In 2005, the City announced its plan to ‘revitalize’
the Lawrence Heights neighbourhood of Toronto.
This plan will mean the relocation of residents,
many of whom have been living in Lawrence
Heights for 3 generations or more. The Lawrence
Heights Community Health Centre engaged
Rodrogo Moreno to develop a community arts
project to capture the neighborhood’s history
through the collection of portraits and interviews.
The project recruited and trained youth in
photography and archiving, thus inviting the
community to counter the hostile and violent images
of residents too often projected in mass media. In
this exhibit, the Lawrence Heights residents are
both the subjects and the archivists, empowered
to reclaim their own identity, public images and
history.