'Downstream from What?' explores the links between art, and social justice. We interview a series of cultural creators artists and activists to speak about the link between art and social change. The first season includes interviews with Ken Moffatt, Kiké Roach and Alex Bierk  As with the practice of art, the interviews span a great many topics and  a wide variety of creative interventions. Thanks for listening.

In this first episode Ben McCarthy interviews Ken Moffatt to discuss the sweep of the podcast series, some key themes and  how we need art to create change 

Link:

About the Jack Layton Chair at Metropolitan University: https://www.torontomu.ca/jack-layton-chair/about/

Follow Ken on IG: https://www.instagram.com/ken._moffatt_/

For event's hosted by the Jack Layton Chair:
https://www.instagram.com/jacklaytonchair/

Ep. 01— Ken Moffatt: Art, Politics, and Activism

In this episode Ken interviews Alex Bierk. Bierk is a self-taught artist, and advocate, who lives in Peterborough, ON with his wife and three children. His career as an artist is interconnected to community work. He has a personal connection to the drug crisis and has become active in outreach work as a result of his own lived experience with addiction. He was recently elected as a City Councillor to represent the residents of downtown Peterborough at City Hall. Alex us represented by General Hardware Gallery in Toronto.

You can find and follow Alex @alexbierk on Twitter and Instagram.

Also check out @ken._moffatt_ for more on the pod.

Ep. 02— Alex Bierk:  'You Can Call Me Al...'

Presenting podcast episode 1, featuring live performances from:

Andy Male - nature boy ambient
IG: https://www.instagram.com/alonealoneandalone/
Bandcamp: https://andymale.bandcamp.com/

Twin Mask - performance, clarinet, frenetic beats
IG: https://www.instagram.com/dollyfuckingparton/
Bandcamp: https://twinmask.bandcamp.com/

Bliptor - dancey rnb w/ the juice
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bliptor2.0/
Bandcamp: https://bliptor.bandcamp.com/album/shadowplay

Xicada - gets the people going
IG: https://www.instagram.com/xicada_/
Bandcamp: https://xicada.bandcamp.com/

from you hosts:

Ben McCarthy
IG: https://www.instagram.com/paleeyesmusic/
Bandcamp: https://paleeyesmusic.bandcamp.com/

Tax Haven
IG: https://www.instagram.com/1000000000000000000000000likes/
Bandcamp: https://taxhaven.bandcamp.com/

MSPC E01  - Andy Male, Twin Mask, Bliptor, Xicada

This is part 1 of Ken's interview with Simone Schmidt aka Fiver. Please watch this channel for part two coming shortly.

Simone Schmidt is a musician and multidisciplinary artist who recently moved to so-called Sackville, New Brunswick for work. Schmidt grew up as a settler in Toronto during Mike Harris' Common Sense Revolution and has been involved in resisting austerity since grade school. Schmidt's musical practice involves research-based songwriting, improvisation, analog recording, and a deep fascination with form. They have performed with units like The Highest Order, One Hundred Dollars, and their solo project, Fiver. Their chapter in Displacement City (U of T Press, 2022) describes the City of Toronto's organized abandonment of housing-deprived people during the early pandemic, from their perspective as a community organizer.

Photo credit : Alexandra Stairs
This episode also includes original tracks from Simone's back catalogue including:
'House of Lost Words' from Audible Songs From Rockwood, which you can but here: https://ideefixerecords.bandcamp.com/album/audible-songs-from-rockwood
and 'Dayton' from Lost the Plot, which you can buy here: https://crowncrowncrown.bandcamp.com/album/lost-the-plot

To find out more about and to follow Simone's work, please check out the following links:

Website: https://www.fiverfiverfiver.com/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fiverfines/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/fiverfiverfiver

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UhhFiver

For updates on the pod and more, follow Ken here: https://www.instagram.com/ken._moffatt_/

Ep. 09— Simone Schmidt(part 1): The Utility of Metaphor

This is part 2 of Ken's interview with Simone Schmidt aka Fiver. 

Next week Ken sit's down with photographer Samantha Wehbi.

Simone Schmidt is a musician and multidisciplinary artist who recently moved to so-called Sackville, New Brunswick for work. Schmidt grew up as a settler in Toronto during Mike Harris' Common Sense Revolution and has been involved in resisting austerity since grade school. Schmidt's musical practice involves research-based songwriting, improvisation, analog recording, and a deep fascination with form. They have performed with units like The Highest Order, One Hundred Dollars, and their solo project, Fiver. Their chapter in Displacement City (U of T Press, 2022) describes the City of Toronto's organized abandonment of housing-deprived people during the early pandemic, from their perspective as a community organizer.

Photo credit : Alexandra Stairs
This episode also includes original tracks from Simone's back catalogue including:
'Rosemary and Rue' and 'Cargo of Hollywood Stars' from Soundtrack to A More Radiant Sphere : The Joe Wallace Mixtape available here: https://fiverforreal.bandcamp.com/album/soundtrack-to-a-more-radiant-sphere-the-joe-wallace-mixtape
'Death is Only a Dream' from Fiver with the Atlantic School Of Spontaneous Composition, which you can but here: https://fiverforreal.bandcamp.com/album/fiver-with-the-atlantic-school-of-spontaneous-composition

To find out more about and to follow Simone's work, please check out the following links:

Website: https://www.fiverfiverfiver.com/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fiverfines/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/fiverfiverfiver

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UhhFiver

For updates on the pod and more, follow Ken here: https://www.instagram.com/ken._moffatt_/

Ep. 10— Simone Schmidt(part 2): Of Course None Of Us Are Free

Wow. Ep. 2. Looks like we made it.
We proudly present a live recording of Mainstream 3.0, 04.27.23, featuring the artistry of the following darlings:

Sacred Wound– dark electrodrone spirtualism
IG: https://www.instagram.com/sacredwoundcollective/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/sacred-wound/bonds

bodywaltz–  cdj fuckery and experimentalism
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bodywaltzing/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/b0dyw4ltz

Dame Cook– coming straight out the headphone jack
IG: https://www.instagram.com/sonicmeditations/
Bandcamp: https://maevescave.bandcamp.com/

Man Made Hill– the lad, the ledge
IG: https://www.instagram.com/randy_ontario/
Bandcamp: https://manmadehill.bandcamp.com/music

from you hosts:
Ben McCarthy
IG: www.instagram.com/paleeyesmusic/
Bandcamp: paleeyesmusic.bandcamp.com/

Tax Haven
IG: www.instagram.com/1000000000000000000000000likes/
Bandcamp: taxhaven.bandcamp.com/

MSPC E02 - Sacred Wound, Bodywaltz, Dame Cook, Man Made Hill

In this episode, Ken interviews artist and social worker Samantha Wehbi.

Samantha Wehbi (MSW, PhD, MFA) is a professor, author, artist, and award-winning educator. Her research and practice interests have focused on international issues and grassroots community activism and organizing in Canada and abroad including Lebanon, her country of origin. Her creative practice relies on photography to explore our relationship to the communities we inhabit. Her work has explored the complexities of urban landscapes and issues of displacement, postcolonialism, translocality and social change. Her scholarship explores interdisciplinary intersections of art, community practice, and pedagogy.

For more on Samantha's work, please check out the following website: https://samanthawehbi.com
For updates and more, follow Ken here: https://www.instagram.com/ken._moffatt_/

Ep. 06 Samantha Wehbi: Home is a Complex Proposition

We’re going into the mf vaults. The hard drives, the four tracks, the cd-rs, out from the dank depths, of the cloudz on .mp3, .wma, .ogg. Fuck a FLAC. This is volume 1 of the hard drive deep dive and this is probably our best pod ep yet.

The next Mainstream is at Dundas Video on June 29th, 2023. Doors at 8, PWYC for these working artistes.

Our new track ‘mood assimilation’ on Imaginary North’s 24-hr album ‘Today Until Tomorrow’:
https://open.spotify.com/album/04iSkqaXcZIcKtSMDIooPW?si=TNVjQyyPQBeLg_KQSSBtzg

Love to the hedz. Check our artists below:

Your shorter host and fulltime good boy, Tax Haven
"High School Ambient 3"
IG: www.instagram.com/1000000000000000000000000likes/
Bandcamp: taxhaven.bandcamp.com/

Honeymoon Phase
"Demo1"
IG: www.instagram.com/honeymoonphaseisover/
Bandcamp: https://honeymoonphase.bandcamp.com/

Xicada
"Preexisten"
IG: www.instagram.com/xicada_/
Bandcamp: xicada.bandcamp.com/

Blockletter
"Is This Love"
IG: www.instagram.com/blockletter.wav/
Bandcamp: https://blockletter.bandcamp.com/music

Grind Abrasion
"Beet Juice Dub Lazy Beat Exp"
IG: www.instagram.com/grindabrasion/
Bandcamp: https://grindabrasion.bandcamp.com/music

Esther Splett
"Brother Moon Sister Sun - Summer Isn't Fun Anymore"
IG: www.instagram.com/rehtse_ttelps/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/esthersplett

Erin Corbett
"Satan Is Real Unmixed"
IG: www.instagram.com/erincorbettmusic/
Bandcamp: https://erincorbett.bandcamp.com/

Shn-shn
"Softfocus"
IG: www.instagram.com/sh_n_sh_n_/
Bandcamp: https://shnshn.bandcamp.com/

Grace Scheele
"And Then, My Hands Go Numb"
IG: www.instagram.com/graceharpsit_/
Bandcamp: https://gracescheele.bandcamp.com

Man Made Hill
"Niche"
IG: www.instagram.com/randy_ontario/
Bandcamp: https://manmadehill.bandcamp.com/music

And the tallest waste man in podding Ben McCarthy
"Untitled - Drunk Dad"
IG: www.instagram.com/paleeyesmusic/
Bandcamp: paleeyesmusic.bandcamp.com/

MSPC E03: Hard Drive Deep Dive V.1

In this episode, Ken interviews Winnie Ng. 

Winnie is a labour rights activist and scholar with a deep commitment to anti-racism, equity and worker empowerment. She is Chair emeritus Unifor National Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Toronto Metropolitan University, the first and only union-endowed Chair at a Canadian university.

She began her activist work in the labour movement in 1977 as a union organizer with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; and later on with HERE Local 75. She served as the Ontario Regional Director with the Canadian Labour Congress for 8 years before returning to the academy to complete her doctoral program at OISE/University of Toronto.

Winnie’s research focuses on reimagining the labour movement from a decolonizing and anti-racism perspective, and the physical and mental health impact of global labour market re-structuring, plant-closure and precarious employment on racialized, immigrant and migrant workers, and in particular women workers.

She is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including the Urban Alliance on Race Relations Leadership Award, the United Farm Workers’ Cesar Chavez Black Eagle Award and the YWCA Woman of
Distinction Award. She is a founding member of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance and Asian Canadian Women’s Alliance, and the former co-chair of the Good Jobs for All Coalition.

In her retirement, Winnie serves as the Co-Chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China and volunteers with the International Domestic Workers Federation, a global union that represents over half a million members worldwide.

For updates and more, follow Ken here: https://www.instagram.com/ken._moffatt_/

Ep. 07 Winnie Ng: The Struggle of Memories Against Forgetting

In this episode, Ken interviews Natalie Wood.

Natalie is an award-winning Trinidadian-born, Toronto-based visual and media artist, a PhD student in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University and a tenured Professor at George Brown College (GBC) where she specializes in teaching social
innovation and social economies and is seconded to the role of Black Futures Coordinator.
She is a cofounder of the Environmental and Urban Change Black Caucus, fellow at Black Lives Matter’s Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, founder of the Blue Devil Posse and co-founder of the GBC Social Innovation Hub. Her educational pathway includes an MA in
Art Education from the University of Toronto and studio courses at OCADU.

Her PhD is a research-creation project that explores the practice of Black Futures in Black Queer diasporic resistance in Caribbean Carnival. Her multimedia art-work cohabits the areas of popular culture, education and historical research and explores her fascination with counter-narratives, healing cultures and icons that liberate Black and Queer communities.

Selected awards include a SSHRC grant, several York University, Ontario Graduate Scholarships and Fellowships, a Canada Council creation grant 2020, a Black Leadership Award from the Black Student Success Network at GBC 2017, Community Based Research
Award of Merit, from the Centre for Urban Health Initiatives & the Wellesley Institute 2007, the New Pioneers Award for contribution to Arts and Culture 2006, and the City of York Civic Recognition Award for using the Arts to support marginalized communities 1997, a
Nourbe Se Philips Arts recognition grant and numerous grants and awards from Toronto, Ontario and Canada Arts Council. Her artwork is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art.

For more on Natalie's work, please check out the following website:
http://iamnataliewood.com

https://socialinnovationhub.wordpress.com

http://www.paulpetro.com/artists/223-Natalie-Wood/

For updates and more, follow Ken here: https://www.instagram.com/ken._moffatt_/

Ep. 08 Natalie Wood:  'This Is A Wakening!'

Downstream from what explores the links between art, and social justice. We interview a group of cultural creators, artists, and activists to speak about the link between art and social change. Season Two includes interviews with sound artist and educator Ben McCarthy; Educator, visual artist and musician Samantha Wehbi; Educator, multidisciplinary artist Natalie Wood; Labour and Pro Democracy activist and educator Winnie Ng; Singer-Songwriter and Activist Simone Schmidt .


The first season included interviews with Kiké Roach and Alex Bierk along with series co-creator Ken Moffatt.  As with the practice of art the interviews span a great many topics and a wide variety of creative interventions.

Downstream from What is created under auspices of the Jack Layton Chair at Toronto Metropolitan University We appreciate the support of the Dean of Arts and Dean of Community Services 

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments.