Preserving the Past

Tableau, Tableau Prep, Canva, Microsoft Excel, Wordpress

To support our visualizations, we conducted extensive research on Vancouver’s historical development, including neighbourhood histories, community movements, and shifts in heritage designation policies over time. We incorporated sources spanning from the 1980s to the present to ensure a comprehensive and well-contextualized understanding, and following that, we wrote detailed supporting narratives for our visualizations, ensuring that the heritage data was framed within its historical and socio-political context rather than being presented in isolation.

Our information visualization project reveals the limitations and biases embedded within the Vancouver Heritage Register, highlighting how heritage conservation in the city is not neutral but shaped by historical power structures and systemic inequities. Through these visualizations, we invite the public to critically examine the ways in which heritage sites are categorized: Who decides what is worth preserving? What narratives are prioritized, and which are erased?

A key insight from our analysis is the disproportionate conservation of certain areas over others. Downtown Vancouver, for example, has the highest number of protected heritage sites, many of which are military-related. This pattern raises questions about whose histories are deemed valuable and who is making those decisions. Meanwhile, many shell middens, sites of immense cultural and historical significance to Indigenous communities, often ancestral villages and burial grounds, have minimal protection and even lack coordinates in the dataset. This omission directs our attention to whose heritage is safeguarded through official policy and whose is neglected, contributing to the ongoing erasure of Indigenous presence in the city.

More than just numbers and categories, our visualization seeks to spark critical reflection and curiosity: Who has the right to define Vancouver’s history? What does heritage protection say about the city’s values? What stories are we preserving for future generations and what stories are we allowing to disappear? By questioning these structures, we hope to empower viewers to engage with their city more thoughtfully, advocate for more inclusive heritage policies, and uncover the rich, complex histories that shape the places we call home.