Guided Walk: Streets and Place Names

What’s in a street name?

Recent conversations about street and place names — and who or what they commemorate — have highlighted how these everyday markers quietly shape our sense of identity, belonging, and exclusion. The names we pass by without a second thought can tell powerful stories about a neighbourhood’s past, its values, and whose histories are centred.

This guided walk, led by artist and scholar Andrew Lochhead, invites you to see the city differently. Thinking of street names as the most visible “texts” of a city, we’ll explore the streets surrounding the Bata Shoe Museum and uncover the meanings behind their names. Together, we’ll consider what these names reveal about the Annex neighbourhood, its histories, and its wider connections.

After the walk, we’ll gather back inside the museum for a collaborative discussion, sharing what we “read” along the way and reflecting on how public naming shapes the stories our city tells.

The walk will take up to two hours. Please wear comfortable shoes. Recommended for 16+ 

 

About the Facilitator / Artist / Curator / Speaker

Andrew Lochhead, is an artist and scholar who uses walking as a form of creative practice and research to bring to life stories about the city in ways that orient audiences toward imagining justice-based futures. A lifelong museum and gallery professional, Andrew has been an outspoken advocate for understanding how monuments, place names, and other forms of commemoration shape people’s relationships to places and to each other. His work as part of the public history campaign around the name of Dundas Street has contributed to significant changes to Toronto’s toponymic landscape, the development of new commemorative policy, and ongoing conversations about who or what Canada’s largest city remembers. Andrew’s research and activism have been featured in a number of documentary films and programs, including the BAFTA Award-winning Scotland, Slavery, and Statues. His PhD dissertation explores the role of walking in interpreting urban heritage landscapes.

Please review our Terms and Conditions in advance and check in with Visitor Services upon arrival. Questions? Email us info@batashoemuseum.ca anytime.