Matthieu Caron and Robert Burley present case studies from their research on urban parks and wildlands—how they are imagined, managed, and transformed—and how this reflects changing ideas of the city. Phyllis Lambert joins the conversation onstage. Presented as part of Greystone: Tools for Understanding the City, this series of conversations brings together photographers and historians to discuss changing roles for photography in historical research.

Matthieu Caron is a PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Toronto, and co-editor of a forthcoming issue of Urban History Review on episodes of bad behaviour and disorder in public spaces.

Robert Burley is a photographer and the author of, most recently, An Enduring Wilderness: Toronto’s Natural Parklands (2017). For the CCA, he has been a Mellon Senior Fellow and participated in a multiyear photographic commission on the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. He lives in Toronto and is associate professor in the School of Image Arts at Ryerson University.