The annual Vico lecture promotes themes of city-building, urban development, and cultural evolution, and Toronto and its outskirts have been shaped by immigration. The series features speakers whose work address principles related to how immigrant and minority groups have affected the development of the Greater Toronto Area, including via culture, labour, business, and more. The Vico lecture honours the cultural and historic contributions of minority communities to civil society and the development of urban space.
2025 Vico Lecture
The Block by Block Project: Activating Memories of Migration, Settlement and Community Life in Four Toronto Neighbourhoods
Date: Tuesday October 21, 2025
Location: 940 - Senate Chamber, Ross Building - North, Library Lane
Time: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. EST
Speaker: Dr. Maggie Hutcheson, who directed Block by Block, will reflect on the project’s co-creative approach and the relationships between critical memory work, placekeeping and urban futures.
Co-developed by ten community partners and involving over 100 storytellers, the Toronto Ward Museum’s Block by Block Project preserved and activated community memories in four rapidly changing Toronto neighbourhoods.
Dr. Maggie Hutcheson
Dr. Maggie Hutcheson is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. She is a seasoned museum professional, artist, curator and educator who has worked with a wide range of arts and cultural heritage organizations. Maggie co-founded the longstanding community-engaged art collective ‘Department of Public Memory’ and authored the Ontario Arts Council’s handbook on best practices in community-engaged art. She holds a PhD from York University, where her doctoral research focused on place-based memory practices and where she taught in the Community Arts Practice certificate program. Maggie was the Lead Curator and Program Director for the Toronto Ward Museum’s multiyear Block by Block program, for which the museum received the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation.
Photo Gallery
Why Vico?
The Vico lecture fosters exchange between York University and the wider community, in particular the Italian-Canadian community. The settlement of Italian immigrants fundamentally shaped the nature and development of Toronto and its suburbs over that last 100 years. The Vico lecture’s themes are a nod to these contributions and aim to engage other minority groups, descendants of these groups, and the public in a conversation about space, place, culture, and so much more.
In 2000, Canadian Senator Jerry Grafstein donated two rare Italian volumes of Vico’s works, initially published in 1746, to York University. Senator Grafstein garnered the support of Elvio DelZotto (LLB Osgoode and senior partner of DelZotto, Zorzi), who rallied Italian-Canadian business leaders to fund an annual lecture at York in memory of his law partner Fred Zorzi.
Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was an Italian philosopher and author. Vico’s writings sought to understand human history and knowledge and are considered the predecessors of many Enlightenment thinkers. He has been referred to as the father of social science and the first modern historian. The Vico Lecture is organized in collaboration with the Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian-Canadian Studies.