Interviewees were asked to choose a personal object or artifact that holds particular significance to them. Our purpose in the artifact exercise was to identify the stories of a pluralist cross-section of citizens, a group that has a voice that museums per se do not always represent. These examples prove the power of material evidence in storytelling, and offer a model of how the stories of community can be told through "things."
Betty Disero

Occupation: City Councilor Ward 21

Artifact: Plastic glob

Ms. Disero has lived in the community for over 25 years, and has been a member of the Toronto District School Board and joined City Council in 1985. She values her contribution to the community in the revitalization of the Stockyards and the Junction, and in revitalization of St. Clair Avenue West and the Amphitheatre Project at Earlscourt Park.

The plastic glob looks like a brown pebble, and is made from the City’s garbage. It was acquired when she was first Chair of the Works Committee, and is from Royal Plastics (a company using plastics garbage to build houses in third world countries). "I have been carrying it around for 3 years and to me it stands for the past, present and the future...The City of Toronto has been slow in moving, is now coming into a crisis and I am hopeful that we will find a solution in dealing with our garbage."

mercedes van betty robert