Below the Radar

Independent curator and Vancouver based writer, Joni Low joins our host, Am Johal, on this episode of Below the Radar. They discuss Joni’s book, What Are Our Supports?, including the various contributors to the anthology, and the modes of support local artists find and create. Am and Joni explore artistic practices and the different potential futures which artists are inviting into the city and the world.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/208-joni-low.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/208-joni-low.html

Resources:

Joni Low’s Website: https://www.jonilow.com/about

What Are Our Supports? Book: https://i-o.cc/books/supports

What Are Our Supports? 2018 Art Project: https://www.jonilow.com/works/what-are-our-supports

Germaine Koh’s Website: https://legacywebsite.front.bc.ca/artist/koh-germaine/

HMH Boothy: https://germainekoh.com/works/hmh-boothy

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing: https://www.gf.org/fellows/anna-lowenhaupt-tsing/

Bio:

Joni Low is an independent curator and writer living on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ territories. Her practice explores interconnection, intercultural conversations, collaboration and sensory experience and she has worked in non-profit visual arts organizations including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Centre A, and Long March Space Beijing. Low is a recipient of Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and City of Vancouver funding, and has served on numerous juries including the VIVA and Sobey Art Awards.

Low recently co-edited a compendium anthology for the 2018 curatorial series, What are our Supports? with over 20 artists, writers, and poets.

Currently a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University's School for Contemporary Arts, Low's research-creation focuses on artists sensing otherwise through intermedial and intersensorial forms to access different ways of knowing, feeling and remembering, and interdisciplinary explorations of synaesthetic resonances across art, neuroscience and the humanities.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “What Are Our Supports?— with Joni Low.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, April 04, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/208-joni-low.html.

This week on Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by writer, editor, and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow of Contemporary Art at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, Yani Kong. Am and Yani discuss Yani’s graduate research exploring enchantment and how she got into her work writing arts criticism. They also talk about Canadian art at the 2022 Venice biennale and the relationship between public art and real-estate development in Vancouver.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/207-yani-kong.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/207-yani-kong.html

Resources:

Yani Kong: https://www.yanikong.com/

SFU School for the Contemporary Arts: https://www.sfu.ca/sca.html

The Comparative Media Arts Journal: https://www.sfu.ca/cmajournal.html

Yani Kong on the Venice Biennale: https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/venice-biennale/

Rodney Graham’s Spinning Chandelier: https://westbankcorp.com/public-art/spinning-chandelier

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

Bio:

Yani Kong is a writer, editor, and scholar of contemporary art in Vancouver, Canada. She has recently published essays for the Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation, Vancouver BC, the Freedman Gallery, Reading PA, and is a regular contributor to Galleries West. She is SSHRC Doctoral Fellow of Contemporary Art at the School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA), Simon Fraser University, researching reception aesthetics and contemporary art history. As a member of the Low Carbon Research Methods Working Group, she explores sustainable practices in streaming media. Kong is a faculty member in the department of art history and religious studies at Langara College.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Enchantment, Criticism, and the Activation of Art — with Yani Kong” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 28, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/207-yani-kong.html.

Artistic co-director and co-founder of the WaxFactory, and Assistant Professor in Theatre Performance at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, Erika Latta, sits down with Am Johal to explore her journey as a theatre-maker – from her memorable experiences touring throughout Europe, pushing platforms in the mud for site-specific work with Begat Theater, or now, working with SFU theatre performance students on their upcoming production of Strange Joy.

Erika also speaks about growing up in the woods in Oregon with artistic parents, pushing artistic boundaries in university, and co-founding WaxFactory.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/206-erika-latta.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/206-erika-latta.html

Resources:

Erika Latta: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/events---news/news/welcome--erika-latta--assistant-professor/

SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts: https://www.sfu.ca/sca.html

SFU Theatre Performance: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/programs/theatre-performance.html

WaxFactory: ​​https://waxfactory.nyc/

Begat Theatre: http://begat.org/

Get Tickets for Strange Joy: https://www.sfu.ca/sca/events---news/events/strange-joy.html

HOME/LAND: http://www.hand2mouththeatre.org/homeland

Bio:

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Erika Latta is the artistic co-director and co-founder of WaxFactory in New York City. WaxFactory continues to nurture a hybrid approach, based on unconventional narrative styles, originally dramaturgy, visual and physical rigor, technological experimentation and site-responsive work. With the company, she works as a director, writer, actor, sound designer and educator. As an actor and director she has presented work in international venues and festivals throughout Europe and Latin America creating long lasting partnerships with artists and designers. She holds a BFA in Theater from the University of Washington, and an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.

Erika is also an associate director of the French trans-media company Begat Theater. For Begat, she co-conceived, directed, designed sound and co-wrote several of Begat productions. Begat Theater’s productions have been awarded numerous grants, co-productions and partnerships, as well as the generous support from FACE (French American Fund for Contemporary Theater). Erika is a member of the Society of Authors (SACD) in France, and she continues to author and co-author many of the original productions for both WaxFactory and Begat Theater. Outside her company, she has worked with Felix Barret and Maxine Doyle of Punchdrunk (SLEEP NO MORE), Robert Wilson at the Watermill Center, Anne Bogart (SITI Company), Robert Woodruff, Victor Gautier Martin, Tina Landau, and Chuck Mee , among others.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Strange Joy — with Erika Latta.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 21, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/206-erika-latta.html.

Artist, filmmaker, and Assistant Professor for the School of Contemporary Arts, Nadia Shihab, sits down with Am Johal to explore her path as a filmmaker.

Nadia begins by sharing her university days as an Iraqi student at the University of Texas, feeling a personal sense of loss from the war, and burnout from her student activism within a conservative state. She speaks of this as the inspiration for her first film, I Come from Iraq. Nadia also explores the inspirations and meanings of her other films, such as Amal’s Garden and Jaddoland. She and Am also explore her urban planning background, and Nadia shares some advice for aspiring student filmmakers.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/205-nadia-shihab.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/205-nadia-shihab.html

Resources:

Nadia’s website: https://www.nadiashihab.com/

I Come from Iraq: https://vimeo.com/59374843

Amal’s Garden: https://www.nadiashihab.com/amalsgarden-archived

Jaddoland: https://www.nadiashihab.com/jaddoland

Echolocation: https://www.nadiashihab.com/echolocation

57 Manchester: https://www.nadiashihab.com/57manchester

Bio:

Nadia Shihab is an artist and filmmaker whose work explores the personal, the relational, and the diasporic. Her studio practice includes film, collage and sound. She is the director of several short films and the feature-length film JADDOLAND, which was awarded five festival jury awards, including the Independent Spirit "Truer than Fiction" Award, and went on to broadcast for two seasons on US public television.

Her work has shown in exhibitions and festivals internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou, Walker Art Center, Berkeley Art Museum, Dubai International Film Festival, DOXA, CAAMFest, and New Orleans Film Festival. She is the recipient of fellowships and support from the Sundance Institute, Center for Asian American Media, Firelight Media, and Tribeca Film Institute, and has been an artist-in-residency at the MacDowell Colony and Djerassi Residency.

Her creative practice is bolstered by over a decade of experience as a community practitioner. She holds an MFA in Art Practice (UC Berkeley, 2021), as well as a Master in City & Regional Planning (UC Berkeley, 2009) – a degree which grounds her art practice within critical understandings of urban space and practical training in ethnography. Her community-based work includes Fulbright research in southeastern Turkey, and facilitating projects spanning affordable housing preservation, refugee youth mentorship, and community-guided philanthropy. She was raised in west Texas by immigrant parents from Iraq & Yemen.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Film and the Political — with Nadia Shihab.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 14, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/205-nadia-shihab.html.

Our host Am Johal is joined this week by Dr. Svitlana Matviyenko, Professor of Critical Media Analysis in SFU’s School of Communication and Associate Director of The Digital Democracies Institute. Svitlana talks about her experiences living in Ukraine over the past year, documenting a rising militarization and being attentive to the social changes that war imposes. Am and Svitlana also discuss the asymmetrical cases of misinformation between Ukraine and Russia, as well as how the invasion has merged her research interests of media and cyberwar. This episode was recorded on February 21st, 2023.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/204-svitlana-matviyenko.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/204-svitlana-matviyenko.html

Resources:

Svitlana Matviyenko: https://www.sfu.ca/communication/people/faculty/svitlana-matviyenko.html

SFU School of Communication: http://www.sfu.ca/communication.html

Digital Democracies Institute: https://digitaldemocracies.org/

Dispatches from the Place of Imminence: https://networkcultures.org/blog/author/svitlana/

Cyberwar and Revolution: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/cyberwar-and-revolution

Below the Radar Episode 39 with Svitlana: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/39-svitlana-matviyenko.html

Bio:

Svitlana Matviyenko is an Assistant Professor of Critical Media Analysis in the School of Communication. Her research and teaching are focused on information and cyberwar; political economy of information; media and environment; infrastructure studies; STS. She writes about practices of resistance and mobilization; digital militarism, dis- and misinformation; Internet history; cybernetics; psychoanalysis; posthumanism; the Soviet and the post-Soviet techno-politics; nuclear cultures, including the Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion. She is a co-editor of two collections, The Imaginary App (MIT Press, 2014) and Lacan and the Posthuman (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). She is a co-author of Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism (Minnesota UP, 2019), a winner of the 2019 book award of the Science Technology and Art in International Relations (STAIR) section of the International Studies Association and of the Canadian Communication Association 2020 Gertrude J. Robinson book prize.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Ukraine: Dispatches from a Place of Imminence — with Svitlana Matviyenko.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, March 7, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/204-svitlana-matviyenko.html.

This week our host Am Johal is joined by Cliff Atleo, a scholar and professor in SFU’s School of Resource & Environmental Management. Am and Cliff discuss prioritising Indigenous communities' wants in environmental and economic movements, Cliff’s past work with the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, and Iron Dog Books. Together they consider how to navigate institutional and governmental bureaucracy in matters of Indigenous governances, resource management, and research.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/203-cliff-atleo.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/203-cliff-atleo.html

Resources:

Cliff Atleo: https://www.kamayaam.com/

SFU's School of Resource and Environmental Management: http://www.sfu.ca/rem.html

Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council: https://nuuchahnulth.org/

Ahousaht et. Al Case: https://www.ratcliff.com/publications/aboriginal-right-sell-fish-ahousaht-nation-et-al-v-canada/

Clayoquot Sound War in the Woods: https://thenarwhal.ca/clayoquot-sound-tofino-after-war-woods/

Iron Dog Books: https://irondogbooks.com/

Melina Laboucan-Massimo’s Power to the People: https://powertothepeople.tv/

Bio:

Cliff Gordon Atleo (he/him) is a Tsimshian (Kitsumkalum/Kitselas) and Nuu-chah-nulth (Ahousaht) assistant professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. He is interested in how Indigenous communities navigate/adopt/resist neoliberal capitalism while working to sustain their unique cultural identities, worldviews, and ways of living. Cliff is particularly interested in how Indigenous leaders continue to assert agency within the confines of settler colonial politics and economics and work tirelessly to lead their communities in more sustainable directions. He has recently published on Indigenous water and land relations, Indigenous community responses to the Trans Mountain pipeline and is working on several exciting research projects on cleaner marine transport and Indigenous community responses to crises such as COVID-19 and climate change.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Supporting Indigenous Self-Determination Through Research — with Cliff Atleo.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 28, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/203-cliff-atleo.html.

Former Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Indian Summer Festival and new Director of Public Engagement and Learning at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Sirish Rao, speaks with Am Johal about his previous work as a Himalayan mountain guide, as a book publisher in India, as well as his experiences with the Jaipur Literature festival and the Indian Summer Festival. This episode explores the creation of arts organizations to celebrate local and regional storytelling.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/202-sirish-rao.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/202-sirish-rao.html

Resources:

Sirish Rao: https://www.sirishrao.com/

Indian Summer Festival: https://indiansummerfest.ca/about-us/

Tara Books: https://tarabooks.com/about/

The Night Life of Trees: https://tarabooks.com/shop/the-night-life-of-trees/

Jaipur Literature Festival: https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org

Bio:

Sirish Rao is an arts leader, writer, and cultural innovator with deep connections to the international arts world. A trained Himalayan mountain guide, Sirish spent a decade as Director of Tara Books, growing it from a startup into one of India’s most awarded publishing houses. He has worked with a wide range of international cultural institutions including the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), The Frankfurt Book Fair, Kunsthal (Rotterdam), The Museum of London and the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Sirish moved to Vancouver in 2010, and co-founded the Indian Summer Festival with his partner Laura Byspalko, leading its growth to become Canada’s preeminent presenter of South Asian art and thought. In his role as Artistic Director, Sirish has presented more than a thousand artists on the stages of the festival, in a roster that features Nobel, Booker, Grammy and Oscar Award-winning artists. Sirish is now Director of Public Engagement and Learning at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Mixing Paint with Giant Cricket Bats — with Sirish Rao.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 21, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/202-sirish-rao.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal speaks with June Francis, a professor, researcher, and advocate for anti-racist and decolonial practices in universities, businesses, and governments. They discuss how gathering data about racism can be an important step toward equity and racial justice. June also describes her work in connecting Black and African Diaspora communities with institutions and legislators to enact systemic change.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/201-june-francis.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/201-june-francis.html

Resources:

Beedie School of Business: https://beedie.sfu.ca/

Institute for the Black and African Diaspora (formerly the Institute for Diasporic Research and Engagement): http://www.sfu.ca/diaspora-institute.html

SFU Black Caucus: https://www.sfu.ca/black-caucus.html

Hogan’s Alley Society: https://www.hogansalleysociety.org/

The Co-Laboratorio Project: https://colabadvantage.org/

Becoming a Decolonial and Anti-Racist University: https://www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/events/2022/june-francis.html

Bio:

June Francis is an Associate Professor of Marketing and is the Co-Founder of The Co-Laboratorio project that works to strengthen cross-sector collaboration, learning and innovation — for more inclusive resilient solutions in governance, policies and industry practice. She is also Director of the Institute for Diaspora Research and Engagement at SFU. The Institute's mandate is to strengthen the links between scholarly research, policy and practice related to multi-cultural and diaspora communities and their role in building innovative, sustainable and inclusive initiatives. June has won awards for both service and teaching excellence winning the Beedie School of Business Canada Trust Teaching Award as well as the inaugural Beedie School of Business Service award in 2019. She is an advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion for racialized groups as well as the advancement of non-traditional intellectual property law related to community well-being and cultural and human rights through her research, consulting, the media and as a volunteer.

Cite this episode:

Johal, Am. “Racial Justice, Community Building, and Data — with June Francis.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 14, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/201-june-francis.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal speaks with Marianne Nicolson, an artist and activist of the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations. They discuss ways that Marianne uses art practice to uphold Kwakwaka’wakw philosophies and resist settler-colonial fictions about Indigenous peoples. Marianne describes how her work challenges the colonial practice of treating Indigenous artmaking traditions as resources to be extracted.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/200-marianne-nicolson.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/200-marianne-nicolson.html

Resources:

Marianne Nicolson: https://www.mariannenicolson.com/

The Sea Captain at Surrey Central skytrain station: https://www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-public-art/public-art-collection/the-sea-captain

Cliff Painting at Kingcome Inlet: https://themedicineproject.com/marianne-nicolson.html#null

Bakwina`tsi: the Container for Souls at Artspeak Gallery: https://artspeak.ca/artspeak-wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Postscript-18-Daina-Warren-on-Marianne-Nicolson.pdf

The House of the Ghosts at Vancouver Art Gallery: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/38869/marianne-nicolson-the-house-of-the-ghosts/

The Rivers Monument at Vancouver International Airport: https://www.yvr.ca/en/about-yvr/art/sea-to-sky

Marianne’s PhD Dissertation: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/5135?show=full

To Refuse/To Wait/To Sleep at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery: https://belkin.ubc.ca/exhibitions/to-refuse-to-wait-to-sleep-ma/

Bio:

Marianne Nicolson is an artist activist of the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations. The Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw Nations are part of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwak’wala speaking peoples) of the Pacific Northwest Coast. She is trained in both traditional Kwakwaka’wakw forms and culture and contemporary gallery and museum-based practice.

Nicolson works as a Kwakwaka’wakw cultural researcher and historian, as well as an advocate for Indigenous land rights. Her practice is multi-disciplinary encompassing photography, painting, carving, video, installation, monumental public art, writing and speaking. All her work is political in nature and seeks to uphold Kwakwaka’wakw traditional philosophy and worldview through contemporary mediums and technology. Exhibitions include the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Australia; The Vancouver Art Gallery, The National Museum of the American Indian in New York, Nuit Blanche in Toronto, Ontario, Museum Arnhem, Netherlands and many others. Major monumental public artworks are situated in Vancouver International Airport, the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan and the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France.

Cite this episode:

Johal, Am. “Art and the Spatial Logics of Colonialism with Marianne Nicolson.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 7, 2023. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/200-marianne-nicolson.html.

Over the past 4 years, Below the Radar has grown to be the lively platform for sharing knowledge that it is now, with our 200th episode coming up next week. As we reach this milestone, we are also looking to move to a new seasonal release format, consisting of two 15-episode seasons per calendar year—one in the Spring and one in the Fall.

In this short trailer, listen to our host, Am Johal, talk about the Spring season of Below the Radar, as well as a preview of some of our upcoming guests.

From all of us at Below the Radar, we would like to thank you for listening and engaging with the vibrant ideas and voices we’ve had on the show. We look forward to continuing to share the work of artists, activists, community members, and researchers across disciplines, and we’re excited for the conversations that are yet to come. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll catch you next time on Below the Radar.

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/2023-0.html