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“A lot of people take art too seriously, they think that it belongs to people with certain skills or status, but art is just about life,” says Taiwanese artist, Yen-Chun Lu, with the help of translator Charlie Wu. Lu is the artistic expression behind LunarFest, a contemporary Asian arts and culture festival celebrating its 11th…
The fruit fly, those tiny winged insects that cluster and circulate over fruit bowls with ripening fruit, deserve a lot more respect. Local genetics researchers are using fruit flies to understand why certain genetic mutations cause tumors, in order to study therapies that might be able to counteract the cell development of cancer. “The use…
The more one travels, the more one learns. Museums all over the world like Paris, London, New York, Montreal and Victoria inform of previous humans’ histories. The story is quite different this time… It was only when we reached Zanzibar, a small island off the Indian Ocean, part of the state of Tanzania, that we…
“I find that we are living in a time where people are really hungry for community. There are a lot of resources but we still feel this disconnect,” says Leamore Cohen, Inclusion Services Coordinator at Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC). February was established as Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM) amongst Jewish…
Through her work Sandra Schinnerl observed that, despite policy changes that should have eased the transition, international students were often having difficulties finding opportunities to become permanent residents. “Given my experience as a practitioner in the international education field, I wish to share my knowledge of theories of immigration and policy formation in a way…
Among the 2018 Civic Merit Award recipients, Leonora Angeles PhD. and associate professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), was recognized for her academic and community work on participatory governance, social and cultural policy and gender and race analysis. The Civic Merit Award, first awarded in Vancouver in 1942, is conferred through a unanimous…
Christmas in Italy blends many traditions, says Stefano Gulmanelli: secular and religious, modern and traditional. It’s still a little bit about mass, but also about fun and family. “It’s about shopping and presents and food and getting together,” adds Gulmanelli, the Italian-Canadian president of The Dante Alighieri Society of Vancouver, a language school and cultural…
The Future is You and Me, an interdisciplinary workshop series focusing on leadership brings together aspiring artists, who happen to be women of colour, says Kristen Cheung. “There’s an underrepresentation of women of colour in leadership positions,” says Cheung, one of the organizers of The Future is You and Me. “This project supports and nurtures…
Despite having a Bachelor’s degree in business administration (BA) from India, Priti Shah’s early experiences in the job market inspired her to rethink her path. She recently started a consulting company, Drishti Consulting, to further aid new citizens. In the past, she worked with numerous organizations, winning awards for her involvement. Working in Canada In…
Mohammed Alsaleh, a refugee advocate nominated by RBC as one of 2018’s top 25 Canadian immigrants, works as the B.C. trainer for the Refugee Sponsorship Training Program (RSTP) to guide new refugees in Canada by helping them with the resettlement process. Due to the challenges that he and other refugees have overcome in their past,…
Alex Beim, founder of Tangible Interaction, was this year’s recipient of the Business Entrepreneur Award at the Inspirational Latin Award ceremony. The Inspirational Latin Award acknowledges remarkable individuals who have made striking contributions to British Columbia’s Latin American community over a significant period of time. Moving for love Beim had no intention of leaving his…
The Institute for Humanities at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and its affiliated publication Contours Journal will be hosting Utopian Spaces, a free conference organized and led by SFU graduate students and open to the general public. The two days of presentations and discussions, on Nov. 23 and 24, will aim to open up dialogue about the concept of…
To discuss the idea of a ‘Muslim world,’ a second lecture is being delivered at Simon Fraser University (SFU) as part of the 2018–2019 lecture series. The talk will discuss assumptions about the united Muslim world while looking at how those assumptions became so widespread. “Narratives about the Muslim world evolved dramatically, though this change…
