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

On this episode of Below the Radar, we’re joined by Miwa Matreyek, an animator, designer, performer and Assistant Professor in Theatre Production and Design at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Am and Miwa discuss how she got into making interdisciplinary artwork and some of her recent projects that combine animation and live performance. 

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/252-miwa-matreyek.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/252-miwa-matreyek.html

Resources:
Miwa Matreyek: https://miwamatreyek.com/ 
SFU Theatre Production and Design: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/programs/theatre-production---design.html
Infinitely Yours: https://miwamatreyek.com/#/infinitelyyours/
Cloud Eye Control: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cloud-eye13-2009oct13-story.html


Bio:
Miwa Matreyek is an animator, designer, and performer. Coming from a background in animation, Matreyek creates live, interdisciplinary performances that integrate projected animations at the intersection of cinematic and theatrical, fantastical and physical, and the hand-made and digital. Her work exists in a dreamlike visual space that makes invisible worlds visible, often weaving surreal and poetic narratives of conflict between humanity and nature as embodied performed experiences. She has presented her work internationally, including animation/film festivals, theater/performance festivals, art museums, science museums, tech conferences, and universities. A few past presenters include TED, MOMA, SFMOMA, New Frontier at Sundance Film Festival, PUSH festival, Lincoln Center, Walker Art Center, and many more. Her newest solo piece, Infinitely Yours, was awarded the grand prize for Prix Arts Electronica’s Computer Animation category. She is a 2013 Creative Capital award recipient. She is the co-founder and core collaborator of Cloud Eye Control. 

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Infinitely Yours — with Miwa Matreyek.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 1, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/252-miwa-matreyek.html.

Infinitely Yours — with Miwa Matreyek

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Ellie Anderson, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College, and co-host of the Overthink podcast. Ellie joins us to discuss how she got into philosophy and contemporary readings of Simone de Beauvoir’s work.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/245-ellie-anderson.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/245-ellie-anderson.html

Resources:

Ellie Anderson: https://www.ellieandersonphd.com/
Ellie Anderson’s work: https://pomona.academia.edu/EllieAnderson
Overthink podcast: https://overthinkpodcast.com/

Bio:
Ellie Anderson is a philosopher with expertise in feminist theory, existentialism, phenomenology, and philosophy of race. She is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College and co-host of Overthink podcast. An internationally recognized specialist on love, dating, sexual consent, ethical non-monogamy (including open relationships and polyamory), and selfhood, Ellie is published in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hypatia, Continental Philosophy Review, Forge Magazine, and more. She is currently working on a book.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Reading Simone de Beauvoir — with Ellie Anderson.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, July 9, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/245-ellie-anderson.html.

Reading Simone de Beauvoir — with Ellie Anderson

This week on Below the Radar, we’re joined by Zool Suleman, co-founder and editor of Rungh Magazine. Zool discusses Rungh’s founding as a national South Asian focused cultural initiative in the 90s, and how the magazine has since evolved into a platform for Indigenous, Black and racialized artist conversations.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/246-zool-suleman.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/246-zool-suleman.html

Resources:
Rungh Magazine: www.rungh.org
Stop Racial Profiling: www.stopracialprofiling.ca
Zool Suleman: www.sulemanco.com

Bio:
Zool Suleman is a lawyer, writer, journalist, and cultural collaborator. He is the Editor of Rungh Magazine. He co-founded Rungh (1991), as a national South Asian focused arts initiative and relaunched Rungh in 2017 as a creative platform for Indigenous, Black and racialized artist conversations. In addition to his engagements as a cultural connector, he advocates for immigrants and refugees and has been active in national and local civil society initiatives against racism, racial profiling and Islamophobia, as the Executive Director of MARU since 2004. His work has been recognized by the City of Vancouver, the Attorney General of British Columbia, the BC Museum Association, and the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Archiving Counter-Histories — with Zool Suleman.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, July 23, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/246-zool-suleman.html.

Archiving Counter-Histories — with Zool Suleman

This week on Below the Radar we’re joined by Michael Hardt, political theorist and Professor at Duke University. Am and Michael discuss the political concept of love, Michael’s research on revolutionary movements in the 1970s, as well as his past writing with the late Tony Negri, and how they continue to think together.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/248-michael-hardt

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/248-michael-hardt

Resources:
Michael Hardt: https://scholars.duke.edu/person/hardt

The Subversive Seventies: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-subversive-seventies-9780197674659

Michael’s Talk at SFU: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/library/2023/michael-hardt-the-subversive-seventies.html

Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674006713

Bio:
Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author, with Antonio Negri, of the Empire trilogy and, most recently, Assembly. He is co-director with Sandro Mezzadra of The Social Movements Lab.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “The Politics of Love — with Michael Hardt.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 27th, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/248-michael-hardt.html.

The Politics of Love — with Michael Hardt

This episode of Below the Radar is a special live recording from SFU School for the Contemporary Arts’ 2023 Re-Orientation Day, an all-day event designed to welcome SCA students, faculty, and staff back to campus for the fall semester. 

The 2023 theme was on “Place,” and the Vancity Office of Community Engagement convened a panel of speakers across the arts, academia, and community engagement to speak on community engaged practices in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. 

Our host Am Johal is joined by Wendy Pedersen of the Downtown Eastside SRO Collaborative, SFU Professor of Geography Nick Blomley, musician and facilitator Khari Wendell McLelland, dancer, choreographer and now SCA faculty Justine Chambers, and Vancity Office of Community Engagement staff Julia Aoki, Kathy Feng and Samantha Walters. Enjoy the episode!

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/247-re-orientations.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/247-re-orientations.html

Resources:
DTES SRO Collaborative: https://srocollaborative.org/ 
Nick's work: https://www.sfu.ca/geography/about/our-people/profiles/Nicholas-Blomley.html 
Khari’s website: https://khariwendellmcclelland.com/ 
Justine’s website: https://justineachambers.com/ 
About Julia: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/about/updates/all-updates/meet-julia-aoki.html 
Samantha’s website: https://samanthawalters.com/ 
Kathy’s website: https://kathyfeng.info/ 

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “PLACE: SCA Re-Orientation Day 2023.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 20, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/247-re-orientations.html.

PLACE: SCA Re-Orientation Day 2023

As the seasons change, Below the Radar is back to our regularly scheduled programming featuring a dynamic range of local and international voices. We’re thrilled to bring a host of critically acclaimed writers, theorists, and artists across disciplines to share conversations on the politics of love, the crisis of neoliberalism, and artmaking through political shifts. We also have graduates and faculty of our very own SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts to discuss their practice and pedagogy.

Our Fall season will begin on August 27, 2024, with new episodes on Tuesdays. This season is also a celebration of Below the Radar’s milestone 250th episode, featuring political theorist Wendy Brown. As we head into our sixth year, we’re so grateful for your continued listenership, and we have lots of exciting projects and partnerships coming up ahead. As always, thank you for listening and we’re looking forward to sharing these conversations with you.

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-trailer-fall-2024.html

Below the Radar: 2024 Fall Kick-Off

Filmmaker Brett Story and labour organizer Chris Smalls join us this week on Below the Radar. Brett is the co-director of UNION, a documentary film that follows the efforts of the Amazon Labor Union and their campaign to unionize the first Amazon warehouse in American history. The movement was spearheaded by Chris, a former Amazon warehouse supervisor who was fired in 2020 after organizing a protest against Amazon’s lack of COVID-19 safety protocols. 

Brett and Chris chat about the process of making the film, the state of organizing in the contemporary moment, and the international reception of UNION.


Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/255-brett-story-chris-smalls.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/255-brett-story-chris-smalls.html

Resources:
Brett Story: https://brettstory.ca/
Chris Smalls: https://www.instagram.com/chris.smalls_/?hl=en
Amazon Labor Union: https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/
UNION: https://www.unionthefilm.com/
DOXA Documentary Film Festival: https://www.doxafestival.ca/

Bio:
Bretty Story:
Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer based in Toronto. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at CPH-DOX, SXSW, True/False, and Sheffield Doc/Fest. She is the director of the award-winning films The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) and The Hottest August (2019), and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. The Hottest August was a New York Times Critics’ Pick and was called one of the ten best documentary films of 2019 by over a dozen publications, including Variety, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.

Brett has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Sundance Institute, and was named one of Variety’s 10 Documentary Filmmakers to Watch. In 2020 she was nominated for a Cinema Eye Award for Best Director. She holds a PhD in geography and is currently an assistant professor of Media Praxis at the University of Toronto. Her most recent film, UNION, co-directed with Stephen Maing, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024.

Chris Smalls:
Christian Smalls is the founder of the Amazon Labor Union, an independent, democratic, worker-led labor union at Amazon in Staten Island. He is also the founder of The Congress of Essential Workers (TCOEW), a nationwide collective of essential workers and allies fighting for better working conditions, better wages, and a better world.

Smalls was formerly an Amazon warehouse supervisor, helping open three major warehouses in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut during his five years with the company, but he was fired in 2020 after organizing a protest against the company’s unsafe pandemic conditions.

Smalls has been profiled by media outlets worldwide, including The New York Times, USA Today, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, CBC Radio, Salon, and Jacobin. He lives in Hackensack, New Jersey.


Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “ Union Power — with Brett Story and Chris Smalls.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 5, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/255-brett-story-chris-smalls.html.

Union Power — with Brett Story and Chris Smalls

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Ranjit Hoskote, poet, translator, art critic, and curator. Together they discuss Bombay’s political and cultural milieu in the 1980s and 90s, from which Ranjit began to experiment with art making, artistic and curatorial responses to an emergent neo-colonial Indian state. They also discuss the crisis of cultural politics, Ranjit’s poetic responses to humanity’s demise in this moment of ecological crisis, and the promise he sees in interstitial spaces. 

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/249-ranjit-hoskote.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/249-ranjit-hoskote.html

Resources:
Ranjit’s linktree: https://linktr.ee/rhoskote 
Icelight: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819500557/icelight/
Hunchprose: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/hunchprose/ 
Jonahwhale: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/jonahwhale/ 
PEN International: https://www.pen-international.org/ 

Bio:
Ranjit Hoskote is an Indian poet, theorist, and curator whose influential work centres on the complex history and presence of cultural pluralism from the local to the global. His eight books of poetry—including Icelight (2022), Jonahwhale (2018), and a translation of a fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic-poet, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd (2011)—engage with themes of identity, displacement, and transformation through time. His acclaimed 2012 book Confluences: Forgotten Histories between East and West (with Ilija Trojanow) traced the rich history of intercultural and interreligious encounter that has shaped—and continues to shape—the contemporary world. Hoskote has curated more than 50 showcases of Indian and global art over the past three decades, including India’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “The Politics of Art — with Ranjit Hoskote.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 10, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/249-ranjit-hoskote.html.

The Politics of Art — with Ranjit Hoskote

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Wendy Brown, distinguished American political theorist and Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of California Berkeley. Together they discuss Wendy’s writing on the emergence of and critical responses to identity politics, physical border controls as performative expressions of sovereignty, the replacement of democratic values with neoliberal values of free market competition and individualism, and her forthcoming work on expanded notions of democracy that account for the past, future, human and non human. They also discuss the 2024 American presidential race, and as this episode was recorded in May, before President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, some comments are out of date, though still relevant to larger conversations around electoral politics.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/250-wendy-brown.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/250-wendy-brown.html

Resources:
Wendy Brown: https://www.ias.edu/sss/wendy-brown
States of Injury: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691029894/states-of-injury
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408031/walled-states-waning-sovereignty
Undoing the Demos: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408543/undoing-the-demos

Bio:
A political theorist who works across the history of political thought, political economy, Continental philosophy, cultural theory and critical legal theory, Wendy Brown is the UPS Foundation Chair in the School of Social Science.  Prior to her appointment at the Institute, she was Class of 1936 First Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a prize-winning teacher and scholar. 

Drawing from Nietzschean, Weberian, Marxist, Foucauldian, feminist and postcolonial angles of vision, Professor Brown writes about the subterranean powers shaping contemporary EuroAtlantic polities, with particular attention to the political identities, subjectivities and expressions they spawn.  The author/co-author of a dozen books in English, she is best known for her interrogation of identity politics and state power in States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (1995); her critical analysis of tolerance in Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (2006); her account of the inter-regnum between nation states and globalization in Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2010); and her study of neoliberalism’s assault on democratic principles, institutions and citizenship in Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (2015) and In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (2019).  Across her work, Brown aims to illuminate powers unique to our era and the predicaments they generate for democratic thought and practice. These predicaments range from rule by finance, to the de-democratization of political culture, to the nihilistic depletion of truth, values and conscience. 

Currently, Brown is exploring how political freedom can be salvaged from its historical imbrication with regimes of class, race and gender subjection and be made responsive to the climate crisis. Her driving question is whether and how political freedom can be reformulated in light of both. She is also extending and revising for publication her 2019 Yale Tanner Lectures, “Politics and Knowledge in Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber.” 

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “States of Injury — with Wendy Brown.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 17, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/250-wendy-brown.html.

States of Injury — with Wendy Brown

This week on Below the Radar, we’re joined by Ghinwa Yassine, a Lebanese anti-disciplinary artist whose work confronts the ideological and patriarchal systems that she grew up in, while exploring collective feelings and what it means to be a marked body. Ghinwa discusses her recent multi-media installations and ongoing artistic research into gestural agency and freedom.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/251-ghinwa-yassine.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/251-ghinwa-yassine.html

Resources:
Ghinwa Yassine: https://www.ghinwayassine.com/
How Far Can a Marked Body Go? : https://www.ghinwayassine.com/how-far-can-a-marked-body-go
KickQueen: https://www.ghinwayassine.com/kickqueen
MENA Film Festival: https://www.menafilmfestival.com/
When You Pour Something, It Carries the Memory of its Mold: https://www.ghinwayassine.com/when-you-pour-something-it-carries-the-memory-of-its-mold

Bio:
Ghinwa Yassine is an anti-disciplinary artist based on the land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people, so-called Vancouver. Her work uses various media, including film, installation, performance, text, and drawing. Yassine’s work confronts the ideological and patriarchal systems that she grew up in while exploring collective feelings and what it means to be a marked body. She seeks a radical historicizing of individual and collective traumas where embodied memories are put into question. Using hybrid forms of storytelling, where story manifests as somatic experiencing, ritual, and gesture, her projects are portals to factual/fictional dimensions that activate collective memory. 
Yassine holds an MFA in Contemporary Art - Interdisciplinary Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, an MA in Digital Video Design from the University of the Arts Utrecht, and a BA in Graphic Design from the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut. Her works have been exhibited in the Netherlands, Lebanon, UAE, Canada, Iran, and Croatia.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “How Far Can A Marked Body Go? — with Ghinwa Yassine.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 24, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/251-ghinwa-yassine.html.

How Far Can A Marked Body Go? — with Ghinwa Yassine

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist, joins us on this week’s episode of Below the Radar. Am Johal  and Leanne chat about her creative process, the significance of Nishnaabeg thought and practice in her work, and some upcoming projects including her newest book Theory of Water, set to be published in Spring of 2025.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/253-leanne-simpson.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/253-leanne-simpson.html

Resources:
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: https://www.leannesimpson.ca/ 
Leanne Simpson: Listening in Our Present Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VhckgLYX3k 
Episode 122: Theory of Ice — with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/122-leanne-betasamosake-simpson.html 
Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back: https://arpbooks.org/product/dancing-on-our-turtles-back/ 
As We Have Always Done: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517903879/as-we-have-always-done/ 

Bio:
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg musician, writer and academic, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the boundaries between story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
Leanne has performed in venues and festivals across Canada with her sister singer songwriter Ansley Simpson and guitarist Nick Ferrio. Leanne’s second album, f(l)light, was released in 2016 and is a haunting collection of story-songs that effortlessly interweave Simpson’s complex poetics and multi-layered stories of the land, spirit, and body with lush acoustic and electronic arrangements. Her EP Noopiming Sessions combines readings from her novel Noopiming with soundscapes composed and performed by Ansley Simpson and James Bunton with a gorgeous video by Sammy Chien and the Chimerik Collective. It was produced during the on-going social isolation of COVID-19 and was released on Gizhiiwe Music in the Fall of 2020.

Leanne is the author of seven books, including This Accident of Being Lost, which won the MacEwan University Book of the Year; was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award; was long listed for CBC Canada Reads; and was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Quill & Quire. Her new novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies was released by the House of Anansi Press in the fall of 2020 and in the US by the University of Minnesota Press in 2021 and was named one of the Globe and Mail’s best books of the year and was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. A Short History of the Blockade was released by the University of Alberta Press in early 2021. Her new project with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living will be released in 2022 by Knopf Canada.


Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Theory of Water — with Leanne Simpson.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 8, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/253-leanne-simpson.html.

Theory of Water — with Leanne Simpson

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

This week on Below the Radar, we’re joined by Tina Sikka, Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University. Tina discusses her research and writing on topics such as consent, justice, and feminist science studies, as well as her work in EDI at the university. 

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/256-tina-sikka.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/256-tina-sikka.html

Resources:
Tina Sikka: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/people/profile/tinasikka.html
Sex, Consent and Justice: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-sex-consent-and-justice.html
Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/health-apps-genetic-diets-and-superfoods-9781350202030/
Disrupted Knowledge Book: https://brill.com/display/title/64108?language=en
Disrupted Knowledge Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/disruptedknowledge

Bio:
Dr. Tina Sikka is Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University, UK. Her current research includes the critical and intersectional study of science, applied to climate change, bodies, and health, as well as research on consent, sexuality, and restorative justice. Dr. Sikka also works in the areas of decolonisation, bordering practices, and DEI. ﻿ Dr. Sikka’s book, Health Apps, Genetic Diets, and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023), uses autoethnography, science and technology studies, and new materialism to examine what constitutes ‘good health’ and explore possibilities for enacting health justice. Her previous book, Sex, Consent, and Justice: A New Feminist Framework (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) offers a novel approach to sexual ethics and transformative forms of justice using case studies from #MeToo, while her first book, Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (Springer, 2019), draws on feminist science studies to explore the science underpinning solar climate engineering. 

Dr. Sikka’s work on EDI, and current role as Director of EDI in The School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University, has led to invitations to lead workshops and she acts as a consultant on race, gender, and the workplace, cancel culture, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the public and private sectors.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Technoscience and Intersectional Justice — with Tina Sikka.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 19, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/256-tina-sikka.html.

Technoscience and Intersectional Justice — with Tina Sikka

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

In this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Damla Tamer, a visual artist and sessional lecturer at UBC whose work explores the affective conditions of labour under late capitalism, and the evolution of forms of civil protest within the contemporary political history of Turkey. Damla is also a founding member of the Art Mamas artist collective, which aims to create support networks for artist caregivers, while critically exploring the place of motherhood and care work within the dominant culture of art production.

Am and Damla discusses her recent exhibition at Access gallery, which explored the aftermath of the Gezi protests in Turkey through textile works, her work with housing co-ops in False Creek South, and why she thinks it’s ok for students to express love for a work of art.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/258-damla-tamer.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/258-damla-tamer.html

Resources:
Art Mamas CBC Article: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/art-mamas-meet-the-vancouver-collective-that-creates-community-for-mothers-in-the-arts-1.5129578 
Art Mamas | Access Gallery: 
https://accessgallery.ca/programming/artmamas
art/mamas: Intermedial Conversations on Art, Motherhood and Caregiving
https://criticalmediartstudio.iat.sfu.ca/artmamas/?page_id=291&fbclid=PAAaYDby0LbG_w1ZkyIsEjU61ZIV3FfuBCa25TBFHLHuMn9XUUmJqpUro5pPU 
UBC Profile:
https://ahva.ubc.ca/profile/damla-tamer/ 

Bio:
Damla Tamer (born in Istanbul, Turkey) is a visual artist and educator living on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. Her practice engages with the intersections of textile crafts and contemporary studio practices, with a special focus on weaving. Her work is heavily invested in searching for a new ethics of temporality through the relationships between aesthetics and politics. Her most recent work focuses on tracing the rise of neoliberal authoritarianism in Turkey and its relation to global movements, the evolution of forms of civil protest and resistance, and the capacities and limits of language and representation in locating oneself in a world that is rife with shifts. She does social-collaborative work as part of various artist collectives and co-operatives. She is a founding member of the artist mothers collective A.M. (Art Mamas) and has organized extensive public programming and co-published a book on motherhood, caregiving and social reproduction in relation to art and labour at large. She teaches at The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Emily Carr University of Art+Design.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Art Mamas — with Damla Tamer.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 17, 2024. 
https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/258-damla-tamer.html.

Tags:
SFU, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Simon Fraser University, Am Johal, Below the Radar, Damla Tamer, Art Mamas, Gezi, Vancouver Podcast

Art Mamas — with Damla Tamer

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

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