All episodes of Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast recorded out of 312 Main Street in Vancouver. This podcast is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

Below the Radar Podcast

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 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

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

On Crystals, Vampires and Tennis  – with Mena El Shazly

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, 2025. 
https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/259-veronique-sioufi.html.

Racial Equity in Policy Making — with Véronique Sioufi

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.

On Dying — with Beatrice Marovich

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.

Star Stories — with Lisa Jackson

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.

Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems — with Michael Turner

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.

Becoming Anarchival — with Kate Hennessy

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

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