Illinois Global Institute

Description: This presentation encourages rethinking territorial planning and historic preservation by valuing diverse knowledges, histories, and experiences beyond technocratic and spatial approaches rooted in "othering”. The lecture explores how public-engaged scholarship and situated methods, such as artistic practices, collective mapping, and embodied exercises,  support collaborative knowledge-making grounded in specific contexts and relational research practices. The presentation connects to the exhibition Memorias de la Mujer Lotina: Arpilleras, Women and Coal in Chile, opening February 26 at the Krannert Art Museum, and the artists’ residency (March 30–April 5), co-organized with the Climate Jobs Institute. 

Bio: Magdalena Novoa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and a feminist engaged scholar. Her work focuses on the intersections of historic preservation and social justice, cultural heritage and memory politics, and deindustrialization in the Americas. In Chile and the United States, she investigates the role of memory, gender and race in place-making and assists communities in making their places and narratives more visible in policy, practice, and the academy. At UIUC, she co-directs the LAC cities collective and is a founding member of the public art and research collective Monumentos Incómodos.