapes. Ed. Mary Stewart and Lynn Butler Kisber. 10.1 (Autumn 2016): 387-418.
With Shauna Janssen. “Points de vue: Contingency, Community, and the Postindustrial Turn.” FIELD 1.3 (2016), 7256 words. Online.
“Oratory.” architecture ∣concordia 1.1 (2015) np.
Chapters in books since 2015:
(submitted) “Architecture, Photography, and Power: Picturing Montreal, 1973-74.” For Photogenic Montreal: Ruins and Revisions in a Postindustrial City. Ed. Johanne Sloan and Martha Langford. Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Forthcoming 2018 (10,018 words)
Exhibition catalogues and essays since 2015:
“Safety Strategies: Space, Gender and the City.” Bilingual online exhibition created in tandem with the exhibition of the same name, gallery Studio XX, Feb. 2017. Trans. Isabelle Pichet.
“rescue blanket, free time, unscripted space.” In à la rescousse: the one-hour spatial residency. Montréal: pouf! art architecture, 2016.
“The Twin Embrace of the Mountain and the Park.” The Park - Kate Hutchinson. Montréal: Les Éditions du renard, 2015.
The One-Hour Spatial Residency. Exhibition at la Maison d’architecture du Québec. 7 April 2015. Ed. Cynthia Hammond. Montréal: pouf! art architecture, 2015.
Non-refereed publications since 2015:
(submitted) "The Edge of Her Garden." Cahiers de recherche LEAP: Entre hétéronomie et autonomie : Penser l’architecture entre discipline et profession/LEAP Research Notebooks: Between heteronomy and autonomy: Thinking architecture in between discipline and profession. Ed. Louis Martin & Jonathan Lachance. Montréal: LEAP, forthcoming. 2499 words.
“From rust to green: postindustrial urban landscapes.” In Cahiers de recherche LEAP: Du Potentiel des grandes structures urbaines abandonnées/LEAP Research Notebooks: On the Potential of Abandoned, Large, Urban Structures. Ed. Jean-Pierre Chupin & Tiphaine Abenia. Montréal: LEAP, 2017. 2788 words.
Conferences and presentations
Conference presentations since 2015 (see CV for full list):
“The Edge of Her Garden.” LEAP: Séminaire annuel. École de design, Université de Québec à Montréal, 16 June 2017.
With Shauna Janssen. “Witnessing and Walking as Critical Heritage Practices: The Wellington Tower Project.” Panel: “Walking post-industrial areas.” Association of Critical Heritage Studies, Montreal, 3-8 June 2016.
“From rust to green: postindustrial urban landscapes.” Du Potentiel des grandes structures urbaines abandonnées. LEAP: Séminaire annuel. Faculté d’amenagement, Université de Montréal, 7 May 2016.
"Spatial Agency: Place-based Pedagogy, Community Engagement, and Creative Action in Point St-Charles." Reimagining Resiliency: Culture, the Ecological Turn, and the Mediated City." Conference, Montreal, 15-17 March 2015.
“Lost Waters: A platform for cross-disciplinary teaching and research.” AAC&U annual meeting, Washington, DC, 21-24 January 2015.
Invited lectures since 2015 (see CV for full list):
“Teaching in Community: How can we encourage reciprocity in learning?” With Ted Little and Kathleen Vaughan. Living Knowledge Series, Office of Community Engagement, Concordia (event held at Share the Warmth, Pointe-St-Charles, Montréal), 16 Nov. 2016.
"Green secrets: Locked gardens, hidden landscapes, and the public life of cities." LEAP (Laboratoire d'étude de l'architecture potentielle) lecture series 2016-17, Concordia. 2 Nov. 2016.
“Collaboration, Enchantment, and Site-Responsive Practice,” Lecture for the 2016-17 Lecture Series, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Concordia University, 29 September 2016.
“Mapping Feminist Spatial Occupations in Edwardian Bath, England,” Lecture for the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment’s Speaker Series, Concordia, 12 Feb. 2016.
“Urban Enchantments: The City as Collaborator,” Lecture for the 2015-2016 Urban Studies Seminar Series, School of Urban Planning, McGill University, 29 January 2016.
“The Suffragettes’ Wood: Feminist Public History in Bath, England.” Lecture for the Montreal British History Seminar series, McGill University, 12 February 2015.
“What if you are an artist too? Interdisciplinarity, Research, and Creation within Art History.” ARTH 655 (Thesis Seminar, led by Dr Alice Jim), Department of Art History, Concordia, January 2015.
Studio art practice
Urban interventions, exhibitions, curating since 2015 (see also https://cynthiahammond.org)
Urban interventions:
Salon des refusées: Giardino dell'Eden. Public art intervention (with Kelly Thompson and Kathleen Vaughan). Sponsored by Studio XX and Concordia’s Centre for Sensory Studies, 15-22 May 2017.
Feminist City Light Caper (led by Caroline Alexander), Mont-Royal, 5 January 2017.
Feminist City Light Caper (led by Shauna Janssen), Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, 17 November 2016.
Love in a Cold Climate. Public project/performance, Concordia University, presented in collaboration with Michael Montanaro and Shauna Janssen of the Topological Media Lab and with the support of the David O'Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise and the Dean of Students, Concordia University, 13 February 2015.
Exhibitions - solo:
the edge of her garden. Port Gallery, Caetani Cultural Centre, Vernon, BC, 22-23 April 2017.
Exhibitions - group:
Safety Strategies: Space, Gender and the City. With Caroline Alexander and 35 participants. Gallery Studio XX, Montréal, February 11-25, 2017. Hear also:
https://soundcloud.com/smalltalksandcityblocks/caroline-cynthia
Inframince. Group exhibition of recent painting and drawing with Carmela Cucuzzella and Jean-Pierre Chupin, 511 Place d'Armes, Montréal, 15 Dec. 2016-15 January 2017.
Exhibitions curated:
‘Un Paradis sans pommiers’: Le jardin des Soeurs Grises. With Shauna Janssen, co-curator. Public art project/performance, presented in conjunction with the Association of Critical Heritage Studies conference, UQAM/Concordia. 3-8 June 2016. See also: https://vimeo.com/182042247
