Conversations with arts and cultural workers.

See How We Run! is an original Below the Radar podcast mini-series looking at local arts collectives and organizations, highlighting conversations about creation, spacemaking, accessibility, and self-determination within the framework of Vancouver’s cityscape. The series is hosted by SFU VOCE staff Julia Aoki, Kathy Feng, and Samantha Walters.

Throughout the series, we speak to artists, consultants, administrators, and advocates at various stages in their career about how art and culture is made and sustained in Vancouver. Tune in for insights on organisational governance, policymaking, community building, and more, directly from people working through these questions everyday.

These conversations are inspired by the long history of artist-run centres in Vancouver, as well as the affordability crisis that threatens to make the city one without art. See How We Run! provokes ongoing conversation about the urban conditions under which interdisciplinary creativity and inclusive communities thrive.

Full series details:
https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run.html

See How We Run!

Below the Radar explores the transformational capacity of dialogue with apiculturist, award-winning author, and SFU Professor of Biological Sciences Mark Winston. He is in conversation with host Am Johal about SFU’s Semester in Dialogue program and the importance of providing students with opportunities to be engaged with their communities.

Mark shares how part of a university’s job is to help people realize who they want to be in the world, speaking to the impact of alternative pedagogical models that embrace dialogue and art. We hear stories from his time as director of the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and the complex process of creating a non-traditional, interdisciplinary program such as the Semester in Dialogue.

They speak about Mark’s journey with dialogue, which grew out of his fascination with bee communication. He also talks about the shortcomings of dialogue, what conversations need to be elevated emerging from the pandemic, and how we can translate them into building equity and compassion for all.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/150-mark-winston.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/150-mark-winston.html

Resources:
— Mark’s website: http://winstonhive.com/
— Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674368392  
— Listening to the Bees: https://harbourpublishing.com/products/9780889713468
— Semester in Dialogue: https://www.sfu.ca/dialogue/semester/ 
— Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue: https://www.sfu.ca/dialogue.html
— Vancouver Manuscript Intensive: https://www.vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com/

Bio:
Mark L. Winston is the recipient of the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction for his book Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive, and an Independent Publishers 2019 Gold Medal “IPPY” Award for his book Listening to the Bees. One of the world’s leading experts on bees and pollination, Dr. Winston is also an internationally recognized researcher, teacher and writer. He directed Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue for 12 years, where he founded the Semester in Dialogue, a program that creates leadership development opportunities equipping and empowering students to address community issues.

As a consultant and thought leader, Dr. Winston partners with universities, corporations, NGOs, governments and communities to advance communication skills, engage public audiences with controversial issues through dialogue, and implement experiential learning and community engagement in educational institutions. As an award-winning writer and editor, he works with students, scientists, other professionals and writers to develop compelling non-fiction, from proposals and newspaper opinion pieces to manuscripts and books.

He currently is a Professor and Senior Fellow in Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue, a Professor of Biological Sciences, and the SFU Library’s inaugural Nonfiction Writer in Residence (2020-2021).

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Dialogue & Social Change — with Mark Winston” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 14, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/150-mark-winston.html

Dialogue & Social Change — with Mark Winston

On this episode of See How We Run! we’re joined by Neworld Theatre’s managing director Alen Dominguez and consultant Caitlin Jones to talk about Progress Lab 1422’s Backstage Spaces report. Progress Lab is a building in East Van that is a dedicated performance creation space and home to a collective of renowned theatre and dance companies, who collaboratively run the space with their nonprofit tenants’ board C-Space. 

The Backstage Spaces report provides an understanding of the issues performance creation spaces face in terms of affordability, city zoning, and property-tax, that threaten not only the companies tenancies but their creative capacities.

This episode is hosted by SFU VOCE program assistant and interdisciplinary performance artist Samantha Walters.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/228-backstage-spaces.html.

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/228-backstage-spaces.html

Resources:
Progress Lab 1422: https://c-space.ca/
Backstage Spaces Report: https://c-space.ca/backstage-spaces/
Neworld Theatre: https://neworldtheatre.com/

Bios:
Alen Dominguez (He/Him) is a Mexican-Canadian theatre artist who trained as an actor at the University of British Columbia. He has since expanded his work into producing and arts management for several award-winning companies across Metro Vancouver. He's currently the Managing Director at Neworld Theatre and the chair of C-Space, which runs Progress Lab 1422. He's so lucky to get to work in that building surrounded by the coolest cats in town. He’s also worked with Tara Cheyenne Performance, Royal City Musical Theatre, Electric Company, The Chop, City Opera Vancouver, Bard on the Beach, Ruby Slippers, Arts Club, Citadel, Chemainus and Western Gold. Alen is a co-founder of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC) and an active member of the Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency (SCALE).

Caitlin Jones is a long-time cultural worker, curator and writer—working with and within a range of independent and institutional contexts. As Executive Director of BCA (formerly BC Artscape) she was responsible for the development and operations of multiple affordable real-estate projects for the cultural community. As the Executive Director of the Western Front Society in Vancouver, in addition to her directorial and curatorial duties, she spearheaded programming, policy and dialogue around issues of equity and urban development, and the roles of artists within it. Prior to her move to BC she held a combined curatorial and conservation position at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, was the Director of Programming at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery and was a writer and advisor for Rhizome.org. Her writings on contemporary art and new media have appeared in a wide range of exhibition catalogues, periodicals and other international publications including The Believer, Documents in Contemporary Art series, among others.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Walters, Samantha. “See How We Run! Backstage Spaces — with Alen Dominguez and Caitlin Jones.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 28, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/228-backstage-spaces.html.

See How We Run! Backstage Spaces — with Alen Dominguez and Caitlin Jones

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.

See How We Run! Art as Agency, Autonomy and Community — with Demi London and Moroti George

Welcome to See How We Run! An original Below the Radar mini-series featuring conversations with arts and cultural workers in Vancouver. In this first episode, co-hosts Julia Aoki, Kathy Feng, and Samantha Walters introduce the series and what’s to come. In each episode, they’ll speak to artists, consultants, administrators, and advocates about how art and culture is made and sustained in Vancouver.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/227-see-how-we-run.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/227-see-how-we-run.html

Resources:
Gallery Gachet: https://gachet.org/
Hives for Humanity: https://www.hivesforhumanity.com/
Progress Lab 1422: https://c-space.ca/
Backstage Spaces Report: https://c-space.ca/backstage-spaces/
Contemporary Art Gallery: https://cagvancouver.org/
Powell Street Festival: https://powellstreetfestival.com/

Bios:
Julia Aoki is an administrator, writer, researcher, and advocate. She is the Program Manager at SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. She has served as the Executive Director of Megaphone magazine, General Manager of VIVO Media Arts Centre, and General Manager and Programming Director of the Powell Street Festival, where she prioritized developing community centred programs. Julia currently sits on the board of 221A Artist Run Centre Society, and has volunteered with advocacy organizations such as the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres and DTES SRO Collaborative. Her writing on cultural expressions and community formations that are overlooked and underserved by commercial and political mechanisms and practices can be found in TOPIA, Space and Culture and a collection by Lexington Books.

Kathy Feng is an interdisciplinary artist, born in Guangzhou, China, and is a guest living and working on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As an immigrant and child of immigrants, she grew up between cultures in a constant process of learning, unlearning, and relearning. This framework informs the central themes to her work: in which memory and nostalgia are expressed through images, text, and the aesthetics of the temporal. Kathy holds a BFA in Visual Art with a minor in Art and Performance Studies from SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. She began working at SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement January 2020 as a Research Assistant for the Below the Radar podcast.

Samantha Walters is an emerging interdisciplinary performer, writer, and creator. She has been the Program Assistant at SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement since 2022. They are based on xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) lands. As an artist, she mostly works between contemporary theatre, directing, and video making. Their most recent works examine ecological relationships and post-human spiritualities, with a heavy favour towards the weird, the dark, and the camp. Collaboration within communities and alongside the non-human lies at the heart of her process. She grew up in England and Hong Kong and holds a BFA honours in Theatre Performance with a minor in English and a certificate in Performance Studies from SFUs School for the Contemporary Arts

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Aoki, Julia, Feng, Kathy, and Walters, Samantha. “See How We Run! Conversations with Arts and Cultural Workers.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 21, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/227-see-how-we-run.html

See How We Run! Conversations with Arts and Cultural Workers

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.

See How We Run! From a Place of Care — with Asia Jong and Vitória Monteiro

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.

See How We Run! Learning from Fireweed — with Sarah Common and Cait Hurley

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.

The World Accordion To Hank — with Hank Bull

Below the Radar explores unfolding the enfolded with Laura U. Marks, an SFU professor, and scholar who works on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus. She is in conversation with co-hosts Am Johal and Paige Smith about her research into experimentalism and aesthetics in Arab cinema and the connections between Islamic art and philosophy and new media art. Laura talks about co-founding the Substantial Motion Research Network, tracing cultural and artistic genealogies, and de-westernizing artistic practices. They also discuss the concerns around the environmental consequences of streaming media that led Laura to create the Small File Media Festival.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/82-laura-marks.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/82-laura-marks.html

Read more about Laura’s work:
http://www.sfu.ca/~lmarks/ 

Substantial Motion Research Network:
https://substantialmotion.org/

Small File Media Festival:
https://smallfile.ca/

Bio:
Laura U. Marks works on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus. She programs experimental media art for venues around the world and is the founder of the Small File Media Festival. Laura's most recent books are Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image (MIT, 2015) and Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art (MIT, 2010). With Azadeh Emadi she is a founding member of the Substantial Motion Research Network of artists and scholars working on cross-cultural approaches to media technologies. Marks is Grant Strate Professor in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am, and Smith, Paige. “Unfolding Artistic Practices — with Laura Marks.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 20, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/82-laura-marks.html.

Unfolding Artistic Practices — with Laura Marks

Urban Indigenous youth are taking the lead, advocating for policies that uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples on and off-reserve. Host Am Johal is joined by Jessica Savoy and Edgard Villanueva-Cruz from Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society (ALIVE). They discuss their recent report, Our Place, Our Home, Our Vision: Youth Voices of East Vancouver. The report contains Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth-generated recommendations for bringing urban Indigenous voices to the table, applying UNDRIP across different levels of government, and creating new models of self-governance for Indigenous people living off-reserve or in urban centers.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/83-jessica-savoy-edgard-villanueva-cruz.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/83-jessica-savoy-edgard-villanueva-cruz.html

Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society (ALIVE):
https://alivesociety.ca/ 

ALIVE Report: Our Place, Our Home, Our Vision: Youth Voices of East Vancouver:
https://alivesociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/alive-youth-policy-report-V02.pdf

B.C. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/indigenous-people/new-relationship/united-nations-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples 

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:
https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html

Bio:
Jessica has personal experience and education developing and implementing engagement and empowerment initiatives for Indigenous peoples, youth and the greater community. Over the past several years, she has worked with ALIVE and the City of Vancouver as a program assistant. She recently completed the 12-month Indigenous Youth Internship Program (IYIP) with the Provincial Government. During her time with the IYIP Program, she spent 9 months in Victoria with the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation as a Policy Advisor, and 3 months with ALIVE. EDGARD VILLANUEVA-CRUZ Edgard has experience both on and off-reserve advocating and leading. Edgard began working with ALIVE at the age of 16 and has spent his days activating Urban Indigenous peoples to the goals they wish to achieve. He works to educate and empower a team of indigenous and non-indigenous youth to decolonize, create systems change and produce meaningful outcomes.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Youth Voices of East Vancouver — with Jessica Savoy and Edgard Villanueva-Cruz.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 22, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/83-jessica-savoy-edgard-villanueva-cruz.html.

Youth Voices of East Vancouver — with Jessica Savoy and Edgard Villanueva-Cruz

Working at the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, Jen Sungshine collaborates with fellow Love Intersections artists to celebrate diasporic narratives of queer identities. Jen joins host Am Johal to discuss art making and storytelling as a tool to address systemic racism and build understanding in conversations about gender and sexuality. She shares some recent Love Intersections projects, including Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny, a short documentary following Vancouver drag artist Maiden China and a subsequent visual art installation — both inspired by the Chinese five elements as a framework to explore the artists’ experiences of Chineseness and queerness.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/84-jen-sungshine.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/84-jen-sungshine.html

Jen Sungshine:
https://www.jensungshine.com/ 

Love Intersections:
https://loveintersections.com/ 

Documentary: Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4LvRXTtrq4

Visual art exhibit: Yellow Peril; The Celestial Elements:
https://loveintersections.com/yellowperil-celestialelements/

Bio:
Jen Sungshine speaks for a living, but lives for breathing art into spaces, places, cases. She is a queer Taiwanese interdisciplinary artist/activist, facilitator, and community mentor based in Vancouver, BC, and the Co-Creative Director and founder of Love Intersections, a media arts collective dedicated to collaborative filmmaking and relational storytelling. Jen's artistic practice is informed by an ethic of tenderness; instead of calling you out, she wants to call you in, to make (he)artful social change with her. In the audience, she looks for weirdos, queerdos and anti-heroes. In private, she looks after more than 70 houseplants and prefers talking to plants than to people.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Queering Diasporic Narratives — with Jen Sungshine.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 27, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/84-jen-sungshine.html.

Queering Diasporic Narratives — with Jen Sungshine

When Sobhana Jaya-Madhavan landed in Vancouver 25 years ago from Malaysia, she was told her foreign credentials would make it hard to find employment as a social worker and was encouraged to apply for minimum wage jobs. In this episode, Sobhana is in conversation with Am Johal about the joy of finding community in a new place — and the barriers to employment she experienced as a newcomer to Canada.

Sobhana tells stories from her journey as a social worker and public servant, sharing how her dedication to service and relationship-building led her to her current role as SFU’s Associate Vice-President, External Relations, where she liaises with governments and communities to help facilitate social inclusion and reconciliation initiatives at the university.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/92-sobhana-jaya-madhavan.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/92-sobhana-jaya-madhavan.html

SFU News: “SFU education champion walks the talk during her life journey”: https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2019/06/sfu-education-champion-walks-the-talk-during-her-life-journey-.html

Canadian Immigrant: SFU’s Sobhana Jaya-Madhavan leads with optimism: https://canadianimmigrant.ca/people/professionals/sfus-sobhana-jaya-madhavan-leads-with-optimism

Bio:
Born in Malaysia and raised in India, Sobhana has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and a postgraduate degree in Social Work. Sobhana immigrated to Canada in 1995 and completed her doctoral coursework and candidacy exams  in Child and Youth Care from the University of Victoria (UVic) and also taught the undergraduate Child Welfare Specialization Course at UVic. Sobhana worked with the Government of British Columbia serving in various front line and senior management positions for almost two decades. Sobhana worked with federal and provincial governments to address complex social issues, including poverty, child abuse and domestic violence. In 2017, Sobhana joined Simon Fraser University (SFU) as Associate Vice President, External Relations. Sobhana engages with all levels of government and diverse organizations and communities to strengthen relationships and partnerships. In addition, Sobhana is very involved with EDI and reconciliation initiatives at SFU. In 2019, Sobhana was the recipient of the Women Economic Forum’s ‘Woman of the Decade Award’ for championing education. Sobhana is passionate about the pursuit of peace in all spheres of life.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “On Arrival and Belonging — with Sobhana Jaya-Madhavan.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 24, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/92-sobhana-jaya-madhavan.html.

On Arrival and Belonging — with Sobhana Jaya-Madhavan

Barbara Holland is a leading community engagement scholar who has done extensive research in the areas of organizational change in higher education, service learning, and community-university partnerships. In this episode, she is in conversation with host Am Johal about the shifting landscape of community engagement and embedding engagement in the culture of the urban university as a method of scholarship, teaching, and learning.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/93-barbara-holland.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/93-barbara-holland.html

Resources
— Barbara A. Holland Collection for Service Learning and Community Engagement: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slce/
— The Maverick Minute: Barbara Holland and the Metropolitan University Mission: https://www.unomaha.edu/news/2018/04/the-maverick-minute-barbara-holland.php
— Metropolitan Universities Journal: https://www.cumuonline.org/metropolitan-universities-journal/

Bio:
Barbara A. Holland, Ph.D., is a professor, researcher and consultant recognized internationally for her scholarship and expertise on organizational change in higher education with a special focus on the strategic impacts of community engagement as a method of teaching, learning and research. Her current academic affiliations are Distinguished Community Engagement Professor of at University of Nebraska Omaha, and Senior Scholar at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and University of North Carolina Greensboro. She has served in senior academic administrative roles at several universities in the United States and Australia, held a visiting scholar role in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development headquarters for two years during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and was Executive Director of the federally-funded National Service-Learning Clearinghouse for seven years. The library collection, upon the closing of the Clearinghouse, was moved to the Criss Library at University of Nebraska Omaha in 2011 and is called The Barbara A. Holland Collection for Service-Learning and Community Engagement. For her many research publications and impacts on the field of engagement, including the “Holland Matrix,” Barbara was the fourth scholar awarded the Research Achievement Award from the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (2006). In 2008 she was named as one of the first two Honorary Fellows named by the Engagement Australia association. She was Executive Editor of Metropolitan Universities, the journal of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities 1998–2016 and continues to serve in editorial roles for three other refereed journals. Since its inception in 2006, she has served as a member of the National Advisory Panel for the Carnegie Foundation Community Engagement Classification program. Barbara is also a frequent keynote speaker at academic conferences and has been invited to be an in-depth consultant and adviser to many academic institutions across six nations. Barbara earned her Bachelor of Journalism and Master of Arts in Journalism at the University of Missouri, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Policy at the University of Maryland. In 2017, University of Nebraska Omaha awarded Barbara an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. She resides in Portland, Oregon.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Community Engagement in Higher Education — with Barbara Holland.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 26, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/93-barbara-holland.html.

Community Engagement in Higher Education — with Barbara Holland

Below the Radar’s Am Johal talks issues in urbanism and art as a research method with Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, and Helmut Weber of the cultural research collective, Urban Subjects, based in Vancouver and Vienna. 

In this episode, they reflect on past arts exhibitions and programs they’ve facilitated on the urban experience, image politics, and visual representations of urbanism. Their work makes space for critical conversations about dispossession of land, the idea of a commons, the ‘right to the city’ in a contemporary context, the neoliberal commodification of housing, and more.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/95-urban-subjects.html

Transcript link coming soon!

Resources:
— Urban Subjects: http://www.urbansubjects.org/
— Artspeak Gallery: http://artspeak.ca/ 
— “How High Is the City, How Deep Is Our Love” essay by Jeff Derksen: https://fillip.ca/content/how-high-is-the-city-how-deep-is-our-love
— “The Right to the City” by Henri Lefebvre: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/henri-lefebvre-right-to-the-city#toc1
— The Vienna Model - Museum of Vancouver Exhibit: https://museumofvancouver.ca/vienna-model
— Alternatives to the Housing Crisis: Case Study Vienna - talk by Gabu Heindl at SFU: https://youtu.be/hLhDItRvBVY

Bio:
Urban Subjects is a cultural research collective formed in 2004 by Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, and Helmut Weber, based in Vancouver, Canada and Vienna, Austria. Together they develop interdisciplinary artistic projects focusing on global-urban issues, the texture of cities, and on civic imaginations. Urban Subjects do not work on a consensus model. Amongst others, they have organized the exhibition Not Sheep: New Urban Enclosures and Commons at Artspeak, Vancouver, in 2006 and participated in the conference Contrapolis; or Creativity and Enclosures in the Cities at Poortgebouw and NAI, Rotterdam organized by Marina Vishmidt, Jan van Eyck Academy, in 2008. They have collaborated with Vancouver Flying University on a public program regarding housing in Vancouver. In 2009 they devised and edited the book Autogestion, or Henri Lefebvre in New Belgrade, with a previously unpublished manuscript by Lefebvre (Fillip/Sternberg Press, 2009). Their essay on “The Spaces and Temporalities of Dual Power and Autogestion in Gramoven, Caracas” has been published in Waking Up from The Nightmare of Participation, edited by Nina Valerie Kolowratnik & Markus Miessen (Expodium, 2011). Collaboratively they produced Momentarily: Learning from Mega-events (Western Front, 2011) with Bik Van der Pol and Alissa Firth-Eagland. For WE: Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery they wrote a manifesto concerning the historical endurance of the political imagination of revolution, a Manifesto for the Poetry of the Future, with geographer Neil Smith. They worked on the project “Filling the Weak Points” regarding autogestion and “researching the militant image”in cooperation with Kunstraum of Leuphana University Lüneburg and as artists in residence at the Leuphana Arts Program in 2012/2013. In 2014, they curated the exhibition “The Militant Image - Picturing What Is Already Going On” with Camera Austria, Graz, and conducted the workshop “Researching the Militant Image” as part of steirische herbst Academy 2014 . Currently they are working on the publication, “The Militant Image Reader” forthcoming in 2015 by Edition Camera Austria. In July 2015, they held a research residency at the EXPO in Milano, Italy.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Urban Subjects — with Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen & Helmut Weber.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 7, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/95-urban-subjects.html.

Urban Subjects — with Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen and Helmut Weber

SFU librarian Baharak Yousefi joins Am Johal on Below the Radar to discuss critical librarianship, interrogating the entrenched systems and structures of libraries. She speaks to issues around the way librarians are schooled, the commodification of knowledge, and the need to make libraries welcoming spaces to all.

Baharak also shares her love of books and culture that brought her to librarianship and talks about the popular One Book One SFU events she planned and hosted through the SFU Library. Am also asks her about her fondness for Vancouver’s West End and the neighbourhood’s quirky design gems.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/94-baharak-yousefi.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/94-baharak-yousefi.html

Resources
— CritLib: http://critlib.org/ 
— Baharak Yousefi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BaharakY
— #WestEndFonts: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23westendfonts&src=typed_query&f=live 
— SFU Library: https://www.lib.sfu.ca/ 
— Fugitive Libraries: https://placesjournal.org/article/fugitive-libraries/ 
— One Book One SFU event recordings:
	Maggie Nelson and Amber Dawn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6wsD9khaSQ 
	Ivan Coyote and Tegan Quin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs8OHEOMjeM
	Eden Robinson and Cherie Dimaline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7-Hb693fJI&feature=youtu.be

Bio:
Baharak Yousefi has been peddling books in Vancouver for the past twenty-two years. She is a bookseller-turned-librarian and a refugee-turned-settler. Baharak is co-editor of Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “ Critical Librarianship — with Baharak Yousefi.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 3, 2020. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/94-baharak-yousefi.html.

Critical Librarianship — with Baharak Yousefi

Amplifying ideas that fly below the radar. We talk environmental and social justice, arts, culture, community-building and urban issues with featured guests.

This podcast is produced by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement as a part of our Knowledge Democracy Project @ 312 Main — encouraging the meaningful exchange of ideas and information across communities.

Hosted and currently produced by:
Am Johal
Joey Malbon
Julia Aoki
Kathy Feng
Samantha Walters

Visit our website for archived audio and video recordings of our public events: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/library.html

See How We Run! Learning from Fireweed — with Sarah Common and Cait Hurley

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