Be part of the transition towards brighter, better urban landscapes

Looking back on last spring: on 13 May 2026, Chairholder Shin Koseki spoke at the Université de Genève during “Gouverner la double transition des territoires: jumeaux numériques, complexité, participation” (Governing the twin transition of territories: digital twins, complexity, participation), the closing colloquium of the G3 project on the twin transition. Organized by Nicolas Baya-Laffite at Uni Mail, the event brought together lectures by Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo, Shin Koseki and D. Vorbach, as well as a survey by students of the Master SACHA. Building on the work carried out since 2024 on the ecological and digital transitions, the colloquium opened a new research agenda on participatory digital twins, bringing together STS, urban planning and computer science to question the promises, uses and limits of these technologies.

The UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape is pleased to welcome Damian Siqueiros as an associate collaborator. An artist-researcher, he is the founder and creative director of the Terra Sapiens Collective, an artistic laboratory dedicated to eco-socially sustainable art practices that brings together Western science, Indigenous knowledge, environmental justice and circular design. A multidisciplinary artist working across photography, video, multimedia installation and art direction, he has taken part in more than 60 exhibitions internationally, including at the Art Museum of the Americas, the Frost Museum in Miami and the Carrousel du Louvre, and has led over 40 Art for Impact workshops in Asia, Europe and North America since 2018. He is currently pursuing a PhD in arts studies and practices at UQAM, co-supervised by Laura Pereira (Stockholm Resilience Centre), where he deepens the theoretical foundations of his Art for Impact Framework.

UN-Habitat Canada has released its report on Canada’s participation in the Thirteenth World Urban Forum (WUF13), held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026 under the theme “Housing the World: Safe and Resilient Cities and Communities.” The report features “AI-Enabled Participation for Inclusive and Resilient Cities,” the keynote session delivered at the Canada Pavilion by Chairholder Shin Koseki on behalf of the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape.

Leandry Jieutsa, PhD candidate at the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape, has published an article in the Revue québécoise d’urbanisme on the rise of artificial intelligence systems in municipalities. The piece, “Les systèmes d’intelligence artificielle en urbanisme et dans les municipalités au Québec,” connects directly to his doctoral research, which examines the actor dynamics, organizational shifts and governance mechanisms shaping the AI innovation ecosystem of Quebec municipalities.

Rashid Mushkani will undertake a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law and Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP) under Professor Catherine Régis. Supported by IVADO’s 2026 postdoctoral research funding program and Régis’s research funds, he will examine how people affected by AI can influence the decisions governing its design and use.

On October 1, 2026, Shin Koseki, holder of the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape, took part in a public panel on quality of life and the city of tomorrow, organized by the Initiative en santé urbaine of Université de Montréal’s École de santé publique.

Alexandre Campeau-Vallée, a Montreal-based photographer and researcher, is presenting a new exhibition at the Niagara Falls History Museum’s Ontario Power Generation Gallery. Picture Yourself Here: The Photographic Attraction of Niagara Falls runs from August 9, 2026 to January 10, 2027, and was produced in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape.

The UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape welcomes Nour Necib, an architect who joins the Chair as a Master’s student in planning (City, Territory and Landscape option) at Université de Montréal.

The UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape welcomes Camille Lemaître, who joins the Chair as a PhD student in environmental planning at Université de Montréal. Her work focuses on the sustainable development of continental hydrographic basins.

Roxane Kasprzyk is an alumna of the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape. After three years working at the Chair as a research and communications assistant, she has completed her research-based Master’s in the “City, Territory, Landscape” option, graduating with the distinction “excellent.”

Shin Koseki has been appointed to the advisory committee of the International Max Planck Research School for Multimodal Digital Humanities (IMPRS-MDH), a new international research initiative addressing a central methodological challenge in computational humanities: moving beyond monomodal analyses of text, image, and space toward genuinely multimodal forms of knowledge production. The program brings together art history, linguistics, digital humanities, and artificial intelligence to rethink how meaning, interpretation, and argumentation emerge across media and cultures.

Rashid Mushkani defended his doctoral thesis, “The Urban Right to AI: Pluralistic Co-Design and Governance of Public Space,” at Université de Montréal on August 24, 2026, completing an interdisciplinary PhD in planning.