Heather Read

Heather Read is currently on maternity leave. She is an experienced oral history researcher, who has interviewed with artists, craft makers, teachers, refugees and recent immigrants from various countries, urban youth, and elderly individuals among other groups in her varied research career. Her research interests typically explore the intersections between material culture and identity, and her research often integrates artistic approaches to the expression and representation of ideas. She became captivated with oral history during her Master’s degree in Folklore at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and continued her use of the practice during her PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto. She also works with oral history outside her personal research, from a project about community change at The Rooms Provincial Museum to, more recently her work about the history of a former TDSB school for the Toronto arts not-for-profit organization Artscape, as they prepared to open Artscape Youngplace in 2013. Heather is pleased to contribute to Landscapes of Injustice as the Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Oral History Research Cluster.