Gilberto Fernandes

Basta! No More Fear! Remembering the Hoggs Hollow Disaster of 1960

“Basta! No More Fear! Remembering the Hoggs Hollow Disaster of 1960” is a play that I co-wrote with Craig Heron and Franca Iacovetta, for the Toronto Workers’ Theatre Group (TWTG), directed by Aida Jordão. It premiered at the 2025 Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts. Every performance during the five days it was on stage (May 7 and 11) at the United Steelworkers Hall “sold out” (tickets were free). Audience members (totalling 500 people) who stayed for the Q&A session emphasized the importance of remembering this tragic episode, which was a catalyst for the unionization of Italian immigrant construction workers in Toronto, and of public memory as a space for labour and social justice activism. A video recording of the play’s dress rehearsal is available in the TWHP’s website.

Prises de parole dans les francophonies canadiennes | Speaking Up in Francophone Minority Communities

Francophone communities in Canada exist, for the most part, in minority situations, yet they are the architects of their own history. They have demanded French-language institutions. They have written manifestos, letters, and petitions to demand and create spaces where they can live in French. “Speaking up” has taken many forms since 1867; the documents included in this anthology are proof of this. The anthology is an invitation to discover the words used by francophone minority communities to denounce, demand, fight back, but also to shape the present and the future.

https://parolefranco.ca/
I was the web designer and digital artist in this project led by Marcel Martel and Joel Belliveau. Launch date, March 27, 2024

Movimento Perpétuo:
The Portuguese Diaspora in Canada

To commemorate the 70th anniversaries of Portugal-Canada diplomatic relations (2022) and the beginning of Portuguese mass migration to Canada (2023), the Embassy of Portugal my company, Tempo Historical Consulting, to produce a travelling exhibition and website titled Movimento Perpétuo: The Portuguese Diaspora in Canada.

The website was launched on June 1, 2023. It contains more than 70 profiles of Portuguese-Canadian individuals and organizations in Ontario and Quebec; about 90 digitized artifacts (some in 3D) crowdsourced from community members, along with audio commentary from the participants; 15 virtual tours of locations in Toronto, Guelph, Caledon, and Montreal with audio commentary; 75 short documentaries from RTPi, NFB, and other sources; an illustrated timeline with over 300 entries; selections of digitized historical records; infographics; among other features. For an overview of the public’s reaction to the website, see here.

The exhibition was unveiled at Toronto Metro Hall between September 11 and 22. It consisted of 12 display panels; 6 display cases with multiple artifacts; 3 television sets screening documentary and animation films, archival news footage from Bell Media, and home videos; multiple QR-activated digital content; and artwork from 7 Portuguese-Canadian artists based in Toronto.

The official unveiling, on September 15, was attended by the President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Melanie Joly, her Portuguese counterpart João Gomes Cravinho, the State Secretary of Portuguese Communities Paulo Cafôfo, the Mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow, Members of Parliament of Canada and Portugal, and 100 hundred distinguished guests. This event was covered extensively by Canadian and Portuguese media.

There was also an open reception on September 17 featuring a live performance of Weaving By Moonlight, by the artists Teresa Ascenção and Moon Palmar. For photos and videos of the making of, the exhibition, the receptions, and the artwork, see here.

Vhils’ Cleaners’ Action mural

On October 19, 2021, the internationally renowned street artist Vhils (Alexandre Farto) unveilled a mural in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood honouring Portuguese “cleaning ladies” and their labour activism in the 1970s-80s. Prior to it, in July 2020, the organizers of this initiative – the Embassy of Portugal in Canada, the Little Portugal BIA, and the Deputy Mayor Ana Bailão – asked and accepted my suggestion to feature the Cleaners’ Action in the mural.

Myself and Dr. Susana Miranda collaborated with Vhils’ team by contributing photos and newspapers from the PCHP’s collections at the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, offering interviews for a short documentary, and connecting them with members of the Cleaners’ Action.

Laborem Ex Machina: A History of Construction Machinery and Operating Engineers in Canada

Funded by the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 793, this project was dedicated to preserving, researching, and divulging the history of operating engineers and their construction machines in Ontario. Its ouputs included a podcast series with an extensive digital companion; an archival report co-authored with York University’s Archivist Head, Michael Moir, with records management recommendations; the installation of a Heritage Toronto plaque; and four peer-reviewed journal articles in the Journal of History, Labour/ Le Travail, and Technology and Culture.

I completed this project during my visiting professor position at York University’s Department of History and the Global Labour Research Centre in 2020–2022.

City Builders: A History of Immigrant Construction Workers in Postwar Toronto

Funded by the Labourers International Union of North America’s Local 183, with additional support from the Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian-Canadian Studies, this project was dedicated to preserving, recording, researching, and divulging the history of metropolitan Toronto’s immigrant construction workers and their labour organization after the Second World War. It included a travelling multimedia exhibition; a website with interactive maps, timelines, videos, audio recordings, photos, and biographies; an oral history series with twenty-eight short videos featuring retired construction workers, labour organizers, and community advocates; and a four-part documentary.

I completed this project during my postdoctoral fellowship at York University’s Department of History and the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies in 2017-19.

In 2019, it received the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario’s Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation.

The Portuguese Canadian History Project

The Portuguese Canadian History Project (PCHP) is a non-profit, community outreach organization founded in 2008 by me and Dr. Susana Miranda, and later joined by Dr. Raphael Costa and Dr. Emanuel da Silva. Since 2009, the PCHP has worked closely with the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University Libraries, where we have facilitated the donation of ten archival records collections. Our main objectives are to 1) preserve the collective memory of Portuguese immigrants and their descendants in Canada, and 2) democratize access to historical knowledge, both in its consumption and its production. Visit the PCHP’s website to find more information about our mission, principles, past and present activities.

Hora dos Portugueses

Between 2015 and 2017, I co-produced the Canadian content of the daily show “Hora dos Portugueses” on Portugal’s international public television and radio broadcaster RTPi/ RDPi. It showcased the work, achievements, reflections, and varied experiences of Portuguese immigrants and descendants from different sectors of Canadian society. Some of our interviewees included the provincial cabinet ministers and members of parliament, labour leaders, television hosts, actors, entrepreuners, community workers, musicians, artists, journalists, scholars, scientists, athletes, authors, restauranteurs, and many more. For the complete listing of our episodes (in Portuguese and English) see here.

The Portuguese in Toronto, 1953-2013

In 2012, the Consulate-General of Portugal in Toronto invited the PCHP to curate a photo exhibition for the 60th anniversary of Portuguese mass migration to Canada. The exhibition was unveiled at City Hall on May 13, 2013, to a crowd of about 150 people. This traveling exhibit has since been on display in other venues and events, including the Dundas West Festival; Archbishop Romero Secondary School; Almada Negreiros Gallery, Consulate General of Portugal in Toronto; Azorean House of Ontario; IC Savings – Little Portugal; Scott Library, York University; Victoria College, University of Toronto; and Museum Strathroy-Caradoc. In 2016, I completed a digital companion for this exhibition with the help of two public history students from York University.

St. Christopher House:
a Neighbourhood History

In 2012, St. Christopher House (present-day West Neighbourhood House) celebrated its 100th anniversary with various events throughout the year. To kick-off the celebrations, the Century Committee decided to organize a public history exhibit on March 2-3, which I curated. This was a wonderful event that drew many community members, including past and present St. Chris’ participants and staff. After this, the Toronto City Archives invited us to set up our exhibit in their atrium, where it stayed between November 2012 – April 2013. Some of the exhibits’ materials remain on display at West Neighbourhood House locations. I have since created a digital version of the exhibit on the PCHP’s website. You can find it here.

History Matters lecture series

History Matters was a free public lecture series created in 2010 by then York University doctoral student Lisa Rumiel, in collaboration with Miriam Scribner of  Toronto Public Library and ActiveHistory.ca. In 2012 I joined the curatorial team alongside Dr. Jay Young. This lecture series offered professional historians and graduate students the opportunity to present their research to broader audiences outside the university walls. All History Matters’ lectures are available as podcasts here.