Below the Radar

Below the Radar has partnered with the Or Galley to bring you recordings of the Gas Imaginary Conversations series. In this first of two talks, Rachel O’Reilly is in conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva. This event was presented by the Or Gallery and recorded virtually on Nov. 26, 2020.

Rachel O’Reilly and Denise Ferreira da Silva have had long-standing exchanges on the many concepts and references that run through the Gas Imaginary project. In this conversation, they address the development of The Gas Imaginary and the language of capitalization in regards to land, settler conceptualism, and the violent movement of land to forms of property and sites of speculation-based capital.

Denise Ferreira da Silva’s academic and artistic work address the ethico-political challenges of the global present. Her publications include Toward a Global Idea of Race (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), A Dívida Impagavel (Oficina da Imaginaçāo Política and Living Commons, 2019), Unpayable Debt (Stenberg/MIT Press, forthcoming) and as co-editor with Paula Chakravartty, Race, Empire, and the Crisis of the Subprime (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Her artistic practice includes filmworks Serpent Rain (2016) and 4Waters-Deep Implicancy (2018), in collaboration with Arjuna Neuman; in addition to the ongoing relational project, Poethical Readings and Sensing Salon, in collaboration with Valentina Desideri. She is a professor and Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia.

Watch the video recording of this conversation here (closed captioning included in video): https://thegasimaginary.orgalleryprojects.org/talks/

About The Gas Imaginary:

A multi-disciplinary project using poetry, collaborative drawings, installation, moving images, and lectures to unpack the broader significance of ‘settler conceptualism’, the racial logic of the property form and fossil fuel-based labour politics as capital reaches the limits of land use. In ongoing dialogue with elders of Gooreng Gooreng country and settler women activists, where fracking was approved for mass installation in ‘Australia’, new elements of this work address the threatened destruction to 50% of the Northern Territory.

Read more: https://thegasimaginary.orgalleryprojects.org/

— Or Gallery: http://www.orgallery.org/

— Rachel O’Reilly: www.rachel-oreilly.net

— Dr. Denise Ferreira da Silva: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/person/denise-ferreira-da-silva/

Image: Rachel O'Reilly, INFRACTIONS, 2019, acrylic paint and marker. Photo: Dennis Ha.

SFU librarian Heather De Forest joins our host Am Johal to discuss the Community Scholars Program, a project that provides staff of charitable and non-profit organizations in BC with access to academic research and knowledge.

They discuss Heather’s work with the Community Scholars Program and go in-depth about the collective power of academic libraries within the open access movement.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/109-heather-de-forest.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/109-heather-de-forest.html

Resources:

— The Community Scholars Program https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/overview/services-you/community-scholars/support

— Making Research Accessible initiative https://learningexchange.ubc.ca/community-based-research/making-research-accessible-initiative/

— STOREE (Supporting Transparent and Open Research Engagement and Exchange: https://storee.ubc.ca/

Bio:

Heather is a librarian at Simon Fraser University. She leads the Community Scholars Program, which engages individuals working in the non-profit sector with research publications and identifies and reduces barriers to accessing and using this body of knowledge. Heather is a co-investigator with the STOREE (Supporting Transparent and Open Research Engagement and Exchange) project and a member of the steering committee for the Making Research Accessible initiative.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Access to Knowledge for Community Scholars — with Heather De Forest.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 9, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/109-heather-de-forest.html.

Author and educator David Chang of SFU’s Faculty of Education joins Am Johal for a conversation about what it means to live an ethical life during the Anthropocene — an epoch marked by the monumental environmental impact of human activity. David is co-editor of a recently published collection of scholarly and creative essays, A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene.

He and Am discuss themes in Ecological Virtues, including Aristotle’s notions of virtue ethics, and the grounding of virtue ethics in other thought traditions. They also speak about David’s colleagues’ contributions to the book that deal with death literacy and the process of forging soulful connection with places through poetry.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/108-david-chang.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/108-david-chang.html

Resources:

— A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene (University of Regina Press, 2020): https://uofrpress.ca/Books/A/A-Book-of-Ecological-Virtues

— “What Are Your ‘Ecological Virtues’?” - review from The Tyee: https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2020/09/22/What-Are-Your-Ecological-Virtues/

Bio:

David Chang is a teacher educator, and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. He researches contemplative approaches to environmental education. David Chang lives in Vancouver.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Ethical Living in the Anthropocene — with David Chang.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 2, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/108-david-chang.html.

Russell Wallace is a traditional Líl'wat singer, composer, and producer from Mount Currie. He has been singing and making music his whole life. He talks with host Am Johal about his musical roots — singing traditional songs for his community and beyond, alongside his mother and siblings, as the performance group Tzo’Kam.

They discuss Tzo’Kam’s longstanding collaborative relationship with the Japanese drumming group, Sawagi Taiko, as well as Russell’s own endeavours as a composer and producer for film, television, and theatre. He has contributed to productions such as, 1491: The Untold History of the Americas Before Columbus, The Road Forward, Monkey Beach, and more. Russell also speaks to the public singing and drumming workshops he instructs at SFU, which have been put on hold during the pandemic.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/107-russell-wallace.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/107-russell-wallace.html

Resources:

— Unceded Tongues album by Russell Wallace: https://russellwallace.bandcamp.com/album/unceded-tongues

— “Grandmother Song” by Tzo’Kam: https://youtu.be/ZH8VK-EBChk

— Sawagi Taiko: http://sawagitaiko.com/

— Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival: http://www.heartofthecityfestival.com/

— Monkey Beach: https://monkeybeachmovie.com/

— The Road Forward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rkCmDkYjwE

— 1491: The Untold History of the Americas Before Columbus: https://www.aptn.ca/1491/

Bio:

Russell Wallace is an award-winning composer, producer and traditional singer from the Lil’wat Nation.

His music can be heard on soundtracks for film, television and theatre/dance productions across Canada and the USA. Wallace is one of the founding members of the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast and is an alumnus of the UBC Creative Writing program. Wallace has written poetry, short fiction, theatre, and music theatre. Wallace was the artist in residence at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in 2019, a guest programmer for Word Vancouver and was the artistic director for the Aboriginal Electronic Music Festival for a number of years.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Keeping Culture Alive Through Song — with Russell Wallace.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, Februrary 27, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/107-russell-wallace.html.

Below the Radar speaks to some of the artists behind New Red Order, a public secret society that invites people to transform their complicity in Indigenous appropriation and performing Indigeneity into support for Indigenous futures and land sovereignty.

Am Johal is in conversation with Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys about the formation of, and impetus behind, New Red Order — and how they use humour, recruitment and interrogation to call out and call in. They also speak to their Give it Back exhibit at SFU’s Audain Gallery, on display in the gallery’s front window.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/106-new-red-order.html

Transcript link coming soon!

Resources:

— Become an informant: newredorder.org

— New Red Order: Give It Back at the Audain Gallery: http://www.sfu.ca/galleries/audain-gallery/NRO.html

— Never Settle: Calling In - New Red Order Recruitment Video: https://vimeo.com/465937878

Bio:

Adam Khalil (Ojibway) is a filmmaker and artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. His practice attempts to subvert traditional forms of ethnography through humor, relation, and transgression. Khalil’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, Walker Arts Center, Lincoln Center, Tate Modern, Toronto Biennial and Whitney Biennial, among other institutions. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order (NRO) and a co-founder of COUSINS Collective. Khalil is the recipient of various fellowships and grants, including but not limited to: Sundance Art of Nonfiction, Jerome Artist Fellowship, and Gates Millennium Scholarship. Khalil received his BA from Bard College.

Zack Khalil (Ojibway) is a filmmaker and artist from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His work often explores an indigenous worldview and undermines traditional forms of historical authority through the excavation of alternative histories and the use of innovative documentary forms. He recently completed a B.A. at Bard College in the Film and Electronic Arts Department and is a UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and Gates Millennium Scholar.

Jackson Polys is a visual artist who seeks to dissolve artificial boundaries between perceptions of traditional Native art forms, practices, and contemporary life, and whose practice reflects an inquiry into the limits and viability of desires for indigenous growth. Prior to pursuing his undergraduate education in New York he worked as Alaska-based artist Stron Softi, with solo exhibitions at the Alaska State Museum and the Anchorage Museum, and has been engaged by museums seeking replacements for repatriated works. He obtained a BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Columbia University (2013) and holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University (2015). He is the recipient of a 2017 NACF Mentor Artist Fellowship and Advisor to Indigenous New York, the collaborative program initiative co-founded by Mohawk artist Alan Michelson and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Rechanneling Desires for Indigeneity — with New Red Order” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, Februrary 16, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/106-new-red-order.html.

Charmaine Lyn joins Below the Radar to share learnings from her career in making social change from within post-secondary institutions. Charmaine is the Director of Changemaker Education for Ashoka Canada and works with different changemaker campuses across the country to advance changemaking for social justice in our institutions and communities through community engagement and reciprocal partnership.

Host Am Johal speaks with Charmaine about the journey that brought her to this work and her background in law which sparked a passion for accessibility in education, championing community engagement, and redistributing power and burdens within the often rigid structures of universities. They also discuss equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives in higher education, working at the intersection of community and university, and what the university might look like in a post-pandemic world.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/105-charmaine-lyn.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/105-charmain-lyn.html

Resources:

— Ashoka Canada: https://ashokacanada.org/

— Office of Community Engagement at Concordia University: https://www.concordia.ca/about/community/office.html

Bio:

Charmaine works closely with Canada’s seven designated Changemaker campuses and their change leaders to deepen and accelerate field-level collaboration and transformation in Canadian post-secondary.

In this role, Charmaine is leading Ashoka Canada’s targeted efforts to build upon growing momentum for social impact work in Canadian higher ed by identifying and accompanying prospective Canadian campuses through the designation process. Charmaine draws from over 15 years’ experience advancing equity, diversity, social accountability, and decolonization as drivers of post-secondary institutional change. Prior to joining Ashoka, Charmaine was Senior Director of the Office of Community Engagement at Concordia University in Montreal, where she also served as a Special Advisor to the Provost on Indigenous Directions, and stewarded the launch of the SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation. Charmaine also previously directed recruitment and admissions to McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Law. Born in Jamaica and raised in Tio’ tia:ke (Montreal), where she currently resides, Charmaine is a first-generation university attendee and lawyer by training. She holds a BA in English Literature and BCL (Civil Law) and LL.B. (common law) degrees from McGill University. She speaks English and French.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Redistributing Power in Universities — with Charmaine Lyn.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, Februrary 9, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/105-charmaine-lyn.html.

SFU Urban Studies professor Anthony Perl joins host Am Johal in conversation about urban mobility and the policy challenges and opportunities that shape the way people move through Canada’s largest urban centres: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

They discuss findings from Anthony’s new book, Big Moves: Global Agendas, Local Aspirations, and Urban Mobility in Canada, co-authored with Matt Hern and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy. Anthony traces the history of transportation infrastructure development through these three cities, and he and Am look towards a future that embraces more integrated and sustainable mobility options for urban and suburban life.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/104-anthony-perl.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/104-anthony-perl.html

Resources:

— About Anthony Perl: https://www.sfu.ca/politics/people/profiles/aperl.html

— Big Moves: Global Agendas, Local Aspirations, and Urban Mobility in Canada by Anthony perl, Matt Hern and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy: https://www.mqup.ca/big-moves-products-9780228001607.php

— Vancouver City Planning Commission: https://vancouver.ca/your-government/vancouver-city-planning-commission.aspx

Bio:

Anthony Perl— My research crosses disciplinary and national boundaries to explore policy decisions made about transportation, cities and the environment.

I have published in dozens of scholarly journals, including Energy Policy, Transport Policy, Transportation Research, Journal of Transport Geography, World Transport Policy and Practice, Journal of Air Transport Management, Transportation Research Record, Journal of Public Policy, Canadian Public Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of Urban Technology, Canadian Journal of Political Science and Scientific American. My work has been awarded prizes for outstanding papers presented at the World Conference on Transport Research and the Canadian Transportation Research Forum.

I have advised governments in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France and the United States on transportation and environmental research and policy development. I served on the board of VIA Rail, Canada’s national passenger railway. I have chaired the Rail Group of the U.S. Transportation Research Board (TRB), a division of the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering. I am currently a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute and Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Closer to home, I sit on the Vancouver City Planning Commission.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Urban Mobility and Transportation Policy — with Anthony Perl.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 4, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/104-anthony-perl.html.

Host Am Johal catches up with author, activist, voice actor and Juno-nominated comedian Charlie Demers about his pandemic year, and how he reads this turbulent moment in politics. They talk about everything from the life of civil rights figure Jack O’Dell, to a strange year for stand-up comedy, to Charlie’s studies in theology.

In the episode, Charlie and Am think through some of the mechanisms of Trumpism — looking to Rob Ford as a prefiguration to Trump, and unpacking the political stratagems populist leaders use to stoke anger and division.

Charlie is also the author of a recently published novel, Primary Obsessions, an amateur sleuth story which takes up mental health themes. He speaks to Am about how his lived experience inspired and informed the book, as well as what led him to pursue studies at the Vancouver School of Theology.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/103-charles-demers.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/103-charles-demers.html

Resources:

— Charlie’s website: https://www.charliedemers.com/

— Primary Obsessions, novel by Charles Demers: https://douglas-mcintyre.com/products/9781771622561

— Charlie’s Juno-nominated comedy album, Fatherland: https://604shop.com/products/fatherland

— “How OCD, CBT and a Therapist Inspired Charles Demers to Write a Mystery Novel” via The Tyee: https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2020/09/16/OCD-CBT-Charles-Demers-Mystery-Novel/

— The Issue of Mr. O’Dell, a short documentary about Jack O’Dell by Rami Katz: https://vimeo.com/251717171

Bio:

My name is Charlie Demers — I’m a Juno-nominated comedian and I’m a BC Book Prize -nominated author, and my voice features prominently on your parents’ favourite public radio show & your child’s favourite Netflix cartoon (so long as your parents listen to CBC’s The Debaters and your kid watches either of the Emmy-winning programs Beat Bugs or The Last Kids on Earth).

I’ve led an idiosyncratic life that has included, among other things, membership in a communist sect; opening, on various occasions, for Sarah Silverman, Marc Maron, Hannibal Buress, Bob Odenkirk & David Cross; organizing a union at a video arcade; making a cooking show pilot with my mother-in-law; writing jokes with Dave Foley of The Kids in the Hall; introducing Noam Chomsky at an anti-war rally of more than fifteen thousand people at Vancouver’s Sunset Beach; sharing a bill talking about anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder along with Stanley Cup finalist Kelly Hrudey & his daughter; learning a Cantopop love song for my wedding banquet; and, most recently, going to seminary.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Laughing in Pandemic Times — with Charles Demers.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, Februrary 2, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/103-charles-demers.html.

BC’s Attorney General and Minister of Housing David Eby joins Am Johal for this episode of Below the Radar, discussing policy solutions to BC’s housing crisis — from protecting tenants’ rights and serving those who are under-housed to curbing speculation and quashing renovictions, to addressing issues of supply and an aging rental stock.

David also looks back on getting his start as a lawyer and housing advocate in Vancouver’s urban core decades ago. He provides insights into his time in office so far, and the different policies he has gone, and continues to go to bat for. He speaks to the effects of COVID-19 on Vancouver’s housing availability and real estate market, and gives a brief update on the public enquiry into money laundering in BC.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/102-david-eby.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/102-david-eby.html

Resources:

— David Eby - MLA for Vancouver-Point Grey: https://davidebymla.ca/

— The Dash Podcast: https://www.thedashpod.ca/

— Sen̓áḵw: https://senakw.com/

— Pivot Legal Society: https://www.pivotlegal.org/

— BC Civil Liberties Association: https://bccla.org/

Bio:

David Eby is the provincial government representative (MLA) for Vancouver-Point Grey, first elected in 2013.

A proud local resident, David was re-elected in 2020 to serve a third term in the B.C. Legislature and in November 2020 was appointed to his current role as Attorney General and Minister of Housing by Premier John Horgan.

Before he was elected, David was the Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, an adjunct professor of law at the University of British Columbia, president of the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and served on the Vancouver Foundation’s Health and Social Development Committee.

An award-winning human rights lawyer, he has been repeatedly recognized in local media as one of British Columbia’s most effective advocates and has appeared at all levels of court in BC.

His years of legal advocacy at Pivot Legal Society to protect the human rights and dignity of homeless and under-housed residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside were recognized in 2011 by the UN Association in Canada and the B.C. Human Rights Coalition with their annual award.

David is the author of several books and articles on legal rights. His handbook on arrest rights is now in its third printing, with more than 10,000 copies in circulation.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Housing Affordability in BC — with David Eby.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 29, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/102-david-eby.html.

Global health epidemiologist Angela Kaida joins Below the Radar to share her passion for research to support the sexual and reproductive health of women and nonbinary people. An associate professor in SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences and a recent researcher-in-residence with SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative, Angela adopts an interdisciplinary, community-driven, ethics-based approach to researching the health of people living with HIV.

In this episode, Angela is in conversation with Am Johal about the process and potentials of embracing a community-engaged approach in her research, from community outreach and the training of peer research associates, to issues around informed consent. She discusses some of her recent projects, including the Life and Love with HIV platform and the CHIWOS-PAW project, and shares how she and her colleagues have had to adjust to working with the communities they serve in the context of COVID-19.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/101-angela-kaida.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/101-angela-kaida.html

Resources:

— About Angela Kaida: https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/about/people/profiles/angela-kaida.html

— “3 Questions with Researcher-in-Residence Dr. Angela Kaida” on the CERi blog: https://www.sfu.ca/ceri/blog/2020/meet-researcher-in-residence-angela-kaida.html

— Life and Love with HIV: https://www.lifeandlovewithhiv.ca/

— Canadian HIV Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health Cohort Study—Positive Aboriginal Women (CHIWOS-PAW): http://www.chiwos.ca

— SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative: https://www.sfu.ca/ceri.html

Bio:

Angela Kaida is an epidemiologist based in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Perspectives in HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health. She has been learning from and working with women living with HIV for the past 10 years. Angela’s research focuses on the sexual and reproductive health priorities of women living with HIV, including sexuality, safer conception, contraceptive access, reproductive decision-making, healthy pregnancy, and postpartum well-being. Her work investigates the social and structural factors that limit women’s realization of fulfilling sexual and reproductive lives, including laws that criminalize HIV non-disclosure. Angela’s research program adopts a community-informed, rights-driven, and evidenced-based approach to sexual and reproductive health by, with, and for women affected by HIV. She emigrated to Canada from Kenya as a child and today, her research program involves thousands of women living with or affected by HIV in East Africa, South Africa, and Canada.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Engaging Community in HIV Research — with Angela Kaida.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 26, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/101-angela-kaida.html.