Below the Radar

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we are joined by Sadhu Binning, bilingual author, educator, and advocate for Punjabi literature, culture, and language. Sadhu shares stories from his life, and discusses the path to founding arts and cultural collectives in Vancouver in the 80s and 90s.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-sadhu-binning.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-sadhu-binning.html

Resources:

No More Watno Dur: https://www.mawenzihouse.com/product/no-more-watno-dur/

Watan: https://www.watanpunjabi.ca/oct2018/

Bio:

Sadhu Binning, a bilingual teacher, advocate/founder, author, and editor, has lived in Vancouver since 1967, when he migrated there. During his resilient career, he has published and edited over nineteen poetry, fiction, plays, translations, and research books.

His works have been included in more than fifty anthologies both in Punjabi and English. He edited and co-edited the Punjabi magazines Watno Dur and Watan. He co-founded Vancouver Sath, a theatre collective (1983), Ankur, an English literary magazine (1993), and founded the Punjabi Language Education Association and various other literary and cultural organizations, including the Punjabi Literary Association (1973). He has sat on the BC Arts Board, is a central figure in the Punjabi arts community, and was named one of the top 100 South Asians who made a difference in BC.

He has received numerous awards in Canada and Punjab, India, including the supreme nonresident Punjabi author in 2015. Sadhu Binning received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from UBC in 2019.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “No More Watno Dur — with Sadhu Binning.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 21, 2025.. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-sadhu-binning.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Dave Biddle, artist, musician, theorist, and PhD Candidate at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. Together, they chat about Dave’s research, artistic practice, and rugby. Enjoy the episode!

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dave-biddle.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-dave-biddle.html

Resources:

Copyright Linda Fox: https://kopyrightlindafox.bandcamp.com/

Dave’s Oasis: https://davesoasis.cargo.site/

Liquidation World: https://www.instagram.com/liquidationw0rld/?hl=en

Bio:

Dave Biddle (being me) is a musician (being Copyright Linda Fox), a theorist (being susceptible to gnosis), and a filmmaker (being quick to tell you about his new "script").

He (still being me) is interested in how the many different forms of life on earth (being metaphorically different) are all oriented toward the production of new expressions of meaning (being negentropic), and in this process some of those expressions emerge as something called an "artist bio" (being the ultimate expression).

Dave Biddle (being the artist whose bio is in question) was born in Vancouver (being the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations) and he continues to live in that (being this) strange place where he studies the silverfish in his books (being being).

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “M.I.T.C.O.E. — with Dave Biddle.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 21, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dave-biddle.html.

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we’re joined by Johan Grimonprez, a Belgian multimedia artist, filmmaker, and curator whose film Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 97th Academy Awards. Am and Johan discuss Johan’s past video work, and what Johan discovered along the way in creating and sharing Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-johan-grimonprez

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-johan-grimonprez

Resources:

Johan Grimonprez: https://www.johangrimonprez.be/

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat: https://kinolorber.com/film/soundtrack-to-a-coup-d-etat

Vancouver International Film Festival: https://viff.org/

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y: https://vimeo.com/231411671

Bio:

Who owns our imagination in a world of existential vertigo where truth has become a shipwrecked refugee? Is it the storyteller who can contain contradictions, who can slip between the languages we have been given to become a time-traveler of the imagination? Johan Grimonprez’s critically acclaimed work dances on the borders of theory and practice, between art and cinema, beyond the dualisms of documentary and fiction, other and self, mind and brain to weave new pathways and stories, emphasizing a multiplicity of realities. Informed by an archeology of present-day media, his work depicts intimate stories that brush up against the bigger picture of globalization. It questions our collective imagination and the contemporary sublime, one framed by a fear industry that has infected political and social dialogue.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat — with Johan Grimonprez” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 14, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-johan-grimonprez.html.

This episode of Below the Radar B-Sides is guest hosted by Joe Clark, term assistant professor at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. He is joined by Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa, Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Seattle University, and author of The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life. Together, they chat about their shared interest in non-theatrical film, and the histories and speculative futures of scientific filmmaking.

Resources:

Joseph Clark: https://www.josephclark.me/

Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa: https://www.benjaminschultzfigueroa.com/

The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life: https://www.benjaminschultzfigueroa.com/the-celluloid-specimen-moving-image-research-into-animal-life

Bio:

Joseph Clark:

Joseph Clark (PhD, Brown University) is an educator, filmmaker, researcher, and arts programmer. His research and teaching interests focus on archival and non-theatrical media, including newsreels, home movies, and sponsored film. He is the author of News Parade: The American Newsreel and the World as Spectacle (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and the director of the short film Persistence & Loss (2021). He is a long-time member of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival Programming Committee and part of the organizing committee of the Vancouver Podcast Festival.

Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa

Dr. Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa is an Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Seattle University. His research focuses on the history of scientific filmmaking, nontheatrical film, and animal studies. Among other venues, his writing has been published in JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Film History, Journal of Environmental Media. His book The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life is due to be published by UC Press in February, 2023.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Clark, Joseph. “The Celluloid Specimen — with Joe Clark and Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-celluloid-specimen.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Dorothy Christian, the Associate Director of Indigenous Policy & Pedagogy in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Simon Fraser University. Dorothy talks about her work as a storyteller and academic, as well as her activism with the Oka crisis and the Gustafsen Lake standoff.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dorothy-christian

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-dorothy-christian

Resources:

Dorothy Christian: https://www.sfu.ca/gradstudies/about/contact/dorothy-christian.html

Gathering knowledge : Indigenous methodologies of land/place-based visual storytelling/filmmaking and visual sovereignty: https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0343529

Bio:

Dorothy Cucw-la7 Christian is Secwepemc and Syilx from the interior plateau regions of what is known as British Columbia. She is happy to be a good relative to her Coast Salish cousins while she lives, works, and plays on their lands. Her research centralizes land, story, cultural protocols and how Indigenous Knowledge informs film production practices. She is the the Associate Director of Indigenous Policy & Pedagogy in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Story Sovereignty — with Dorothy Christian” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-dorothy-christian.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar B-Sides, our host Am Johal is joined by Ming Wong, Singapore-born and Berlin-based contemporary artist. Together, they chat about Ming’s artistic practice, his research into Cantonese Opera cinema, approach to pedagogy, and the advantages of being at the fringe looking in.

You can see Ming’s installation “Vast Oceans, Endless Skies / 海闊天空” in the Chinese Canadian Museum’s exhibition Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s-2000, on until May 31, 2026.

Resources:

Ming Wong: https://www.mingwong.org/

Chinese Canadian Museum exhibition: Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s-2000: https://www.chinesecanadianmuseum.ca/exhibitions/dream-factory-cantopop-mandopop-1980s-2000

Ming Wong: 2023 SFU Fall Audain Visual Artist in Residence artist talk: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/projects---activities/audain-visual-artist-in-residence/ming-wong.html

Bio:

Ming Wong (b. 1971, Singapore) currently lives and works in Berlin. His interdisciplinary practice incorporating performance, video and installation unravels ideas of ‘authenticity’ and the ‘other’ with reference to the act of human performativity. In recent years, he has had strong theatrical interests in the intersection of sci-fi and traditional Chinese culture, particularly Cantonese opera. Wong uses this speculative association to tackle issues such as Chinese modernity, the role of popular culture in building national identities. His works often assemble languages and personalities to create their own “World Cinema”.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am.. “Re-enactments, Theatre, and Cantonese Opera — with Ming Wong.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-ming-wong.html.

On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, our host Am Johal was joined by Alphonso Lingis, who was a renowned philosopher, writer, and professor at Pennsylvania State University. Alphonso passed away in May 2025, and we’re pleased to share this conversation where he discussed his recent writing, some of the thinkers who were important to his work, and notions of community and mortality.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-alphonso-lingis.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/btr-bsides-alphonso-lingis.html

Resources:

The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common by Alphonso Lingis: https://iupress.org/9780253208521/the-community-of-those-who-have-nothing-in-common/

Abuses by Alphonso Lingis: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/abuses/paper

Irrevocable A Philosophy of Mortality by Alphonso Lingis: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo28301901.html

Bio:

Alphonso Lingis was an American philosopher, writer, translator, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. His areas of specialization included phenomenology, existentialism, modern philosophy, and ethics.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common — with Alphonso Lingis” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, August 12, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/btr-bsides-alphonso-lingis.html.

In this episode we are joined by Viola Tian, where she shares her journey from arriving in Canada at the age of 19 as a student in Queen's University, to becoming a leading advocate for anti-racism and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She discusses her work with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the U.S., highlighting bureaucratic challenges in achieving systemic change. Tian details her role in creating the Coalition Against Anti-Asian Racism Canada, focusing on education, policy advocacy, and community support. She emphasizes the need for nuanced approaches, addressing issues like online hate and funding cutbacks impacting Asian Canadian organizations. Tian also notes the importance of long-term education and the challenges of implementing DEI in corporate settings.

Resources:

Community Resilience Fund: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/bt/cc/fnd-en.aspx

#blockhate Report: https://ywcacanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Block-Hate-Report-October-2022-corrected-1.pdf

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: https://www.eeoc.gov/

Canadian Human Rights Commission: https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/en

Canadian Race Relations Foundation: https://crrf-fcrr.ca/

Coalition Against Anti-Asian Racism Canada: https://crrf-fcrr.ca/coalition-against-anti-asian-racism-canada/

Online Harms Bill: https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/44-1/c-63

Bio:

Viola Tian

Viola has combined five years of comprehensive experience in public policy with expertise in health and social justice. Throughout her career, Viola has engaged in meaningful collaborations in policy development and strategy with a multitude of non-profits and government institutions, playing pivotal roles in both Canadian and US federal settings. Most notably, she established the first national, pan-Asian coalition in Canada. She holds a firm conviction that every citizen possesses the potential to influence policy change, provided they are equipped with the right knowledge in government relations and advocacy techniques.

In this episode, we are joined by Irene Gammel and Jason Wang from Toronto Metropolitan University. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Irene and Jason held webinar series at the Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre. In this episode Irene and Jason share personal anecdotes and insights on how the pandemic has affected their lives, research, and cultural practices. They emphasized the importance of creative expressions, personal storytelling, and cultural documentation in navigating uncertain times and fostering a sense of community and solidarity. The speakers also discussed the surge of anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, highlighting the need for educational curricula, grassroots movements, and empathy across cultures to address the issue.

Resources:

Irene Gammel: https://www.torontomu.ca/english/about-us/faculty-and-staff/faculty/gammel-irene/

Jason Wang: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/people/jason-wang

Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/

MLC Pandemic Webinar Series: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/news/webinars/pandemic-webinar-series

Creative Resilience and COVID-19 — Figuring the Everyday in a Pandemic: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/creative-resilience-and-covid-19

Bios:

Irene Gammel

Since coming to Toronto Metropolitan University in 2005, Dr. Irene Gammel has held positions as professor of English, Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture (2005; renewed 2011), and director of the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre. She is the author and editor of fourteen books, including the internationally acclaimed Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada and Everyday Modernity (MIT Press) and Looking for Anne of Green Gables (St. Martin’s Press), as well as over 50 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. Irene Gammel is well-known for her scholarship on gender and modernism. Her research has helped uncover the earliest roots of modern and feminist performance art, contributed to the consolidation of L.M. Montgomery Studies as an academic field, and claimed women's confessional discourses as a sub-discipline of autobiographical studies. As the Director of the Modern Literature and Culture (MLC) Research Centre, she has hosted and curated numerous exhibitions, symposia, and workshops; her passion is training students at all levels through experiential methods.

Jason Wang

Dr. Jason Wang holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture (York University, 2021), an M.A. in Literatures of Modernity (Ryerson University, 2013), and a B.A. Honours with double majors in Communication Studies and Psychology (York University, 2012). He specializes in studying how modernist and contemporary literature and culture encode power, politics, and social values. His doctoral dissertation, “Urban Walking: Configuring the Modern City as Cultural and Spatial Practice” (defended with distinction), explored the aesthetics of spatial politics and the politics of spatial aesthetics in urban literature and culture from the early twentieth century to the post-industrial era.

Dr. Wang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the MLC Research Centre (2021-2023), working with Dr. Gammel on a volume of essays exploring creative resilience and COVID-19. A member of the Executive Team at the MLC Research Centre, Jason oversees the CFI-funded research space of the MLC Research & Innovation Zone (RIZ), provides technology leadership for the CWAHI (hybrid) conference, and is cohost of the MLC Pandemic Webinar Series.

In this episode we are joined by Kevin Huang and Kimberley Wong of hua foundation. The conversation centers on the rise of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlights urgent concerns around community health, public health orders, and hate crimes. Kevin and Kimberley emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing diverse experiences and perspectives within Asian communities, and shifting community engagement and resource allocation towards racialized communities. Speakers also discuss the limitations of the model minority myth and the need to build intergenerational relations, while acknowledging the complexities of identity and power dynamics in community work.

Resources:

hua foundation: https://huafoundation.org/

Asian Community Convener Project: https://huafoundation.org/portfolio/acc/

Anti-Racism and Solidarities Resource Collection: http://solidarities.huafoundation.org

The Choi Project: https://huafoundation.org/portfolio/seasonal-choi-guide/

Chinatown Cares Grocery Program: https://huafoundation.org/work/food-systems/chinatown-cares/

Chinatown Food Security Report: https://huafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Report_VancouverCTFoodSecurity.pdf

Reorienting Our Trauma: https://huafoundation.org/portfolio/reorienting-our-trauma/

Bios:

Kimberley Wong 黄壯慈 (they/them)

Kimberley Wong | 黄壯慈 (they/them) is the Program Manager at hua foundation. In their role, Kimberley designs resources for anti-racism education, builds solidarity across racialized communities, and forges paths to access culturally-appropriate mental health care for youth facing barriers. They served as a Co-Chair of the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown municipal advisory committee, were a founding member and Vice President of Chinatown Today, and were an elected member of the OneCity Vancouver Organizing Committee. Their work often mirrors their experiences moving through spaces as a queer, neurodivergent, and fifth generation Cantonese diasporic person, and though they draw on their knowledge from over a decade of navigating precarious work environments in the arts, culture, political, and equity sectors, Kimberley’s work is also deepened by their love of being a lifelong crafter, a triathlete, and a descendant whose ancestors have long histories organizing for marginalized populations on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land known colonially as Vancouver.

Find them online @KimberleyLW.

Kevin Huang 黃儀軒 (he/him)

Kevin Huang 黃儀軒 (he/him) is the co-founder and executive director of hua foundation, an organization with the mission of strengthening the capacity among Asian diasporic youth, in solidarity with other communities, to challenge, change, and create systems for a more equitable and just future. His work has ranged from scaling culturally appropriate consumer-based conservation strategies, advancing municipal food policy to address inclusion and racial equity, to providing supports for youth from ethnocultural communities to reclaim their cultural identity on their own terms. Kevin currently serves on committees with Vancity Credit Union, Vancouver Foundation, and Metro Vancouver.