Town Hall for Student Space – Learn the truth about the SUB

Hear directly from the student groups who are at risk of losing space on campus. Hear how the loss of space will impact their ability to continue serving students, and why they need to be housed on campus. Learn the truth about what’s happening on campus.

Part One: A short presentation on the importance of space for student organizations & presentations from four panelists

Panelists

The four panelists are as follows:

• Maisaloon Al-Ashkar (SFPIRG Board Member)
  Maisaloon/ميسلون is a 22-year-old Muslim woman whose ancestors of Palestinian farmers, liberation struggles and refugees inform her unapologetic diligence to disrupt all systems of oppression. As an immigrant-settler, she’s committed to solidarities that actively work to support Indigenous sovereignties on their own terms. Maisaloon has been involved with SFPIRG for the past four years as a volunteer and then as a board member, through which she initiated the Racialized Resistance and Healing Action Group to facilitate a safer space on campus that’s led by, with and for IBPOC students. A recipient of the Rosemary Brown Undergraduate Award in Social Justice as well as the Robert C. Brown Award for outstanding academic achievement and leadership at SFU, she graduated with a double major in First Nations Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Maisaloon currently works as a research assistant and women’s centre coordinator.
• Giovanni HoSang (SOCA President)
  Giovanni HoSang is a 3rd Year Computer Science Student hailing out of Spanish Town Jamaica. Giovanni came to Canada after finishing one year of University at the University of the West Indies and transferred to Simon Fraser University where he is taking part in a myriad of groups, initiatives and activities. Giovanni is the current President of the SFU Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry and sees himself as one that brings unity among a multitude of people. His passion is to bring people closer together and using tech and social mobilization to make a change in society. He believes that many of the issues we face that divides us as a people are all based on semantics and if we all stay focused on the overarching goal, we will be successful in our efforts.
• Kathleen Yang (former SFU Women’s Centre Collective member and former SFSS VP External Relations)
  Kathleen Yang is a former Simon Fraser Student Society Board Member who served as the Vice-President External Relations during the 2015/16 term, which was the year the Board secured a 85% vote in favour of obtaining 60 million dollar loan for the purpose of constructing a Student Union Building. She served on the Build SFU working group and was for a short while part of sublease negotiations with SFPIRG. Prior to joining the SFSS Board, Kathleen was Collective member of the SFU Women’s Centre, Rotunda community and the SFSS Advocacy committee. It was through her experiences at the SFU Women’s Centre and SFPIRG that she first began to learn about anti-oppressive social justice, anti-violence work and the importance of student organizing.
• Steven Hall (current SFU student, former Langara student)

The panel was moderated by:

• Jesse Wentzloff (CJSF Public Affairs Coordinator)
  Jesse Wentzloff is an SFU Alumnus and the Public Affairs & Talk Coordinator at CJSF 90.1FM, the campus & community radio station at SFU’s Burnaby Campus. His work at CJSF is to fulfill the station’s motto of “Diverse, Independent, Yours” by centering and raising community voices, and helping them to share their stories with listeners across the lower mainland.

https://sfpirg.ca/sfpirg-campaign-for-space-in-the-sub/

Rumneek Johal interviews Xu Wang, Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC), art therapist, and community mental health advocate.

https://www.artfeelscounselling.com/

Dara Culhane in conversation with Marianne Nicolson's, Oh, How I Long For Home (2016)

Unpacking Art: Lunchtime Talks on Works in the SFU Art Collection is a speaker series that invites members of the SFU community to "unpack" the context and the questions raised by works of art in the collection.

The post-World War II years were a "boom time" in the commercial salmon fishing industry in BC. Indigenous fishers travelled from villages up and down the coast, finishing the salmon season on the Fraser River in the fall. This was a time to visit Vancouver, to go to restaurants and nightclubs, to shop for fashionable clothes, and to have your photograph taken on Hastings Street. Yet, Indigenous people like Marianne Nicolson's Kwakwakw'wakw relations captured in the street photographs she offers us in her exhibition Oh, How I Long For Home (2016) at the Teck Gallery, were not recognized as Canadian citizens during the late 1940s and 1950s when pictures like this were taken. They were not eligible to vote; women were involuntarily stripped of "Indian Status" if they married a non-Indigenous or unregistered man; men and women required permission from Indian Agents to travel outside reserves; and from 1884-1961, Indigenous people were forbidden by law to purchase or consume alcohol.

For this session of Unpacking Art, Dara Culhane will share stories told by Kwakwakw'wakw fishers, who were young men during the late 1940s and 1950s, in conversation with Kwakwakw'wakw artist, Marianne Nicolson's neon and photographic installation Oh, How I Long For Home (2016). Their memories and analysis offer a unique perspective for understanding this moment in history, and its legacy in the present. 

Dara Culhane, Professor of Anthropology, received her B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology in 1985 and her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1994 from Simon Fraser University. Her early work concentrated on historical and contemporary relations between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian Nation State; politics and gender, health and housing in Downtown Eastside Vancouver; and collaborative research methodologies. Culhane’s current research explores Experimental Ethnography, Storytelling and Performance. She is co-founder and co-curator of the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, a transnational cybercollective, and two works in progress are: Encore! Travels With The Ghost of Margaret Sheehy, a memory-work life story, and Hear Me Looking At You! a dramatic storytelling performance.

Marianne Nicolson ('Tayagila'ogwa) is of Scottish and Dzawada'enuxw First Nations descent. Her artistic and academic practices are platforms to advocate for Indigenous linguistic and cultural resurgence. Her work has been exhibited at Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, National Indian Art Centre, UBC Museum of Anthropology, 17th Biennale of Sydney, National Museum of the American Indian, Confederation Centre for the Arts, and Taipei Fine Arts Museum. She has undertaken numerous public artworks. She holds a PhD in Linguistics and Anthropology from University of Victoria, an MFA in Visual Art from University of Victoria and a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design. The work in the SFU Art Collection is the neon in the image above.