Search

Geoff Olson is a Vancouver-based writer, editorial cartoonist and public speaker. His writings on science, popular culture and politics have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Adbusters, The Georgia Straight, Common Ground and This magazine. Olson's political cartoons have appeared in Maclean’s magazine and newspapers across Canada. He is a regular contributor to The Vancouver Courier, and has supplied commentary to both CBC Radio North and CBC NewsWorld. An article series on consumerism from Common Ground, The Deadly Spins, has been used as course content of several US and Canadian colleges. Olson has given talks on journalism at Langara College and Simon Fraser University, and once taught astronomy at the Gordon Southam Observatory and in the Vancouver School System. Montreal-born artist Omari Newton is a professional actor, writer, Slam poet and MC whose work can be found on television, film, stage or radio. His stage work in Quebec has earned him a number of favourable reviews and awards. Some career highlights include a best supporting actor nomination (soiree des masques) for his work in the Centaur Theatre's production of Joe Penhal's "Blue Orange" (Christopher). The play also went on to win best English language production. Television audiences may know him as Lucas Ingram on showcase's Continuum or Larry Summers on Spike TVs Blue Mountain State. He is a proud Graduate of Concordia University's Communication Studies program. Hi most recent work as a writer is original Hip Hop theatre piece "Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of." which is currently in preparation for a national tour. The play was nominated for a Montreal English Theatre award for best original script.Jamie Hilder is an artist and critic based in Vancouver. He received a PhD in English from the University of British Columbia for a dissertation on the International Concrete Poetry Movement. From 2011-13 he held a SSHRC postdoctoral research fellowship in the Information Studies department at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has shown and published work in the United States and Europe, and maintains an active collaborative practice with Vancouver artist and educator, Brady Cranfield.Ndidi Cascade, who is of Nigerian-Italian-Irish-Canadian heritage, is a Vancouver born and based hip hop vocalist. She is also a songwriter, recording artist, educator and program facilitator. Ndidi has showcased her music across North America and internationally– from classrooms to stadiums, and her music has been featured on Much Music and MTV Canada. She has shared the stage with talents such as Femi Kuti, Digable Planets, The Mad Professor, De La Soul, K-OS and K'naan. Ndidi Cascade also facilitates workshops that use hip hop, spoken word and dance as a medium for healthy self-expression. She is the founder of the “Word, Sound & Power” and “Elementalz” education programs, which are designed to raise awareness of the origins of the hip hop movement. Ndidi is also a World Music Education independent school teacher, and she is currently touring with her group Metaphor, showcasing interactive hip hop shows in elementary and high schools around B.C.Cherise Clarke is a Vancouver-based visual artist and performer whose work is informed by deep ecology and radical feminism. In 2009 she had her first solo show, a series of 22 feminist posters called Feminstration: You Draw Like a Girl, and in 2010 curated a month long arts festival, EcoMadness!!! Humans Are Killing the Planet and I Feel Fine. Much of her work has found a homebase at Gallery Gachet in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where she facilitated the Gallery’s first annual World Mad Pride Festival in 2006, using the framework of "madness" to confront and contest societal norms. In 2012 she was involved in the Occupy Vancouver encampment, where her artwork adorned a Community Newsletter passed out at political gatherings to out and name her violent male stalker, drafted with an adhoc group of ten women that worked to expose and creatively address the issue of gendered violence within activist communities. She is currently at work on a series of large-format oil paintings addressing ecology and myth, as well as street art campaigns contesting the pipelines, and was recently chosen to co-illustrate a book of short stories by controversial author-environmentalist Derrick Jensen. She trained formally in Theatre at UBC, and in addition to visual art practices professionally as a stage actor with such Vancouver companies as Arts Club, Felix Culpa, Neworld, and Blackbird. She is currently working with Pi Theatre playing Cate in the upcoming production of Sarah Kane's Blasted.

Author: SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement

Date created: 2015-03-20

Shaping Vancouver Series 2015: Are Heritage Conservation Areas Right For Vancouver?

PANELISTSJulie Schueck | Julie Schueck has been the Heritage Planner for the City of New Westminster in British Columbia since 2007and has been a heritage consultant since 1991. She has a Bachelor of Arts (History) from the University of British Columbia, a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies (Architecture) and a Masters of Environmental Design Studies (Heritage Conservation) from the Technical University of Nova Scotia (now Dalhousie University). Her experience includes municipal heritage planning, heritage policy work, heritage management and strategic plans, research, analyses, heritage registers, statements of significance, and heritage rehabilitation projects. She is a founding member of the BC Association of Heritage Professionals.Pete Fry | Pete Fry is a 25-year resident of Strathcona and the Downtown Eastside. A impassioned advocate for neighbourhood, livability, and heritage: Pete has worked and spoken on issues of preservation, affordability, community, and transportation. Pete formerly served as chair of the Strathcona Resident's Association, as a community representative on the City's controversial Downtown Eastside Local Area Plan, and helped to organize a multicultural festival celebrating Strathcona's storied diversity and history as part of the City's 125 Celebration. In 2014, Fry received over 46,000 votes as an underdog Green Party candidate for Vancouver City Council, running on issues of affordability, heritage and empowering communities as partners in urban planning. Pete and his family live in one of the city's oldest houses, a 110-year old Victorian in the heart of Strathcona.Clinton Cuddington | Clinton Cuddington, a graduate of the UBC School of Architecture, is the founding principal of Measured Architecture Inc., an award-winning full-service architectural firm specializing in high quality, high performance modern buildings. Measured Architecture creates buildings that are stimulating to occupy and are fundamental to their surroundings. From its inception in 2007, Measured has demonstrated an ability to craft considered, quality projects. In order to support the professional work, and put into practice what Measured preaches, Clinton remains involved with volunteer work, sitting on a number of Advisory Design Panels and other public bodies; he is active as an AIBC Professional Representative for the First Shaughnessy District Advisory Panel, a guest academic lecturer and Thesis Advisor/Guest Critic at the University of British Columbia.Helen Cain | Helen Cain is a professional planner specializing in policy, public engagement, new development and heritage. She is Vice-Chair of the Heritage Society of BC and a Senior Planner at the City of Victoria where her past responsibilities have included Heritage Conservation Areas in their award-winning Official Community Plan, 2012. She is the author of the policy paper “Heritage and Sustainability in Community Planning” on the environmental, economic, social and cultural value of preservation, and a Cascadia Green Building Council report connecting heritage and green building practices. She was consultant planner on City of Vancouver heritage projects in historic Japantown and Mount Pleasant, and is a past Heritage Vancouver Board member. Helen is passionate about place making through new design and retaining historic fabric. Alec Smith | Together with Nick Sully, Alec Smith founded SHAPE Architecture in 2007. SHAPE has undertaken numerous heritage revitalization projects in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighborhood in which revitalization of historic buildings is combined with modern laneway infill. This unromantic approach to urban density reflects a conviction that careful urban design and planning can greatly enrich existing historic districts. SHAPE’s work suggests modern and historic buildings can coexist and enrich one another by creating a considered ensemble in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Alec is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture teaching design and theory. In the summer of 2011 Alec served on the jury of the American Architecture Awards. MODERATORHelen Phillips | Helen is a consultant and researcher with a strong background in urban planning, heritage conservation and environmental sustainability. She trained as an urban planner in the UK, has qualifications in urban design and a PhD in heritage conservation. She previously worked as a researcher and lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK, where she taught on urban planning, sustainable development and heritage conservation courses. She has published a variety of work on heritage and environmental sustainability. Her past consultancy projects have included working on a substantial heritage register update in Europe. Helen serves on the Board of Directors for Heritage Vancouver.

Author: SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Author: Heritage Vancouver

Date created: 2015-02-27

Jim Green 3rd Annual Memorial Event | Building a Social Housing Legacy for the Future

Panel hosted by Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs featuring:Margot Young | UBC Law professor involved in the Housing Justice Research ProjectMichael Shapcott | Active internationally with the Habitat International Coalition and co-author, with Jack Layton, of Homelessness: The Making and Unmaking of a CrisisCeline Mauboules | Housing Policy Planner, City of VancouverGary Jobin | Bladerunners

Author: SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement

Date created: 2015-02-26

Speaker Series on Aboriginal Issues 2015: Yiri7 re Stsq'ey's-kucw: Secwepemc Oral History and Indigenous Laws, Marianne Ignace & Chief Ronald Ignace

Featuring a talk by Marianne Ignace and Chief Ronald Ignace on Oral History and Indigenous Laws

Author: SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Author: Ignace, Ronald, Author: Ignace, Marianne

Date created: 2015-04-14

First Nations Innovation and Decolonization using ICT, Rob McMahon

Rob McMahon | Rob received his PhD in 2013 from the School of Communication at SFU, where his dissertation received the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal. He is now working as a postdoctoral fellow with the First Nations Innovation Project at the University of New Brunswick. This project is a partnership with three regional non-profit First Nations technology organizations: K-Net Services in Ontario; the First Nations Education Council in Quebec; and Atlantic Canada’s First Nations Help Desk. Through this work Rob is engaged in community-based research projects with the Algonquin communities of Timiskaming First Nation and Long Point First Nation in Quebec, as well as the Kahnawake Education Centre. These projects are examining some of the diverse ways that people in these communities are developing and using ICTs to support economic and community development.In Summer 2015, Rob will join the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta. As an Assistant Professor in Community Informatics he will continue to partner with First Nations and Inuit communities to research the development and appropriation of digital networks and ICT. He is also engaged in the First Mile Connectivity Consortium (FMCC), a national association of non-profit First Nations and Inuit broadband service providers. The FMCC aims to reform digital policy to support community-driven broadband development.Susan O’Donnell | Susan has been researching the social, community and political aspects of digital technologies and communications since 1995. Her work with First Nation partners and rural and remote First Nation communities in Canada began in 2005. She is the lead investigator of the First Nations Innovation project and co-investigator on the First Mile project. Prior to her research career, Susan was a senior editorial consultant in Ottawa specializing in Aboriginal issues, including work with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and Assembly of First Nations. Since 2004 Susan has been a Researcher and Adjunct Professor at the University of New Brunswick and Senior Researcher at the National Research Council Institute for Information Technology in Fredericton, New Brunswick.Brian Beaton | Brian has been developing and working on ICT projects with First Nations since 1983. In 1994 he became Coordinator of K-NET with the Keewaytinook Okimakanak (Northern Chiefs) Tribal Council based in Sioux Lookout, Ontario. Working with collaborating First Nations, he supported the development of local First Nation broadband infrastructure, regional backbone networks, a First Nations social media service and email service, the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network, and the Keewaytinook Mobile cellular service. Since 2004, Brian has partnered on several national research initiatives, including the First Nations Innovation and First Mile projects. He is presently in graduate studies (Critical Studies in Education) at the University of New Brunswick.Ashley Julian | Ashley is from the Indian Brook First Nation, a Mi’kmaq community located in Hants East, Nova Scotia, and part of the Shubenacadie Band. She is a researcher with the First Nations Innovation project and a graduate student (Critical Studies in Education) at the University of New Brunswick. Ashley has experience as the youth coordinator at the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs and the Mi’kmaq Maliseet Atlantic Youth Council. She was also elected as the female Nova Scotia and Newfoundland representative for the Assembly of First Nations National Youth Council. Ashley is very involved with the Mi’kmaq culture, traditions and beliefs in various ways. In February 2010, she had the opportunity to dance at the 2010 Winter Olympics at the Indigenous Youth Gathering. Aside from dancing and following the powwow trail, Ashley is involved in sports year round including ice hockey, soft-ball and ball hockey.

Author: SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Author: Indigenous Research Institute

Date created: 2015-03-17

Privatization of Reserve Land. Can we expect a de Soto effect from the First Nation Private Property Ownership Act?, Anke Kessler

Author: SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Author: Indigenous Research Institute

Date created: 2015-03-03