Below the Radar

This week on Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Jorge Amigo, the head of cultural programming at the Vancouver Public Library. Together they discuss the power of library public programs, some of Jorge’s past public projects, as well as how the urban design of Vancouver relates to social isolation, and potential paths towards cultivating more friendships. Full episode details: https://...

Head of the departments of surgery at both the Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia, and Am Johal’s former brain surgeon, Dr. Gary Redekop, joins Am on this episode of Below the Radar. Dr. Redekop and Am discuss advancements in medical procedures, how patients and medical practitioners experience surgery differently, and the relationship between neuroplasticity and hum...

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Lama Mugabo, founding director of Building Bridges with Rwanda, a campaign manager with the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, and a member of the Hogan’s Alley Working Group. Together, they discuss local training and advocacy programs for people with lived experience of homelessness and other marginalizing barriers, Hogan’s Alley Soc...

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal speaks with Michael Clague, a community developer who has spent decades connecting underserved people to much-needed supports and programming. They begin by discussing Michael’s early service work as a UBC student, and move into conversation about the BC labour movement, community arts programming, and Michael’s new book, titled So, How Have I...

This week on Below The Radar, Am Johal is joined by author and associate professor at the Allard Law School at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Brenna Bhandar. She and Am discuss her research into property, property law, and their relationships to histories of colonialism and racial formations. Brenna offers insight into her book Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of...

Dr. Kari Grain is a research associate at the Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERI) and writer of the book, Critical Hope: How to Grapple with Complexity, Lead with Purpose, and Cultivate Transformative Social Change. On this episode of Below the Radar, Kari joins our host Am Johal, to discuss how the seemingly conflicting frameworks of criticalness and hope are both vital to systemic chang...

This week our host Am Johal is joined by NiNi Dongnier, an interdisciplinary choreographer and dancer, and Assistant Professor in Dance at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Together they discuss NiNi’s training and artistic experiences across Inner Mongolia, Beijing, New York, and now Vancouver. Am and NiNi also talk about interdisciplinary collaboration and pedagogy. Full episode details: h...

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 th...

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...

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...

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 fo...

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...

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 i...

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 o...

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 inst...

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 artmakin...

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 a...

In the summer of 2021, Megaphone Magazine piloted its first podcast mentorship series, inspired by the writings and themes of the 2021 edition of the Voices of The Street anthology, “INSIDE we are all the same.” This special episode of Below the Radar is a live recording of a conversation between our teammate Paige Smith, Megaphone Magazine’s Julia Aoki, and Megaphone vendor and storyteller Yvonne...

On the seventh and final episode of The Climate Imaginary, a Below the Radar series, Am Johal is joined by Karenna Gore, the founder and executive director of Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. In their conversation, they discuss the intersection of environmental ethics and theology, the wisdom contained in tradition, and the need for a new relationship between humans and natur...

On the sixth episode of our Below the Radar series: The Climate Imaginary, Am Johal is joined by journalist and researcher Julian Brave NoiseCat. Julian’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBC, and more. They discuss coming of age in a time of several prominent Indigenous movements that combined political and environmental activism, as well as Julian’s work in poli...

On the fifth episode of our Below the Radar series: The Climate Imaginary, our host Am Johal is joined by investigative climate reporter and author, Geoff Dembicki. In this conversation, they discuss Geoff’s upbringing around the tar sands in Alberta, Canada and how that led to his journalistic focus on climate. Geoff talks about his books, Are We Screwed? How a New Generation is Fighting to Survi...

On the fourth episode of our Below the Radar series: The Climate Imaginary, our host Am Johal is joined by Dr. Andréanne Doyon, Assistant Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. They talk about sustainability versus resilience, Andréanne’s journey from being a planning practitioner to an academic, and Andréanne’s research around climate planning...

On the third episode of our Below the Radar series: The Climate Imaginary, our host Am Johal is joined by Charles Henry. Charles is a scholar and current president of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). He joins Host Am Johal to discuss climate change and the works of CLIR on ensuring cultural heritage artifacts are safe and accessible within the digital space. Charles identif...

On the second episode of our Below the Radar series: The Climate Imaginary, Steve Tornes and Alex K Masse sit down to talk with Kendra Fanconi, artistic director of The Only Animal. Kendra’s work with The Only Animal—a theatre company based in Vancouver—arises from a deep engagement with place and unfolds in collaboration with the natural world. Together, they discuss the process of making theatre...

This episode of Below the Radar is a special live recording from SFU School for the Contemporary Art’s Re-orientation day 2022: Contemporary Arts + Climate Change on September 8th, 2022. It’s also the first episode of our new series: The Climate Imaginary. Stephen Collis is an award winning writer and a professor in the English department at SFU. Stephen joins our host Am Johal for a discussion on...