Below the Radar

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we're joined by Ness Nöst, an independent singer-songwriter. Ness is known for her powerful live performances, and her breakout EP, Working Hours (2024), received international airplay and acclaim. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-ness-nost Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-ness-nost Resources: Ness Nöst: https://www.nessnostmusic.com/ Ness' Bandcamp: https://nessnostmusic.bandcamp.com/ Bio: Ness Nöst is known for her soulful blend of indie folk, jazz, and dark poetic storytelling. Think Joni Mitchell and k.d. lang meets Feist. She is currently working on her debut full-length album following the release of Glimmers (March 2025), her second self-released, self-produced EP. A fully independent artist, Nöst continues to push creative boundaries while integrating themes of women's rights and advocacy into her music. ​ Her breakout EP, Working Hours (2024), received international airplay, including on London Soho Radio in the UK, and was featured in Exclaim! and RANGE Magazine. Following a Canada-wide tour in 2024, she returned with Glimmers, which has already been featured on CBC Music. She has also collaborated with grassroots organizations such as Good Night Out and #NOTME, using her platform to support workplace safety and harm reduction. Known for her powerful live performances, Nöst has played over 250 shows across Canada, captivating audiences with her rare ability to connect through music. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Regular — with Ness Nöst” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 25, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-ness-nost.

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we're joined by Rosemary Georgeson and Jessica Hallenbeck, two artists whose ongoing community engaged collaborative work have produced multiple acclaimed film and research projects. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-rosemary-georgeson-jessica-hallenbeck Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-rosemary-georgeson-jessica-hallenbeck Resources: Lantern Films: https://www.lanternfilms.ca/ Rosemary Georgeson: https://rosemarygeorgeson.wordpress.com/ Jessica and Rosemary's Research: https://geog.ubc.ca/news/written-out-of-history-restorying-the-archive/ We Have Stories: Women in Fish: https://www.facebook.com/WeHaveStories The Saltlicks: https://thesaltlicks.bandcamp.com/album/diaries Bio: Rosemary Georgeson is a Coast Salish and Sahtu Dene filmmaker and multi-media artist. She was born and raised in the commercial fishing industry, spending the first half of her life fishing around Galiano Island and the Salish Sea, sometimes as far as Prince Rupert. Since leaving the industry, she's worked in the arts community as a writer, storyteller and researcher. Recognized in 2009 by the Vancouver Mayor's award for emerging artist and in 2014 as the Vancouver Public Library's Storyteller in Residence, her work is deeply rooted in her family history on Galiano Island. Jessica Hallenbeck is a documentary filmmaker, independent scholar and community planner. With an undergraduate degree in media and film from Queen's University, she has worked in documentary for 20 years. Jessica holds a PhD in Geography from the University of British Columbia and her multimodal research cuts across filmmaking, writing, and exhibitions. Jessica is a Sundance Institute and Chicken and Egg Alumni. Her dissertation (2020) won The Starkey-Robinson Award for graduate research on Canada and is currently under contract with UBC Press. She has been the recipient of multiple Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grants (SSHRC), including the prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “We Have Stories — with Rosemary Georgeson and Jessica Hallenbeck — with Rosemary Georgeson and Jessica Hallenbeck” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 14, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-rosemary-georgeson-jessica-hallenbeck.html.

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we are joined by Sadhu Binning, bilingual author, educator, and advocate for Punjabi literature, culture, and language. Sadhu shares stories from his life, and discusses the path to founding arts and cultural collectives in Vancouver in the 80s and 90s. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-sadhu-binning.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-sadhu-binning.html Resources: No More Watno Dur: https://www.mawenzihouse.com/product/no-more-watno-dur/ Watan: https://www.watanpunjabi.ca/oct2018/ Bio: Sadhu Binning, a bilingual teacher, advocate/founder, author, and editor, has lived in Vancouver since 1967, when he migrated there. During his resilient career, he has published and edited over nineteen poetry, fiction, plays, translations, and research books. His works have been included in more than fifty anthologies both in Punjabi and English. He edited and co-edited the Punjabi magazines Watno Dur and Watan. He co-founded Vancouver Sath, a theatre collective (1983), Ankur, an English literary magazine (1993), and founded the Punjabi Language Education Association and various other literary and cultural organizations, including the Punjabi Literary Association (1973). He has sat on the BC Arts Board, is a central figure in the Punjabi arts community, and was named one of the top 100 South Asians who made a difference in BC. He has received numerous awards in Canada and Punjab, India, including the supreme nonresident Punjabi author in 2015. Sadhu Binning received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from UBC in 2019. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “No More Watno Dur — with Sadhu Binning.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 21, 2025.. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-sadhu-binning.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Dave Biddle, artist, musician, theorist, and PhD Candidate at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. Together, they chat about Dave's research, artistic practice, and rugby. Enjoy the episode! Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dave-biddle.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-dave-biddle.html Resources: Copyright Linda Fox: https://kopyrightlindafox.bandcamp.com/ Dave's Oasis: https://davesoasis.cargo.site/ Liquidation World: https://www.instagram.com/liquidationw0rld/?hl=en Bio: Dave Biddle (being me) is a musician (being Copyright Linda Fox), a theorist (being susceptible to gnosis), and a filmmaker (being quick to tell you about his new "script"). He (still being me) is interested in how the many different forms of life on earth (being metaphorically different) are all oriented toward the production of new expressions of meaning (being negentropic), and in this process some of those expressions emerge as something called an "artist bio" (being the ultimate expression). Dave Biddle (being the artist whose bio is in question) was born in Vancouver (being the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations) and he continues to live in that (being this) strange place where he studies the silverfish in his books (being being). Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “M.I.T.C.O.E. — with Dave Biddle.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 21, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dave-biddle.html.

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we're joined by Johan Grimonprez, a Belgian multimedia artist, filmmaker, and curator whose film Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 97th Academy Awards. Am and Johan discuss Johan's past video work, and what Johan discovered along the way in creating and sharing Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-johan-grimonprez Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-johan-grimonprez Resources: Johan Grimonprez: https://www.johangrimonprez.be/ Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat: https://kinolorber.com/film/soundtrack-to-a-coup-d-etat Vancouver International Film Festival: https://viff.org/ Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y: https://vimeo.com/231411671 Bio: Who owns our imagination in a world of existential vertigo where truth has become a shipwrecked refugee? Is it the storyteller who can contain contradictions, who can slip between the languages we have been given to become a time-traveler of the imagination? Johan Grimonprez's critically acclaimed work dances on the borders of theory and practice, between art and cinema, beyond the dualisms of documentary and fiction, other and self, mind and brain to weave new pathways and stories, emphasizing a multiplicity of realities. Informed by an archeology of present-day media, his work depicts intimate stories that brush up against the bigger picture of globalization. It questions our collective imagination and the contemporary sublime, one framed by a fear industry that has infected political and social dialogue. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat — with Johan Grimonprez” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 14, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-johan-grimonprez.html.

This episode of Below the Radar B-Sides is guest hosted by Joe Clark, term assistant professor at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. He is joined by Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa, Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Seattle University, and author of The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life. Together, they chat about their shared interest in non-theatrical film, and the histories and speculative futures of scientific filmmaking. Resources: Joseph Clark: https://www.josephclark.me/ Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa: https://www.benjaminschultzfigueroa.com/ The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life: https://www.benjaminschultzfigueroa.com/the-celluloid-specimen-moving-image-research-into-animal-life Bio: Joseph Clark: Joseph Clark (PhD, Brown University) is an educator, filmmaker, researcher, and arts programmer. His research and teaching interests focus on archival and non-theatrical media, including newsreels, home movies, and sponsored film. He is the author of News Parade: The American Newsreel and the World as Spectacle (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and the director of the short film Persistence & Loss (2021). He is a long-time member of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival Programming Committee and part of the organizing committee of the Vancouver Podcast Festival. Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa Dr. Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa is an Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Seattle University. His research focuses on the history of scientific filmmaking, nontheatrical film, and animal studies. Among other venues, his writing has been published in JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Film History, Journal of Environmental Media. His book The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life is due to be published by UC Press in February, 2023. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Clark, Joseph. “The Celluloid Specimen — with Joe Clark and Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-celluloid-specimen.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Dorothy Christian, the Associate Director of Indigenous Policy & Pedagogy in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Simon Fraser University. Dorothy talks about her work as a storyteller and academic, as well as her activism with the Oka crisis and the Gustafsen Lake standoff. Resources: Dorothy Christian: https://www.sfu.ca/gradstudies/about/contact/dorothy-christian.html Gathering knowledge : Indigenous methodologies of land/place-based visual storytelling/filmmaking and visual sovereignty: https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0343529 Bio: Dorothy Cucw-la7 Christian is Secwepemc and Syilx from the interior plateau regions of what is known as British Columbia. She is happy to be a good relative to her Coast Salish cousins while she lives, works, and plays on their lands. Her research centralizes land, story, cultural protocols and how Indigenous Knowledge informs film production practices. She is the the Associate Director of Indigenous Policy & Pedagogy in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Simon Fraser University. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Story Sovereignty — with Dorothy Christian” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dorothy-christian.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar B-Sides, our host Am Johal is joined by Ming Wong, Singapore-born and Berlin-based contemporary artist. Together, they chat about Ming's artistic practice, his research into Cantonese Opera cinema, approach to pedagogy, and the advantages of being at the fringe looking in. You can see Ming's installation “Vast Oceans, Endless Skies / 海闊天空” in the Chinese Canadian Museum's exhibition Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s-2000, on until May 31, 2026. Resources: Ming Wong: https://www.mingwong.org/ Chinese Canadian Museum exhibition: Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s-2000: https://www.chinesecanadianmuseum.ca/exhibitions/dream-factory-cantopop-mandopop-1980s-2000 Ming Wong: 2023 SFU Fall Audain Visual Artist in Residence artist talk: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/projects---activities/audain-visual-artist-in-residence/ming-wong.html Bio: Ming Wong (b. 1971, Singapore) currently lives and works in Berlin. His interdisciplinary practice incorporating performance, video and installation unravels ideas of ‘authenticity' and the ‘other' with reference to the act of human performativity. In recent years, he has had strong theatrical interests in the intersection of sci-fi and traditional Chinese culture, particularly Cantonese opera. Wong uses this speculative association to tackle issues such as Chinese modernity, the role of popular culture in building national identities. His works often assemble languages and personalities to create their own “World Cinema”. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am.. “Re-enactments, Theatre, and Cantonese Opera — with Ming Wong.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-ming-wong.html.

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, our host Am Johal was joined by Alphonso Lingis, who was a renowned philosopher, writer, and professor at Pennsylvania State University. Alphonso passed away in May 2025, and we're pleased to share this conversation where he discussed his recent writing, some of the thinkers who were important to his work, and notions of community and mortality. Resources: The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common by Alphonso Lingis: https://iupress.org/9780253208521/the-community-of-those-who-have-nothing-in-common/ Abuses by Alphonso Lingis: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/abuses/paper Irrevocable A Philosophy of Mortality by Alphonso Lingis: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo28301901.html Bio: Alphonso Lingis was an American philosopher, writer, translator, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. His areas of specialization included phenomenology, existentialism, modern philosophy, and ethics. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common — with Alphonso Lingis” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-alphonso-lingis.html.

In this episode we are joined by Viola Tian, where she shares her journey from arriving in Canada at the age of 19 as a student in Queen's University, to becoming a leading advocate for anti-racism and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She discusses her work with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the U.S., highlighting bureaucratic challenges in achieving systemic change. Tian details her role in creating the Coalition Against Anti-Asian Racism Canada, focusing on education, policy advocacy, and community support. She emphasizes the need for nuanced approaches, addressing issues like online hate and funding cutbacks impacting Asian Canadian organizations. Tian also notes the importance of long-term education and the challenges of implementing DEI in corporate settings. Resources: Community Resilience Fund: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/bt/cc/fnd-en.aspx #blockhate Report: https://ywcacanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Block-Hate-Report-October-2022-corrected-1.pdf Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: https://www.eeoc.gov/ Canadian Human Rights Commission: https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/en Canadian Race Relations Foundation: https://crrf-fcrr.ca/ Coalition Against Anti-Asian Racism Canada: https://crrf-fcrr.ca/coalition-against-anti-asian-racism-canada/ Online Harms Bill: https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/44-1/c-63 Bio: Viola Tian Viola has combined five years of comprehensive experience in public policy with expertise in health and social justice. Throughout her career, Viola has engaged in meaningful collaborations in policy development and strategy with a multitude of non-profits and government institutions, playing pivotal roles in both Canadian and US federal settings. Most notably, she established the first national, pan-Asian coalition in Canada. She holds a firm conviction that every citizen possesses the potential to influence policy change, provided they are equipped with the right knowledge in government relations and advocacy techniques.

In this episode, we are joined by Irene Gammel and Jason Wang from Toronto Metropolitan University. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Irene and Jason held webinar series at the Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre. In this episode Irene and Jason share personal anecdotes and insights on how the pandemic has affected their lives, research, and cultural practices. They emphasized the importance of creative expressions, personal storytelling, and cultural documentation in navigating uncertain times and fostering a sense of community and solidarity. The speakers also discussed the surge of anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, highlighting the need for educational curricula, grassroots movements, and empathy across cultures to address the issue. Resources: Irene Gammel: https://www.torontomu.ca/english/about-us/faculty-and-staff/faculty/gammel-irene/ Jason Wang: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/people/jason-wang Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/ MLC Pandemic Webinar Series: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/news/webinars/pandemic-webinar-series Creative Resilience and COVID-19 — Figuring the Everyday in a Pandemic: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/creative-resilience-and-covid-19 Bios: Irene Gammel Since coming to Toronto Metropolitan University in 2005, Dr. Irene Gammel has held positions as professor of English, Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture (2005; renewed 2011), and director of the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre. She is the author and editor of fourteen books, including the internationally acclaimed Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada and Everyday Modernity (MIT Press) and Looking for Anne of Green Gables (St. Martin's Press), as well as over 50 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. Irene Gammel is well-known for her scholarship on gender and modernism. Her research has helped uncover the earliest roots of modern and feminist performance art, contributed to the consolidation of L.M. Montgomery Studies as an academic field, and claimed women's confessional discourses as a sub-discipline of autobiographical studies. As the Director of the Modern Literature and Culture (MLC) Research Centre, she has hosted and curated numerous exhibitions, symposia, and workshops; her passion is training students at all levels through experiential methods. Jason Wang Dr. Jason Wang holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture (York University, 2021), an M.A. in Literatures of Modernity (Ryerson University, 2013), and a B.A. Honours with double majors in Communication Studies and Psychology (York University, 2012). He specializes in studying how modernist and contemporary literature and culture encode power, politics, and social values. His doctoral dissertation, “Urban Walking: Configuring the Modern City as Cultural and Spatial Practice” (defended with distinction), explored the aesthetics of spatial politics and the politics of spatial aesthetics in urban literature and culture from the early twentieth century to the post-industrial era. Dr. Wang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the MLC Research Centre (2021-2023), working with Dr. Gammel on a volume of essays exploring creative resilience and COVID-19. A member of the Executive Team at the MLC Research Centre, Jason oversees the CFI-funded research space of the MLC Research & Innovation Zone (RIZ), provides technology leadership for the CWAHI (hybrid) conference, and is cohost of the MLC Pandemic Webinar Series.

In this episode we are joined by Kevin Huang and Kimberley Wong of hua foundation. The conversation centers on the rise of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlights urgent concerns around community health, public health orders, and hate crimes. Kevin and Kimberley emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing diverse experiences and perspectives within Asian communities, and shifting community engagement and resource allocation towards racialized communities. Speakers also discuss the limitations of the model minority myth and the need to build intergenerational relations, while acknowledging the complexities of identity and power dynamics in community work. Resources: hua foundation: https://huafoundation.org/ Asian Community Convener Project: https://huafoundation.org/portfolio/acc/ Anti-Racism and Solidarities Resource Collection: http://solidarities.huafoundation.org The Choi Project: https://huafoundation.org/portfolio/seasonal-choi-guide/ Chinatown Cares Grocery Program: https://huafoundation.org/work/food-systems/chinatown-cares/ Chinatown Food Security Report: https://huafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Report_VancouverCTFoodSecurity.pdf Reorienting Our Trauma: https://huafoundation.org/portfolio/reorienting-our-trauma/ Bios: Kimberley Wong 黄壯慈 (they/them) Kimberley Wong | 黄壯慈 (they/them) is the Program Manager at hua foundation. In their role, Kimberley designs resources for anti-racism education, builds solidarity across racialized communities, and forges paths to access culturally-appropriate mental health care for youth facing barriers. They served as a Co-Chair of the City of Vancouver's Chinatown municipal advisory committee, were a founding member and Vice President of Chinatown Today, and were an elected member of the OneCity Vancouver Organizing Committee. Their work often mirrors their experiences moving through spaces as a queer, neurodivergent, and fifth generation Cantonese diasporic person, and though they draw on their knowledge from over a decade of navigating precarious work environments in the arts, culture, political, and equity sectors, Kimberley's work is also deepened by their love of being a lifelong crafter, a triathlete, and a descendant whose ancestors have long histories organizing for marginalized populations on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land known colonially as Vancouver. Find them online @KimberleyLW. Kevin Huang 黃儀軒 (he/him) Kevin Huang 黃儀軒 (he/him) is the co-founder and executive director of hua foundation, an organization with the mission of strengthening the capacity among Asian diasporic youth, in solidarity with other communities, to challenge, change, and create systems for a more equitable and just future. His work has ranged from scaling culturally appropriate consumer-based conservation strategies, advancing municipal food policy to address inclusion and racial equity, to providing supports for youth from ethnocultural communities to reclaim their cultural identity on their own terms. Kevin currently serves on committees with Vancity Credit Union, Vancouver Foundation, and Metro Vancouver.

Julia Aoki hosts a discussion with Dr. Sibo Chen and Dr. Cary Wu on anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Chen, assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, discusses his research on media narratives, political polarization, and disinformation. Dr. Wu, an associate professor at York University, highlights the rise of anti-Asian racism and its impact on mental health. Sibo emphasizes the importance of bringing together diverse voices, including scholars, community practitioners, and journalists, to discuss and address the long-lasting impact of anti-Asian racism, which intensified during the pandemic. The conversation also covers the importance of understanding different perceptions of racism within Asian communities and the need for transdisciplinary research to address these issues effectively. Resources: Sibo Chen: https://www.torontomu.ca/procom/people/sibo-chen/ Cary Wu: https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/carywu/ #StopAsianHate: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jtc-2021-2002/html?lang=en Angus Reid Institute: https://angusreid.org/ Bios: Sibo Chen Sibo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a critical communication scholar by training, his areas of interest include Public Communication of Climate and Energy Policy, Risk and Crisis Communication, Transcultural Political Economy, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Currently, he serves as Executive Board Members of the International Environmental Communication Association as well as the Canadian Communication Association. Cary Wu Cary Wu (PhD, UBC) is an assistant professor of sociology at York University. His research focuses on political culture, race and ethnicity, and health inequality. He has published widely on these topics and often shares his research with the public via national and international TV, radio, and newspaper forums including NPR, CBC, CTV, Washington Post, Toronto Star, Maclean's, and The Economist. He is currently working on a five-year (2022-2026) SSHRC Insight Grant research project to develop a political sociology of health (PSH) to study social and political trust as essential determinants of health.

Welcome to Common Concern: Conversations on Anti-Asian Racism in the Wake of COVID-19. This is a special Below the Radar series produced in collaboration with Toronto Metropolitan University and SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Common Concern is a mini-series that considers the historical context, and short and long term impacts of a rise of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lens of academics and community organizers. In this introductory episode, Canadian Journal of Communication editor Stuart Poyntz is joined by Sibo Chen to discuss the origins of Common Concern, as an offshoot of Sibo's ongoing research, the potential for podcasting as an accessible vehicle for knowledge mobilization, and the development of this special series in partnership with Below the Radar. Bios: Sibo Chen Sibo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a critical communication scholar by training, his areas of interest include Public Communication of Climate and Energy Policy, Risk and Crisis Communication, Transcultural Political Economy, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Currently, he serves as Executive Board Members of the International Environmental Communication Association as well as the Canadian Communication Association. Stuart R. Poyntz Stuart R. Poyntz is Professor and Associate Director of the School of Communication and a Director of the Community Engaged Research Centre (CERi) at Simon Fraser University. His work in participatory research has largely involved teenagers in informal learning spaces and art institutes. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the University of British Columbia, and was President of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People. Stuart's research addresses children's media cultures, theories of public life, social care and urban youth cultures. He has published five books, including the forthcoming monograph, Youthsites: Histories of Creativity, Care and Learning in the City (Oxford UP), and has published widely in national and international peer-reviewed journals, including Oxford Review of Education, Popular Culture, Journal of Children and Media, Canadian Journal of Communication, Cultural Studies, Studies in Social Justice, Journal of Youth Studies, Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, and in various edited collections.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Kate Hennessy, Associate Professor at SFU's School of Interactive Arts & Technology and member of anti-patriarchal, anti-colonial folk inspired punk band, The Saltlicks. Together, they chat about Kate's practice in anthropology and contemporary art, the experience of working collaboratively and across disciplines, and her recent exhibitions Becoming Anarchival at Gallery 881 and The Water We Call Home on Galiano Island. Featuring music by The Saltlicks (“Eyeliner,” “Waxing and Waning”). Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/263-kate-hennessy.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/263-kate-hennessy.html Resources: Making Culture Lab: https://www.makingculturelab.com/ Ethnographic Terminalia: https://ethnographicterminalia.org/ The Water We Call Home: https://www.thewaterwecallhome.com/ Becoming Anarchival: https://www.smithhennessystudio.com/exhibition/becominganarchival881 The Saltlicks: https://thesaltlicks.bandcamp.com/album/diaries Bio: Kate Hennessy is an Associate Professor specializing in Media at Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT). She is a cultural anthropologist with a PhD from the University of British Columbia (Anthropology). As the director of the Making Culture Lab at SIAT, her research explores the role of digital technology in the documentation and safeguarding of cultural heritage, and the mediation of culture, history, objects, and subjects in new forms. Her video and multimedia works investigate documentary methodologies to address Indigenous and settler histories of place and space. Current projects include the collaborative production of virtual museum exhibits with Indigenous communities in Canada; the study of new digital museum networks and their effects; ethnographic research on the implementation of large scale urban screens in public space; open-access and innovative forms of publishing; and, the intersections of anthropology and contemporary art practices. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Becoming Anarchival — with Kate Hennessy.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 18, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/263-kate-hennessy.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Michael Turner, a Vancouver-based writer and musician. Am and Michael discuss the release of his latest book Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems. They also talk about the Hard Rock Miners, as well as programming work at the Malcolm Lowry Room, the Railway Club, and the Candahar Bar during the 2010 olympics. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/262-michael-turner.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/262-michael-turner.html Resources: Michael Turner: https://mtwebsit.blogspot.com/ Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems: https://www.anvilpress.com/books/playlist-a-profligacy-of-your-least-expected-poems Bio: Michael Turner lives in the garrison town of Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. His books include Hard Core Logo, The Pornographer's Poem and, more recently, 9×11 and Other Poems Like Bird, Nine, x and Eleven. His wartime journal mtwebsit.blogspot.com continues to cause him problems. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems — with Michael Turner.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 11, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/262-michael-turner.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Lisa Jackson, an award-winning filmmaker, whose work spans hybrid documentary, installation, VR, and more. Am and Lisa discuss her latest work, Wilfred Buck, a portrait of Cree Elder Wilfred Buck, an Indigenous star lore expert. They also talk about her time as an undergraduate student at SFU and her journey as a filmmaker. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/261-lisa-jackson.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/261-lisa-jackson.html Resources: Lisa Jackson: https://www.lisajackson.ca/ Door Number 3: https://doornumber3.ca/ Wilfred Buck: https://doornumber3.ca/wilfred-buck/ Transmissions: https://doornumber3.ca/transmissions/ Biidaaban: https://doornumber3.ca/biidaaban-first-light/ Suckerfish: https://www.lisajackson.ca/Suckerfish Bio: Lisa Jackson lives in Toronto and is Anishinaabe from Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Her award-winning work has screened at CPH:DOX, Sundance, Berlinale Forum Expanded, SXSW, Camden, Hotdocs, Tribeca, BFI London, the Melbourne Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and broadcast widely. She's made works ranging from current affairs to IMAX, animation to VR, and even a residential school musical. In 2021 she received the Documentary Organization of Canada's Vanguard Award and in 2022 she was selected for a Chicken & Egg Award. Her 2024 hybrid feature documentary Wilfred Buck premiered in the DOX:AWARD section at CPH:DOX and was a top five audience pick at Hot Docs and won Best Canadian Film at Calgary Film Festival and the Women Inmate Jury Award at RIDM. Her short Lichen screened at Sundance in 2020 and Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier is one of the top watched documentaries on CBC, won the 2017 imagineNATIVE Best Doc award and was also co-produced by Lisa. Her Webby-nominated VR Biidaaban: First Light premiered at Tribeca Storyscapes in 2018, exhibited internationally to 25,000+ people, and won a Canadian Screen Award (Canada's Oscar), the second time she's received this honour. Transmissions, a 6000-square-foot immersive multimedia installation and sister project to Biidaaban, premiered in Vancouver in 2019 and was featured on the cover of The Georgia Straight. In 2016, she directed the VR Highway of Tears for CBC Radio's The Current which was nominated for a Canadian Association of Journalists award. In 2015 she was drama director for the 8 x 1 hour APTN/ZDF docudrama series 1491: The Untold Story Of The Americas Before Columbus, based on the bestselling book by Charles C. Mann, which was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. She has an MFA in Film Production from York University (thesis prize) and is an alumna of the TIFF Talent and Writers Labs, Canadian Film Centre's Directors Lab, IDFA Summer School, CFC/NFB/Ford Foundation's Open Immersion VR Lab, and was a Fellow at the MIT Open Doc Lab. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Star Stories — with Lisa Jackson.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 4, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/261-lisa-jackson.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Beatrice Marovich, Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Hanover College and author of Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying. Together, they chat about the process of writing the book, and the theoretical and philosophical concepts of death as a relationship of enmity and sisterhood. Enjoy the episode! Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/260-beatrice-marovich.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/260-beatrice-marovich.html Resources: Beatrice Marovich: https://www.beatricemarovich.com/ Sister Death: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/sister-death/9780231208376 Bio: Beatrice Marovich is the author of Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying (Columbia University Press, 2023). She teaches in the Department of Theological Studies, at Hanover College. Her work offers provocative reflections on the way that strange and ancient religious figures and ideas remain at work in our cultures, in our politics, and in our bodies in both beautiful and deeply unsettling ways. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “On Dying — with Beatrice Marovich.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 28, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/260-beatrice-marovich.html.

In this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Véronique Sioufi, the Researcher for Racial & Socio-economic Equity at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office, and a doctoral candidate in geography at Simon Fraser University. Am and Véronique discuss what brought her to her doctoral work and her interest in issues of labour inequality, as well as how her position at the CCPA was created in order to look at structural racism in BC and fill in major data gaps. They also talk about how she and her colleagues in the CCPA approach questions of decolonisation in their work. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/259-veronique-sioufi.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/259-veronique-sioufi.html Resources: Véronique Sioufi: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/people/veronique-sioufi/ Véronique's Doctoral Research: https://www.sfu.ca/geography/about/our-people/profiles/veronique-emond-sioufi.html CCPA BC: https://www.ccpabc.ca/ Bio: Véronique is the CCPA-BCs Researcher for Racial & Socio-economic Equity, a data-driven, intersectional initiative that investigates structural racism and socio-economic inequalities in BC. An interdisciplinary researcher, Véronique critically examines the social and political structures affecting the ability of the working class to thrive. She brings a rich blend of expertise and work experience in labour, economic geography, critical data studies, critical race theory and communication. Currently a doctoral candidate in geography at Simon Fraser University, her SSHRC-funded study delves into crowdwork in Canada and Tunisia, particularly how platforms rely on and reproduce precarity and the uneven distribution of that precarity across gender, race, class and geography. Véronique also holds an MA in Communication from SFU, where she explored the tensions in Canadian unions' use of privately owned social media platforms for collective organizing. Véronique is proud of her Palestinian roots, which make her particularly sensitive to the geographies of politics and power. She is passionate about community-driven, collaborative and hopeful research. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Racial Equity in Policy Making — with Véronique Sioufi.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 14, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/259-veronique-sioufi.html.

In this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Damla Tamer, a visual artist and sessional lecturer at UBC whose work explores the affective conditions of labour under late capitalism, and the evolution of forms of civil protest within the contemporary political history of Turkey. Damla is also a founding member of the Art Mamas artist collective, which aims to create support networks for artist caregivers, while critically exploring the place of motherhood and care work within the dominant culture of art production. Am and Damla discusses her recent exhibition at Access gallery, which explored the aftermath of the Gezi protests in Turkey through textile works, her work with housing co-ops in False Creek South, and why she thinks it's ok for students to express love for a work of art. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/258-damla-tamer.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/258-damla-tamer.html Resources: Art Mamas CBC Article: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/art-mamas-meet-the-vancouver-collective-that-creates-community-for-mothers-in-the-arts-1.5129578 Art Mamas | Access Gallery: https://accessgallery.ca/programming/artmamas art/mamas: Intermedial Conversations on Art, Motherhood and Caregiving https://criticalmediartstudio.iat.sfu.ca/artmamas/?page_id=291&fbclid=PAAaYDby0LbG_w1ZkyIsEjU61ZIV3FfuBCa25TBFHLHuMn9XUUmJqpUro5pPU UBC Profile: https://ahva.ubc.ca/profile/damla-tamer/ Bio: Damla Tamer (born in Istanbul, Turkey) is a visual artist and educator living on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. Her practice engages with the intersections of textile crafts and contemporary studio practices, with a special focus on weaving. Her work is heavily invested in searching for a new ethics of temporality through the relationships between aesthetics and politics. Her most recent work focuses on tracing the rise of neoliberal authoritarianism in Turkey and its relation to global movements, the evolution of forms of civil protest and resistance, and the capacities and limits of language and representation in locating oneself in a world that is rife with shifts. She does social-collaborative work as part of various artist collectives and co-operatives. She is a founding member of the artist mothers collective A.M. (Art Mamas) and has organized extensive public programming and co-published a book on motherhood, caregiving and social reproduction in relation to art and labour at large. She teaches at The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Emily Carr University of Art+Design. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Art Mamas — with Damla Tamer.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 17, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/258-damla-tamer.html. Tags: SFU, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Simon Fraser University, Am Johal, Below the Radar, Damla Tamer, Art Mamas, Gezi, Vancouver Podcast

In this episode of Below the Radar, host Am Johal sits down with Mena El Shazly, a visual artist specializing in moving image creation, curation, and programming. Her practice speculates on notions of presence and transcendence in the digital world, exploring how processes of decay provide alternative forms of transformation and regeneration. They discuss her approach to time-based media, how the collaborative Death Spells project explores the ancient Egyptians afterlife obsessions, the Sudanese Crystalist movement, and how a teenage visit to Dracula's castle unexpectedly waylaid her tennis career, steering her toward a life in art. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/257-mena-el-shazly.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/257-mena-el-shazly.html Resources: Mena El Shazly: https://substantialmotion.org/profile/mena-el-shazly The Crystalist Manifesto: https://post.moma.org/modern-art-in-the-arab-world-primary-documents-the-crystalist-manifesto/ The Motion of the Image: https://thecinematheque.ca/films/2024/motion-image The Lind Biennial: https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/the-lind-biennial/ Stir ‘Splainer: 5 artists at The Lind Biennial exhibition at the Polygon Gallery: https://www.createastir.ca/articles/lind-biennial-stir-splainer Small File Media Festival: https://smallfile.ca/ Bio: Mena El Shazly is a visual artist who works with analogue video, embroidery and performance. Her practice speculates on notions of presence and transcendence as informed by the internet culture and ancient rituals, and explores practices of cultivating decay to arrive at alternative forms of transformation and regeneration. Exhibitions of her work include Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (2024), Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo (2024), and House of World Cultures, Berlin (2015). She was a fellow of the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2015). El Shazly is based in Vancouver on unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ First Nations. She obtained an MFA from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (2023) and a BA from the American University in Cairo (2013). El Shazly also has a well-established curatorial practice. She is the Artistic Director of the Cairo Video Festival organized by Medrar and a programmer at the Small File Video Festival. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “On Crystals, Tennis and Vampires — with Mena El Shaly.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 3, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/257-mena-el-shazly.html. Tags: SFU, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Simon Fraser University, Am Johal, Below the Radar, Mena El Shazly

This week on Below the Radar, we're joined by Tina Sikka, Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University. Tina discusses her research and writing on topics such as consent, justice, and feminist science studies, as well as her work in EDI at the university. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/256-tina-sikka.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/256-tina-sikka.html Resources: Tina Sikka: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/people/profile/tinasikka.html Sex, Consent and Justice: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-sex-consent-and-justice.html Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/health-apps-genetic-diets-and-superfoods-9781350202030/ Disrupted Knowledge Book: https://brill.com/display/title/64108?language=en Disrupted Knowledge Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/disruptedknowledge Bio: Dr. Tina Sikka is Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University, UK. Her current research includes the critical and intersectional study of science, applied to climate change, bodies, and health, as well as research on consent, sexuality, and restorative justice. Dr. Sikka also works in the areas of decolonisation, bordering practices, and DEI.  Dr. Sikka's book, Health Apps, Genetic Diets, and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023), uses autoethnography, science and technology studies, and new materialism to examine what constitutes ‘good health' and explore possibilities for enacting health justice. Her previous book, Sex, Consent, and Justice: A New Feminist Framework (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) offers a novel approach to sexual ethics and transformative forms of justice using case studies from #MeToo, while her first book, Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (Springer, 2019), draws on feminist science studies to explore the science underpinning solar climate engineering. Dr. Sikka's work on EDI, and current role as Director of EDI in The School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University, has led to invitations to lead workshops and she acts as a consultant on race, gender, and the workplace, cancel culture, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the public and private sectors. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Technoscience and Intersectional Justice — with Tina Sikka.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 19, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/256-tina-sikka.html.

Filmmaker Brett Story and labour organizer Chris Smalls join us this week on Below the Radar. Brett is the co-director of UNION, a documentary film that follows the efforts of the Amazon Labor Union and their campaign to unionize the first Amazon warehouse in American history. The movement was spearheaded by Chris, a former Amazon warehouse supervisor who was fired in 2020 after organizing a protest against Amazon's lack of COVID-19 safety protocols. Brett and Chris chat about the process of making the film, the state of organizing in the contemporary moment, and the international reception of UNION. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/255-brett-story-chris-smalls.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/255-brett-story-chris-smalls.html Resources: Brett Story: https://brettstory.ca/ Chris Smalls: https://www.instagram.com/chris.smalls_/?hl=en Amazon Labor Union: https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/ UNION: https://www.unionthefilm.com/ DOXA Documentary Film Festival: https://www.doxafestival.ca/ Bio: Bretty Story: Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer based in Toronto. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at CPH-DOX, SXSW, True/False, and Sheffield Doc/Fest. She is the director of the award-winning films The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) and The Hottest August (2019), and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. The Hottest August was a New York Times Critics' Pick and was called one of the ten best documentary films of 2019 by over a dozen publications, including Variety, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. Brett has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Sundance Institute, and was named one of Variety's 10 Documentary Filmmakers to Watch. In 2020 she was nominated for a Cinema Eye Award for Best Director. She holds a PhD in geography and is currently an assistant professor of Media Praxis at the University of Toronto. Her most recent film, UNION, co-directed with Stephen Maing, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. Chris Smalls: Christian Smalls is the founder of the Amazon Labor Union, an independent, democratic, worker-led labor union at Amazon in Staten Island. He is also the founder of The Congress of Essential Workers (TCOEW), a nationwide collective of essential workers and allies fighting for better working conditions, better wages, and a better world. Smalls was formerly an Amazon warehouse supervisor, helping open three major warehouses in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut during his five years with the company, but he was fired in 2020 after organizing a protest against the company's unsafe pandemic conditions. Smalls has been profiled by media outlets worldwide, including The New York Times, USA Today, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, CBC Radio, Salon, and Jacobin. He lives in Hackensack, New Jersey. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “ Union Power — with Brett Story and Chris Smalls.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 5, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/255-brett-story-chris-smalls.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Hank Bull, an artist and curator whose administration and advocacy work has greatly contributed to artist-run culture in Canada. Hank discusses his work with the Western Front and Centre A, and he also brought along some props to give us a taste of what his past radio art sounded like! Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/254-hank-bull.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/254-hank-bull.html Resources: Hank Bull: https://hankbull.ca/ The HP Show: https://wavefarm.org/ta/archive/works/vae2da Western Front: https://westernfront.ca/ Centre A: https://centrea.org/ Vancouver Art Gallery: https://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/ Bio: Hank Bull was born in 1949 in Moh'kins'tsis/Calgary and grew up in Toronto and small towns in southern Ontario. He became interested in art and music at an early age, mentored by a librarian, Graham Barnett, and encouraged by high school instructors Paavo Airola and David Blackwood. After travels in Europe in 1968, he studied drawing and photography in Toronto under Robert Markle and Nobuo Kuobota. In 1973, he moved to xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam)/Vancouver to join the newly formed artist-run centre Western Front. In this interdisciplinary setting, he was exposed to mail art, poetry, ceramics, improvised music and video. He produced a weekly radio broadcast, cabaret performances, shadow theatre and telecommunications projects. During the 1980s he travelled in Asia, Africa and Europe, organized international exchanges and helped to develop a Canadian network of artist-run centres. He has worked in collaboration with a wide range of artists, including Kate Craig, Glenn Lewis, General Idea, Robert Filliou, William S. Burroughs, Kathy Acker, Michael Snow, Mona Hatoum, Antoni Muntadas, Steve Lacy, Tari Ito, Rebecca Belmore, Germaine Koh, Khan Lee, Cornelia Wyngaarden and many others. He has filled a variety of roles as artist, curator, writer, organizer and administrator. Throughout his career, he has continued an individual practice of painting, music, photography, video, sound and sculpture. He lives at the Western Front and spends a fair amount of time in swiya, territory of shíshálh Nation, as a member of the Storm Bay Art and Conservation Society. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The World Accordion To Hank — with Hank Bull.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 22, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/254-hank-bull.html.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist, joins us on this week's episode of Below the Radar. Am Johal and Leanne chat about her creative process, the significance of Nishnaabeg thought and practice in her work, and some upcoming projects including her newest book Theory of Water, set to be published in Spring of 2025. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/253-leanne-simpson.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/253-leanne-simpson.html Resources: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: https://www.leannesimpson.ca/ Leanne Simpson: Listening in Our Present Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VhckgLYX3k Episode 122: Theory of Ice — with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/122-leanne-betasamosake-simpson.html Dancing On Our Turtle's Back: https://arpbooks.org/product/dancing-on-our-turtles-back/ As We Have Always Done: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517903879/as-we-have-always-done/ Bio: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg musician, writer and academic, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the boundaries between story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. Leanne has performed in venues and festivals across Canada with her sister singer songwriter Ansley Simpson and guitarist Nick Ferrio. Leanne's second album, f(l)light, was released in 2016 and is a haunting collection of story-songs that effortlessly interweave Simpson's complex poetics and multi-layered stories of the land, spirit, and body with lush acoustic and electronic arrangements. Her EP Noopiming Sessions combines readings from her novel Noopiming with soundscapes composed and performed by Ansley Simpson and James Bunton with a gorgeous video by Sammy Chien and the Chimerik Collective. It was produced during the on-going social isolation of COVID-19 and was released on Gizhiiwe Music in the Fall of 2020. Leanne is the author of seven books, including This Accident of Being Lost, which won the MacEwan University Book of the Year; was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award; was long listed for CBC Canada Reads; and was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Quill & Quire. Her new novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies was released by the House of Anansi Press in the fall of 2020 and in the US by the University of Minnesota Press in 2021 and was named one of the Globe and Mail's best books of the year and was short listed for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. A Short History of the Blockade was released by the University of Alberta Press in early 2021. Her new project with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living will be released in 2022 by Knopf Canada. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Theory of Water — with Leanne Simpson.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 8, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/253-leanne-simpson.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, we're joined by Miwa Matreyek, an animator, designer, performer and Assistant Professor in Theatre Production and Design at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. Am and Miwa discuss how she got into making interdisciplinary artwork and some of her recent projects that combine animation and live performance. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/252-miwa-matreyek.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/252-miwa-matreyek.html Resources: Miwa Matreyek: https://miwamatreyek.com/ SFU Theatre Production and Design: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/programs/theatre-production---design.html Infinitely Yours: https://miwamatreyek.com/#/infinitelyyours/ Cloud Eye Control: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cloud-eye13-2009oct13-story.html Bio: Miwa Matreyek is an animator, designer, and performer. Coming from a background in animation, Matreyek creates live, interdisciplinary performances that integrate projected animations at the intersection of cinematic and theatrical, fantastical and physical, and the hand-made and digital. Her work exists in a dreamlike visual space that makes invisible worlds visible, often weaving surreal and poetic narratives of conflict between humanity and nature as embodied performed experiences. She has presented her work internationally, including animation/film festivals, theater/performance festivals, art museums, science museums, tech conferences, and universities. A few past presenters include TED, MOMA, SFMOMA, New Frontier at Sundance Film Festival, PUSH festival, Lincoln Center, Walker Art Center, and many more. Her newest solo piece, Infinitely Yours, was awarded the grand prize for Prix Arts Electronica's Computer Animation category. She is a 2013 Creative Capital award recipient. She is the co-founder and core collaborator of Cloud Eye Control. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Infinitely Yours — with Miwa Matreyek.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 1, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/252-miwa-matreyek.html.

This week on Below the Radar, we're joined by Ghinwa Yassine, a Lebanese anti-disciplinary artist whose work confronts the ideological and patriarchal systems that she grew up in, while exploring collective feelings and what it means to be a marked body. Ghinwa discusses her recent multi-media installations and ongoing artistic research into gestural agency and freedom. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/251-ghinwa-yassine.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/251-ghinwa-yassine.html Resources: Ghinwa Yassine: https://www.ghinwayassine.com/ How Far Can a Marked Body Go? : https://www.ghinwayassine.com/how-far-can-a-marked-body-go KickQueen: https://www.ghinwayassine.com/kickqueen MENA Film Festival: https://www.menafilmfestival.com/ When You Pour Something, It Carries the Memory of its Mold: https://www.ghinwayassine.com/when-you-pour-something-it-carries-the-memory-of-its-mold Bio: Ghinwa Yassine is an anti-disciplinary artist based on the land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people, so-called Vancouver. Her work uses various media, including film, installation, performance, text, and drawing. Yassine's work confronts the ideological and patriarchal systems that she grew up in while exploring collective feelings and what it means to be a marked body. She seeks a radical historicizing of individual and collective traumas where embodied memories are put into question. Using hybrid forms of storytelling, where story manifests as somatic experiencing, ritual, and gesture, her projects are portals to factual/fictional dimensions that activate collective memory. Yassine holds an MFA in Contemporary Art - Interdisciplinary Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, an MA in Digital Video Design from the University of the Arts Utrecht, and a BA in Graphic Design from the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut. Her works have been exhibited in the Netherlands, Lebanon, UAE, Canada, Iran, and Croatia. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “How Far Can A Marked Body Go? — with Ghinwa Yassine.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 24, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/251-ghinwa-yassine.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Wendy Brown, distinguished American political theorist and Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of California Berkeley. Together they discuss Wendy's writing on the emergence of and critical responses to identity politics, physical border controls as performative expressions of sovereignty, the replacement of democratic values with neoliberal values of free market competition and individualism, and her forthcoming work on expanded notions of democracy that account for the past, future, human and non human. They also discuss the 2024 American presidential race, and as this episode was recorded in May, before President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, some comments are out of date, though still relevant to larger conversations around electoral politics. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/250-wendy-brown.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/250-wendy-brown.html Resources: Wendy Brown: https://www.ias.edu/sss/wendy-brown States of Injury: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691029894/states-of-injury Walled States, Waning Sovereignty: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408031/walled-states-waning-sovereignty Undoing the Demos: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408543/undoing-the-demos Bio: A political theorist who works across the history of political thought, political economy, Continental philosophy, cultural theory and critical legal theory, Wendy Brown is the UPS Foundation Chair in the School of Social Science. Prior to her appointment at the Institute, she was Class of 1936 First Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a prize-winning teacher and scholar. Drawing from Nietzschean, Weberian, Marxist, Foucauldian, feminist and postcolonial angles of vision, Professor Brown writes about the subterranean powers shaping contemporary EuroAtlantic polities, with particular attention to the political identities, subjectivities and expressions they spawn. The author/co-author of a dozen books in English, she is best known for her interrogation of identity politics and state power in States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (1995); her critical analysis of tolerance in Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (2006); her account of the inter-regnum between nation states and globalization in Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2010); and her study of neoliberalism's assault on democratic principles, institutions and citizenship in Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (2015) and In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (2019). Across her work, Brown aims to illuminate powers unique to our era and the predicaments they generate for democratic thought and practice. These predicaments range from rule by finance, to the de-democratization of political culture, to the nihilistic depletion of truth, values and conscience. Currently, Brown is exploring how political freedom can be salvaged from its historical imbrication with regimes of class, race and gender subjection and be made responsive to the climate crisis. Her driving question is whether and how political freedom can be reformulated in light of both. She is also extending and revising for publication her 2019 Yale Tanner Lectures, “Politics and Knowledge in Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber.” Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “States of Injury — with Wendy Brown.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 17, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/250-wendy-brown.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Ranjit Hoskote, poet, translator, art critic, and curator. Together they discuss Bombay's political and cultural milieu in the 1980s and 90s, from which Ranjit began to experiment with art making, artistic and curatorial responses to an emergent neo-colonial Indian state. They also discuss the crisis of cultural politics, Ranjit's poetic responses to humanity's demise in this moment of ecological crisis, and the promise he sees in interstitial spaces. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/249-ranjit-hoskote.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/249-ranjit-hoskote.html Resources: Ranjit's linktree: https://linktr.ee/rhoskote Icelight: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819500557/icelight/ Hunchprose: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/hunchprose/ Jonahwhale: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/jonahwhale/ PEN International: https://www.pen-international.org/ Bio: Ranjit Hoskote is an Indian poet, theorist, and curator whose influential work centres on the complex history and presence of cultural pluralism from the local to the global. His eight books of poetry—including Icelight (2022), Jonahwhale (2018), and a translation of a fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic-poet, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd (2011)—engage with themes of identity, displacement, and transformation through time. His acclaimed 2012 book Confluences: Forgotten Histories between East and West (with Ilija Trojanow) traced the rich history of intercultural and interreligious encounter that has shaped—and continues to shape—the contemporary world. Hoskote has curated more than 50 showcases of Indian and global art over the past three decades, including India's first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Politics of Art — with Ranjit Hoskote.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 10, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/249-ranjit-hoskote.html.

This week on Below the Radar we're joined by Michael Hardt, political theorist and Professor at Duke University. Am and Michael discuss the political concept of love, Michael's research on revolutionary movements in the 1970s, as well as his past writing with the late Tony Negri, and how they continue to think together. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/248-michael-hardt Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/248-michael-hardt Resources: Michael Hardt: https://scholars.duke.edu/person/hardt The Subversive Seventies: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-subversive-seventies-9780197674659 Michael's Talk at SFU: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/library/2023/michael-hardt-the-subversive-seventies.html Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674006713 Bio: Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author, with Antonio Negri, of the Empire trilogy and, most recently, Assembly. He is co-director with Sandro Mezzadra of The Social Movements Lab. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Politics of Love — with Michael Hardt.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 27th, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/248-michael-hardt.html.

As the seasons change, Below the Radar is back to our regularly scheduled programming featuring a dynamic range of local and international voices. We're thrilled to bring a host of critically acclaimed writers, theorists, and artists across disciplines to share conversations on the politics of love, the crisis of neoliberalism, and artmaking through political shifts. We also have graduates and faculty of our very own SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts to discuss their practice and pedagogy. Our Fall season will begin on August 27, 2024, with new episodes on Tuesdays. This season is also a celebration of Below the Radar's milestone 250th episode, featuring political theorist Wendy Brown. As we head into our sixth year, we're so grateful for your continued listenership, and we have lots of exciting projects and partnerships coming up ahead. As always, thank you for listening and we're looking forward to sharing these conversations with you. Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-trailer-fall-2024.html

This episode of Below the Radar is a special live recording from SFU School for the Contemporary Arts' 2023 Re-Orientation Day, an all-day event designed to welcome SCA students, faculty, and staff back to campus for the fall semester. The 2023 theme was on “Place,” and the Vancity Office of Community Engagement convened a panel of speakers across the arts, academia, and community engagement to speak on community engaged practices in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Our host Am Johal is joined by Wendy Pedersen of the Downtown Eastside SRO Collaborative, SFU Professor of Geography Nick Blomley, musician and facilitator Khari Wendell McLelland, dancer, choreographer and now SCA faculty Justine Chambers, and Vancity Office of Community Engagement staff Julia Aoki, Kathy Feng and Samantha Walters. Enjoy the episode! Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/247-re-orientations.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/247-re-orientations.html Resources: DTES SRO Collaborative: https://srocollaborative.org/ Nick's work: https://www.sfu.ca/geography/about/our-people/profiles/Nicholas-Blomley.html Khari's website: https://khariwendellmcclelland.com/ Justine's website: https://justineachambers.com/ About Julia: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/about/updates/all-updates/meet-julia-aoki.html Samantha's website: https://samanthawalters.com/ Kathy's website: https://kathyfeng.info/ Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “PLACE: SCA Re-Orientation Day 2023.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 20, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/247-re-orientations.html.

This week on Below the Radar, we're joined by Zool Suleman, co-founder and editor of Rungh Magazine. Zool discusses Rungh's founding as a national South Asian focused cultural initiative in the 90s, and how the magazine has since evolved into a platform for Indigenous, Black and racialized artist conversations. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/246-zool-suleman.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/246-zool-suleman.html Resources: Rungh Magazine: www.rungh.org Stop Racial Profiling: www.stopracialprofiling.ca Zool Suleman: www.sulemanco.com Bio: Zool Suleman is a lawyer, writer, journalist, and cultural collaborator. He is the Editor of Rungh Magazine. He co-founded Rungh (1991), as a national South Asian focused arts initiative and relaunched Rungh in 2017 as a creative platform for Indigenous, Black and racialized artist conversations. In addition to his engagements as a cultural connector, he advocates for immigrants and refugees and has been active in national and local civil society initiatives against racism, racial profiling and Islamophobia, as the Executive Director of MARU since 2004. His work has been recognized by the City of Vancouver, the Attorney General of British Columbia, the BC Museum Association, and the Canadian Association of Journalists. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Archiving Counter-Histories — with Zool Suleman.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, July 23, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/246-zool-suleman.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Ellie Anderson, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College, and co-host of the Overthink podcast. Ellie joins us to discuss how she got into philosophy and contemporary readings of Simone de Beauvoir's work. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/245-ellie-anderson.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/245-ellie-anderson.html Resources: Ellie Anderson: https://www.ellieandersonphd.com/ Ellie Anderson's work: https://pomona.academia.edu/EllieAnderson Overthink podcast: https://overthinkpodcast.com/ Bio: Ellie Anderson is a philosopher with expertise in feminist theory, existentialism, phenomenology, and philosophy of race. She is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College and co-host of Overthink podcast. An internationally recognized specialist on love, dating, sexual consent, ethical non-monogamy (including open relationships and polyamory), and selfhood, Ellie is published in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hypatia, Continental Philosophy Review, Forge Magazine, and more. She is currently working on a book. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Reading Simone de Beauvoir — with Ellie Anderson.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, July 9, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/245-ellie-anderson.html.

Our host Am Johal is joined by Ian Angus, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Together, they chat about Ian's academic career, his engagement with the work of Husserl, and his most recent book, Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World (Lexington Books, 2021). Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/244-ian-angus.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/244-ian-angus.html Resources: Ian Angus: https://www.sfu.ca/globalhumanities/human-dir/emeritus/i-angus.html Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793640918/Groundwork-of-Phenomenological-Marxism-Crisis-Body-World Ian's work: https://sfu.academia.edu/IanAngus/ Bio: Ian Angus is Professor Emeritus from the Department of Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University. He has published in the areas of contemporary philosophy, Canadian Studies, and communication theory. A Festschrift on his work has been edited by Samir Gandesha and Peyman Vahabzadeh: "Crossing Borders: Essays in Honour of Ian H. Angus, "Beyond Phenomenology and Critique" (Arbeiter Ring, 2020). His most recent book is "Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World" (Lexington Books, 2021). Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism — with Ian Angus.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, June 18, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/244-ian-angus.html.

Artist and curator Germaine Koh joins our host Am Johal on this week's episode of Below the Radar. Together, they chat about some of Germaine's work—including her ongoing project League—and the incorporation of sport into art. Germaine also shares stories about receiving a 2023 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, the importance of unproductivity, and her projects on Salt Spring Island. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/243-germaine-koh.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/243-germaine-koh.html Resources: Germaine's website: https://germainekoh.com/ Home Made Home: http://homemadehome.ca/ League project site: http://league-league.org/ Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency: https://thebluecabin.ca/ Interview with Shadbolt Fellow and Governor General's Award winner Germaine Koh: https://www.sfu.ca/fass/news/2023/12/germaine-koh-shadbolt-fellow.html Bio: Germaine Koh is a Canadian artist and curator based on the west coast of Turtle Island, in traditional Coast Salish territories. Her work adapts familiar situations, everyday actions and common spaces to encourage connections between people, technology, and natural systems. Her ongoing projects include Home Made Home, an initiative to build and advocate for alternative forms of housing, and League, a participatory project using play as a form of creative practice. From 2018 to 2020 she was the City of Vancouver's first Engineering Artist in Residence, and was Koerner Artist in Residence at the University of British Columbia for 2021. In 2023-24 she was a Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Koh was awarded a 2023 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “League — with Germaine Koh.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, June 4th, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/243-germaine-koh.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Srećko Horvat, a philosopher, author, and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. Am and Srećko discuss the journey behind launching the Island School of Social Autonomy on the Adriatic island of Vis. ISSA is a place for imagining, experimenting with and cultivating forms of knowledge-production and knowledge-sharing for the “age of extinction”.. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/242-srecko-horvat.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/242-srecko-horvat.html Resources: Srećko Horvat: https://sreckohorvat.org/ Island School of Social Autonomy: https://issa-school.org/ Subversive Festival: https://subversivefestival.com/ Democracy in Europe Movement 2025: https://diem25.org/en/ The Radicality of Love: https://sreckohorvat.org/the-radicality-of-love/ After the Apocalypse: https://sreckohorvat.org/after-the-apocalypse/ Bio: A Croatian philosopher and author who produced a blizzard of political works – with several books published when he was barely into his thirties. Nowadays he is known as a fiery voice of dissent in the Post-Yugoslav landscape. If you aren't familiar with Horvat's work, you can probably recognise a lot of people who are. He is friends with the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis; had regular visits with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, an organisation that publishes news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. He is also a staunch friend of Slavoj Žižek, the maverick Slovenian celebrity academic with whom Horvat co-wrote a book in 2013 entitled “What Does Europe Want?”. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel. Aside from co-founding DiEM25, which campaigns to reform the EU into a “realm of shared prosperity, peace and solidarity”, he is a founder of the Subversive festival, an annual jamboree in Zagreb of radical thought that has featured the likes of Oliver Stone and Antonio Negri. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Island School of Social Autonomy — with Srećko Horvat.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, May 21, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/242-srecko-horvat.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Seth Klein, Team Lead and Director of Strategy of the Climate Emergency Unit, a 5-year project of the David Suzuki Institute that Seth launched in early 2021. Am and Seth discuss how he and his team are working to mobilise Canada for the climate emergency, including their latest project evaluating how the CBC reports on climate. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/241-seth-klein.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/241-seth-klein.html Resources: Seth Klein: https://www.sethklein.ca/ Climate Emergency Unit: https://www.climateemergencyunit.ca/ A Good War: https://ecwpress.com/collections/books/products/a-good-war CBC Climate Emergency Campaign: https://www.climateemergencyunit.ca/cbc-climate-emergency-campaign Bio: Seth Klein is the Team Lead and Director of Strategy of the Climate Emergency Unit (a 5-year project of the David Suzuki Institute that Seth launched in early 2021). Prior to that, he served for 22 years (1996-2018) as the founding British Columbia Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a public policy research institute committed to social, economic and environmental justice. He is the author of A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency (published by ECW press in 2020) and writes a regular column for Canada's National Observer. He is an adjunct professor with Simon Fraser University's Urban Studies program, an honorary research associate with the University of British Columbia's School for Public Policy and Global Affairs, and remains a research associate with the CCPA's BC Office. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Politics of Climate Emergency Mobilization — with Seth Klein.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, May 7, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/241-seth-klein.html.

Artist and comedian Kira Nova joins us this week on Below the Radar. Alongside our host Am Johal, they chat about growing up in the circus, clowning, experimental pedagogy, and Kira's psychedelic clown workshops. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/240-kira-nova.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/240-kira-nova.html Resources: Kira's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kira.nova_/?hl=en Psychedelic Clown Workshops: http://clownsonacid.tilda.ws/ Bio: Kira Nova is a world renowned artist, comedian and producer whose credits include the MoMa and the MET. Over the past 10 years she has created 5 solo shows and curated a number of variety theater productions. Among which was a show she created with Michael Portnoy and Reggie Watts — “Alligators! Experimental Comedy Lab”, presented in The Netherlands and Belgium. Nova has presented her breed of one-woman shows at such venues as MoMa PS1, MET Breuer, The Kitchen in New York; Center Pompidou in Paris, Royal Academy Theater in London, Art Basel in Basel among many. While as a comedian Nova performed in many venues around NY, which include productions at The Box and House of Yes. For the past 10 years, Nova has been leading workshops and teaching at many North American and European Art Academies, that include: Columbia University in New York (US), Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta (Canada), Paul Klee Center in Basel (Switzerland), Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), de Appel Curatorial Program in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (Germany), Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (The Netherlands). Since 2013, Nova works as a professor at Lunds University (Sweden). Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Clowns on Acid — with Kira Nova.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, April 23, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/240-kira-nova.html.

This week on Below the Radar, we're joined by Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim, co-creators of the participatory videogame performance asses.masses. The show recently wrapped up a run at Vancouver's PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Patrick and Milton discuss the show's development, videogames as performance, and what they've discovered as they've toured the piece. Find out more and get tickets for their upcoming performances at https://www.assesmasses.work/performances Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/239-patrick-blenkarn-milton-lim.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/239-patrick-blenkarn-milton-lim.html Resources: asses.masses: https://www.assesmasses.work/ Patrick Blenkarn: https://patrickblenkarn.com/ Milton Lim: https://www.miltonlim.com/ culturecapital: https://www.culturecapital.cards/ Bio: Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim are conceptual artists exploring urgent questions around the social value of art, digital labour, and the political potential of games. Mixing their backgrounds in performance, philosophy, psychology, and digital media, their collaborations have manifested in video games, participatory installations, digital archives, and card games. In addition to asses.masses, Patrick and Milton are also the co-founders of the Canadian national video archive of performance (videocan) and the co-creators behind a performing arts economy trading card game (culturecapital). Their projects have been presented across Canada, as well as in Argentina, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, in English, French, and Spanish. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Walters, Samantha. “Ass Power — with Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, April 9, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/239-patrick-blenkarn-milton-lim.html.

This week, we're sharing an episode from our friends at FCAT After School. FCAT After School is a podcast project led by student hosts from across SFU's Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology speaking with alumni about their career journey since graduation. You'll hear stories of and advice for traditional and unconventional career paths across communication, interactive arts and technology, contemporary arts, publishing and digital media. What does it mean to fail and succeed at the same time? How can one offer joy as a form of activism? What is the purpose of comedy in 2024? In this episode, host Torien Cafferata explores these questions with SFU School for the Contemporary Arts alum June Fukumura, an interdisciplinary theatre artist, clown, and comedian. June has appeared on the Arts Club stage, in film and TV, and an award-winning Fringe Festival solo show. Together she and Torien explore how, in June's line of work, failure is very much a form of success — and re-enchanting the everyday can happen both on and off the stage. To learn more about June's work, check out her website: junefukumura.com or Instagram: @june.fukumura Find full episode transcripts and more info on FCAT After School: sfu.ca/fcat/news/podcast.html To learn more about SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts, Theatre & Performance BFA: sfu.ca/sca/programs/theatre-performance.html Follow SFU's FCAT on social media: Twitter: twitter.com/FCATatSFU Instagram: instagram.com/fcatatsfu Linkedin: linkedin.com/school/fcatatsfu Facebook: facebook.com/FCATatSFU

On this episode of Below the Radar, we're joined by Ania Malinowska, hypnotherapist, cultural theorist and Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. We discuss Ania's scholarly practice, love, and how Ania found herself being trained in hypnosis. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/238-ania-malinowska.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/238-ania-malinowska.html Resources: Ania Malinowska: https://aniamalinowska.com/ The Unhappy Ending Project: https://unhappyendingproject.com/ Hypnotic AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhptkULpzkk Data Dating: https://www.datadating.online/ Love in Contemporary Technoculture: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/love-in-contemporary-technoculture/074FE883A89E836B494D581E7C74A3AB?fbclid=IwAR1Kw7BqgQ8sdCZRMmz80YHApzetCqdjg6h43Zoq3wT8Yt0SmB3GJcNH00A The Materiality of Love: https://www.routledge.com/The-Materiality-of-Love-Essays-on-Affection-and-Cultural-Practice/Malinowska-Gratzke/p/book/9780367886639 Bio: Ania Malinowska is a cultural theorist, poet and author. She is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Institute of Culture Studies and Centre for Critical Technology Studies), and a former Senior Fulbright Fellow at The New School in New York. Malinowska's work is associated with critical posthumanism and cultural semiotics, gathering approaches from media and cultural studies, anthropology, philosophy of technology, and digital humanities. Her critical writing focuses on technologically shaped love practices and emotional traditions under digitalism. A licensed hypnotist and an author of fiction and poetry, Malinowska is a proponent of textrapolation, a method of poetic experimentation based on intuitive assemblage she employs for her cutout and stamp poems. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Art of Love, Hypnosis, and AI.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 26, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/238-ania-malinowska.html.

Curator, writer, and educator Moroti George joins our host Am Johal on this episode of Below the Radar. Moroti is the curator at The Black Arts Centre in Surrey, BC and the Director/Curator of Gallery Gachet in downtown Vancouver. Together, they chat about how Moroti became interested in the arts, their experience working in two different art spaces, and their approach to curating in Greater Vancouver. s Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/237-moroti-george.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/237-moroti-george.html Resources: Gallery Gachet: https://gachet.org/ Gallery Gachet's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gallerygachet/ The Black Arts Centre: https://theblackartscentre.ca/ The Black Arts Centre's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblackartscentre/ See How We Run! Art as Agency, Autonomy and Community — with Demi London and Moroti George: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/229-art-as-agency-autonomy-and-community.html Bio: Olumoroti (MorotiI) Soji-George (he/they) is a curator, writer and educator based in Vancouver, BC. He is the curator at the Black Arts Centre in Surrey, BC and the Director/Curator of Gallery Gachet in downtown Vancouver. Olumoroti's curatorial practice primarily involves unravelling and demystifying the ways Blackness is embodied and codified in our shared milieu and conceptualizing the works of Black Contemporary artists and their contributions to the Black cultural lexicon and our understanding of the state of Blackness. His research and curatorial practice also involve envisioning accessible and community-centred art spaces and highlighting the stories of individuals and communities who construct new ways of being that challenge the Western status quo. At the core of his practice is the belief that space could be used to reflect the agency and lived experiences of individuals whose bodies and identities are not typically valued, respected and represented in traditional art and academic settings. Through an exploration of language, the archive, lens-based works, history and cultural theory, Olumoroti's curatorial practice is grounded in a passion for non-hierarchical epistemological production that could contribute to the creation of a pathway where new approaches to cultural production and the politics that fuel the ways different bodies perceive and understand the world could emerge. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Community-Centred Curating — with Moroti George .” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 12, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/237-moroti-george.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Glen Clark, who was formerly premier of British Columbia, as well as president and chief operating officer of the Jim Pattison Group in Vancouver. Glen discusses his political career, from his time in labour movements to the legislative assembly, and further on to how he exited politics and got into working with corporate titan Jim Pattison. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/236-glen-clark.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/236-glen-clark.html Resources: Glen Clark 1996 Cabinet: https://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/reference/clarkcabinet.pdf The Jim Pattison Group: https://www.jimpattison.com/ Bio: Glen Clark is a senior advisor to Rogers Communications and Tiny Ltd. Prior to that he was the President and COO of The Jim Pattison Group. Mr. Clark is also a member of the Board of Directors of Westshore Terminals Investment Corporation, an export terminal company and Tersa Earth, a small biotechnology startup. Prior to his corporate roles, Mr. Clark served as Premier of British Columbia, Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations, and Minister of Employment and Investment. Mr. Clark was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in 1986 to represent the constituency of Vancouver-East. In the 1991 and 1996 general elections, he was re-elected to represent the constituency of Vancouver-Kingsway. Mr. Clark holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Simon Fraser University, and a master's degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of British Columbia. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Glen Clark: Main Street vs. Howe Street — with Glen Clark.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 5, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/236-glen-clark.html.

This week on Below the Radar, we are joined by T.J. Demos, Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies. Together, they chat about TJ's book, Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come. They also discuss the question of climate justice in visual culture, green capitalism, and fossil fascism. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/235-tj-demos.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/235-tj-demos.html Resources: T. J.'s website: https://tjdemos.sites.ucsc.edu Center for Creative Ecologies: https://creativeecologies.ucsc.edu Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come: https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/radical-futurisms/ Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today: :https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/against-the-anthropocene-visual-culture-and-environment-today/ Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9783956790942/decolonizing-nature/ T.J. Demos Essays: https://ucsc.academia.edu/TjDemos Bio: T. J. Demos is the Patricia and Rowland Rebele Endowed Chair in Art History in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture, at University of California, Santa Cruz, and founding Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies. Demos is the author of several books, including Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (Sternberg Press, 2017); Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology (Sternberg Press, 2016); The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary During Global Crisis (Duke University Press, 2013) – winner of the College Art Association's 2014 Frank Jewett Mather Award – and Return to the Postcolony: Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art (Sternberg Press, 2013). He recently co-edited The Routledge Companion on Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change (2021), was a Getty Research Institute Fellow (Spring 2020), and directed the Mellon-funded Sawyer Seminar research project Beyond the End of the World (2019-21). Demos was Chair and Chief Curator of the Climate Collective, providing public programming related to the 2021 Climate Emergency > Emergence program at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Maat) in Lisbon. His new book, Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come, 2023, is now out from Sternberg Press. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Radical Futurisms — with T.J. Demos.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 27, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/235-tj-demos.html.

This week on Below the Radar we're joined by Sanem Güvenç, a scholar, psychoanalyst, and university professor, as well as co-president of the Vancouver-based psychoanalytic society Lacan Salon. Together they discuss friendship, authoritarianism, teaching, and how Sanem reads the works of various philosophers, with a focus on how she got into Lacan. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/234-sanem-guvenc.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/234-sanem-guvenc.html Resources: Sanem Güvenç: https://www.sanemguvenc.com/ Lacan Salon: https://lacansalon.com/ ECUAD's Critical and Cultural Studies: https://www.ecuad.ca/academics/all-programs/undergraduate-programs/crcp Bio: Sanem Güvenç is an independent scholar based in Vancouver. Her current practice sits at the intersection of social-political theory and psychoanalysis, and works towards carving and mapping possible instances of echoes, dissonances, knottings and alliances in between those two broad fields. She traces these, on the one hand, in the humanities and social science classes she teaches at ECUAD's Critical and Cultural Studies, where she is positioned as a scholar in residence. On the other hand, these tropes are the founding questions of her book manuscript, tentatively titled, Topologies of the Void, where she employs speculative narration and experimental theorizing. Previously she journeyed through twentieth century its beginning and end through politics of eugenics and diseases in the first half of the twentieth century and neoliberal governmentalities at the tail end of it. At the moment, she is acting as the co-president of the Lacan Salon, the Vancouver-based psychoanalytic society that promotes and transmits analytical discourse. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Unhingedness — with Sanem Güvenç.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 13, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes234-sanem-guvenc.html.

This week on Below the Radar, we are joined by Travis Holloway: a poet, translator, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Farmingdale, and author of the book How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene (Stanford University Press, 2022). Am and Travis discuss noticing patterns in contemporary art making during the climate crisis. Travis also shares about translating the work of philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, the importance of friendship with all living beings, and the process of publishing a book. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/233-travis-holloway.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/233-travis-holloway.html Donate to Below the Radar: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/donate.html Resources: How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34552 Read more of Travis's work: https://pratt.academia.edu/TravisHolloway Bio: Travis Holloway grew up queer and working class in a rural factory town affected by free trade and globalization. His most recent book is How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene (Stanford, 2022). Holloway is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Farmingdale and a poet and former Goldwater Fellow in Creative Writing at NYU. He has an M.F.A., Ph.D., and is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Farmingdale, a translator, and a poet and former Goldwater Fellow in Creative Writing at NYU. His primary interests are in contemporary continental philosophy, aesthetics, social and political philosophy, queer theory, and the environmental humanities. His work on these topics has been published in Italy, Turkey, the UK, Columbia, Canada, the Czech Republic, and the U.S. His most recent publications include "Weather" (The Philosopher, 2022), "Philosophy at the End of the World: For a Counterhistory of Human Beings in the Anthropocene" (The Philosopher, 2020), "A Strategy for a Democratic Future" (Tropos, 2019), “Neoliberalism and the Future of Democracy" (Philosophy Today, 2018), and “How to Perform a Democracy” (Epoché, 2017). He is co-translator of three books and several articles by Jean-Luc Nancy, and co-author of several public-facing articles and the book Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America (OR Books, 2011). He is currently working on two additional monographs: How to Perform a Democracy; and How to Assemble with All the Living. Holloway has received fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the DAAD, the Andrew Mellon foundation, and the Max Kade Institute for research and advanced study in Germany, France, and Italy. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “How to Live at the End of the World — with Travis Holloway.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 30, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/233-travis-holloway.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, we're joined by John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. Fire Weather is a national best selling book about the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, North America's oil industry, and our new century of fire, which has only just begun. Our host Am Johal and John discuss how John approached the subject, the process of collecting and weaving stories from Fort McMurray, and how the book has been received. John will be joining us for a free public talk on the book on January 31st, 2024! RSVP at https://bit.ly/47YnwDZ Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/232-john-vaillant.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/232-john-vaillant.html Resources: Fire Weather: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/739360/fire-weather-by-john-vaillant/9780735273160 Fire Weather winning the Baillie Gifford Prize 2023: https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/year-by-year/2023 Fire Weather on the New York Times Top 10 Books of 2023: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/books/review/best-books-2023.html Bio: John Vaillant is an author and freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and the Guardian, among others. His first book, The Golden Spruce (Knopf, 2005), was a bestseller and won several awards, including the Governor General's and Writers' Trust awards for non-fiction. His second nonfiction book, The Tiger (Knopf, 2010), won the B.C. Achievement Award for Non-Fiction, was a bestseller selected for Canada Reads, and has been published in 16 languages. In 2014 Vaillant won the Windham-Campbell Prize, a global award for non-fiction. In 2015, he published his first work of fiction, The Jaguar's Children (Knopf, 2015), which was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC and Kirkus Fiction Prizes, and was a finalist for the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His latest book, Fire Weather (Knopf, 2023), is a #1 national bestseller, and a finalist for the National Book Award (US), the Baillie Gifford Prize (UK), and the Writers‘ Trust Nonfiction Prize. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Fire Weather — with John Vaillant” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 16, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/232-john-vaillant.html.

On this episode of See How We Run! we're joined by Hives for Humanity's co-directors Sarah Common and Cait Hurley to talk about the history of the apicultural organization, its evolution from a supportive prevocational training program to a Community Supported Apiculture model, and the ways they are centering their relationship to the plants and soil in the Hastings Folk Garden in their work. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/231-learning-from-fireweed.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/231-learning-from-fireweed.html Resources: Hives for Humanity: https://www.hivesforhumanity.com/ Hives' Community Supported Apiculture: https://www.hivesforhumanity.com/onlineshop SOIL: A Transformative Justice Project: https://www.soiltjp.org/our-work/resources CARFAC: https://www.carfac.ca/tools/fees/ Bios: Sarah Common Sarah is a community weaver, gardener and sometimes beekeeper; she is passionate about fostering vibrant, healthy community through empowerment and education; they believe in the profound impact of connecting individuals and communities to their land, food, plant medicine, and spirit. They are of Irish Settler descent, a guest on these shared, ancestral, and occupied lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. Practicing care and connection through healing gardens, shared story, and slowing time, Sarah volunteers on the Board of Grounded Futures; and with Ancestral Food Ways. As Time & Times Sarah plays accordion and works with plant fibres - weaving protective spells into adornments towards truth. Cait Hurley Cait (they/them, co-director of Community Care & Growing Governance) is a queer care worker of Doukhobor and Irish descent, based on the ancestral and occupied lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) first peoples. Graduating from Simon Fraser University with a BA Geography, they are curious about community encounters that transform us and the durational care necessary to persist while considering the geographies of their utopian-commune settler ancestors. Composing small studies and time-based questions on the edges with Gentle Geographies, - an embodied, land-based research praxis grounded in a study of relationships and conditions - composing with plants and the elements, primarily orbiting through the Downtown Eastside and remote frontlines. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Aoki, Julia. “Learning from Fireweed – With Sarah Common and Cait Hurley.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 19, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/231-learning-from-fireweed.html. This episode is hosted by SFU VOCE program manager Julia Aoki.

On this episode of See How We Run!, we're joined by two cultural workers: Asia Jong, an emerging curator, arts facilitator and who was one of the co-organizers of Ground Floor Art Centre, a collectively-run DIY gallery, studio and project space with a focus on supporting early emerging artists; and Vitória “veto” Monteiro, an emerging visual artist, arts facilitator, ​​and current Board President of grunt gallery and Acting Curator of Learning and Engagement at the Contemporary Art Gallery. Hosted by SFU VOCE staff member and emerging visual artist Kathy Feng, the three are in conversation about some of Asia and Vitória's previous work and individual practices. They explore how to create opportunities for emerging artists, and the history of Ground Floor Art Centre and other DIY spaces similar to it. They also talk about incorporating accessibility into the gallery, opening up spaces through workshops and prioritizing access needs, as well as the importance of centering care and joy in arts and cultural spaces. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/230-from-a-place-of-care.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/230-from-a-place-of-care.html Resources: Vitória's website: https://vitoriamonteiro.ca/ Vitória's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vetosea/ Contemporary Art Gallery: https://cagvancouver.org/ grunt gallery: https://grunt.ca/ Asia's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asiajong/ Ground Floor Art Centre: https://www.instagram.com/groundfloorac/ Bios: Asia Jong: Asia Jong is an independent curator, arts facilitator, administrator and writer from Armstrong, B.C. currently based in Vancouver, on unceded and traditional Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She co-ran Ground Floor, a DIY art space and collective which supported early-emerging artists, operating through the values of care, hospitality, and a positive approach to failure. Vitória “veto” Monteiro Vitória "veto" Monteiro (b. Brazil) is an arts worker, facilitator and visual artist. In their art practice, they explore the intricacies of language abstraction, the anti-archive and the reprocessing of information. Navigating the fields where information dwells, veto's work provides a new realm for knowledge to co-exist that is silent, inarticulate, and abstract. veto works as the Acting Curator of Learning and Engagement at the Contemporary Art Gallery, along with serving as the Board President at grunt gallery. Their community practice centers accessible, joyful, and more tender approaches to existing within art and cultural spheres. As a facilitator, they reimagine office culture and modes of productivity, shifting towards cultivating workspaces that prioritize care. By exploring ways of incorporating play, stimming, and self-expression into office culture or the day-to-day, veto roots these shifts as powerful acts of resistance. veto is based on Skwxwú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm , and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ lands or so-called “Vancouver”. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Feng, Kathy. “See How We Run! From a Place of Care — with Asia Jong and Vitória Monteiro.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 12, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/230-from-a-place-of-care.html.

On this episode of See How We Run! we're joined by Gallery Gachet's executive Director Demi London and artistic director Moroti George to talk about the evolution of Gachet's approach to supporting artistic creation and exhibition, in ways that are accessible to and supportive of people facing systemic barriers and social marginalization. We speak about the ways the gallery's programming and operations changed over time in response to shifts in funding, space and the needs of the community, and we discuss their personal entry points into their work at the gallery. This episode is hosted by SFU VOCE program manager Julia Aoki. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/229-art-as-agency-autonomy-and-community.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/229-art-as-agency-autonomy-and-community.html Resources: Gallery Gachet: https://gachet.org/ Dion Smith-Dokkie, This Will Be The First Of A Thousand Worlds: https://gachet.org/current-events-and-exhibitions/dion-smith-dokkie Black Art Centre: https://theblackartscentre.ca/ VANDU: https://vandu.org/ Open Space: https://openspacearts.ca/ Bios: Demi London Traversing through the fields of art, culture, education, and parenting, Demi March London has become attached to experimental emergent spaces and the dialogical aesthetics of administration. Figuring out what ideas look like, and how to talk about them, is an integral part of progressing critical discourse; Demi finds encouragement and hope by advocating for different ways of knowing and being. Galleries and museums have a tendency to be ceremonial spaces for the performance of authority, and Demi has always admired artist-run centres for challenging this and interrogating notions of power and place. As Executive Director at Gachet, Demi aims to foster a reflective and inclusive culture of ideas, discourse, critique, and community – a safe space for creative experimentation and articulating vulnerability. Moroti George Olumoroti (MorotiI) Soji-George (he/they) is a curator, writer and educator based in Vancouver, BC. He is the curator at the Black Arts Centre in Surrey, BC and the artistic director of Gallery Gachet in downtown Vancouver. Olumoroti's curatorial practice primarily involves unravelling and demystifying the ways Blackness is embodied and codified in our shared milieu and conceptualizing the works of Black Contemporary artists and their contributions to the Black cultural lexicon and our understanding of the state of Blackness. His research and curatorial practice also involve envisioning accessible and community-centred art spaces and highlighting the stories of individuals and communities who construct new ways of being that challenge the Western status quo. At the core of his practice is the belief that space could be used to reflect the agency and lived experiences of individuals whose bodies and identities are not typically valued, respected and represented in traditional art and academic settings. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Aoki, Julia. “See How We Run! Art as Agency, Autonomy and Community — with Demi London and Moroti George .” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 5, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/229-art-as-agency-autonomy-and-community.html.