Climate for Changing Lenses

Ryanne Bergler is an artist and arts educator based in Vancouver, Canada. Bergler was a student in two iterations of a course called Making Waveforms co-designed and co-facilitated at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada, first in 2018, and then in 2019, by Sarah Van Borek as part of her PhD research. In this episode, edited from a Zoom conversation between Bergler and Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Bergler describes the similarities she sees between iterations of the Making Waveforms course across Canada and South Africa; and shares how learning about the Cape Town water crisis had an impact on her valuing of water. She focuses in on my choice to include a bird call in my videos, and probes me about what's next. Bergler outlines some of the place-based art processes she's brought into her own teaching since having taken the Making Waveforms course; and highlights how she feels that the many different kinds of field trips we took as a class were also really important. Together, we discuss the impact of safety on one's experience of the outdoors, and Bergler shares how her relationships with nature continue since this course. She describes a project she did for a different course where she revisited the water body that had been the focus of her video in the 2019 Making Waveforms course. She also outlines how her research introduced her to the legal rights of rivers and the possibility of dismantling dams.

Music:
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
The Vendetta by JeffSpeed68
CitySkies by Airtone

Isaac Crowster is a descendent of South Africa's Indigenous Khoisan peoples and a long-time resident of Hout Bay, who participated as a Knowledge Keeper on the Hout Bay river and estuary in a short course called Making Waveforms that Sarah Van Borek co-designed and co-facilitated with Amber Abrams in 2019, at UCT’s Future Water Institute, as part of Van Borek’s PhD research. In this episode, edited from an in-person conversation between Crowster and Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Crowster argues that South Africa's government schools are in urgent need of environmental education programs. He suggests some new terminology for the Knowledge Keeper role that he took up in the research; and points to the need for activist-research to include longer-term engagement and involve Indigenous peoples. He emphasizes the need for influencing decision-makers, and for inter-generational learning; and he outlines how things like the films students made in the course he was part of can help with this. He speaks about technology as an important mode for environmental learning today, and proposes a very practical and immediate step for improving water quality in South Africa. He wraps up by offering an intimate look at his personal source of hope.

Music:
Please Don't Blow It by Mapumba
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
Firefly Memories by rewob
Memories of Better Times by Gurdonark

Fatima Holliday was a Masters student in Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT) at the time of this podcast. She also participated as a student in was a short course called Making Waveforms that Sarah Van Borek co-designed and co-facilitated with Amber Abrams in 2019, at UCT's Future Water Institute, as part of Van Borek's PhD research. In this episode, edited from a Zoom conversation between Holliday and Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Holliday describes how the Making Waveforms course deepened her connection to water and the natural world, and how this helped her to see water as a living being. She touches on the implicit learning in the course, and highlights the ways the program integrated different knowledges and ways of knowing. She concludes by outlining how empathy was created through listening to stories from both humans and nonhumans, and points to how the course emphasized that nature and us are not separate but rather interconnected.

Music:
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
Memories of Better Times by Gurdonark

Jaymie Johnson is a social practice artist based in Canada, and was Sarah Van Borek's research assistant with an iteration of a course she co-designed and led in 2019 at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, located on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples currently known as Vancouver, Canada. In this episode, edited from a Zoom conversation between Johnson and Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Johnson shares her view on videos being more accessible than academic papers, and points to her interest in the concept of the 'anthropocene' that comes up in Van Borek's research. She shares her own doubts around being qualified to speak on certain topics and how she sees this as internalized knowledge hierarchies. In doing so, she raises an important question about how certain people get seen as having knowledge worth sharing. Johnson highlights a major change Van Borek made in her research once she learned about 'posthumanism,' and Johnson draws out the tensions this created by Van Borek doing this research within an academic institution. Having participated in a few classes alongside the students she'd interviewed, Johnson describes a specific language exercise Van Borek had facilitated that had had a big impact on Johnson. This inspired discussion about the values and attitudes of a university that underly what and how things are taught, something called the hidden curriculum.

Music:
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
The Vendetta by JeffSpeed68

Dan Guinan is an educational consultant and is the former President of an Indigenous-led post secondary school called the Native Education College, located on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples currently known as Vancouver, Canada. His PhD dissertation, called The Social Environment and Indigenous Student Success in a Canadian Post-Secondary Institution (2016), focused on Indigenization of the university. In this episode, edited from a Zoom conversation between Guinan and Sarah Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Guinan outlines some of his research around Indigenization of the university; and touches on the related subject of decolonization of the university, including elements of the spiritual, the emotional and embodied learning. He questions Van Borek's notion of curriculum and describes DECUM and generative curriculum models. He offers some Indigenous ways of knowing linked to land and water that have been particularly meaningful for him; talks us through the importance of acknowledging ancestry; and reminds us of the value of putting everything in the context of the human story.

Music:
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
Memories of Better Times by Gurdonark
CitySkies by Airtone

Gregory Coyes is Coordinator & Instructor of Indigenous Digital Filmmaking, and Instructor in the School of Motion Picture Arts at Capilano University. That's on the territories of the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Sechelt (shíshálh), Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, currently known as North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Gregory describes his slow media approach, where the camera is fixed in position while allowing the dynamic movement of the world to unfold in front of the frame, as 'decolonized media', and as an 'Indigenous cinematic sense of time and space.' In this episode, edited from a Zoom conversation between Coyes and Sarah Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Gregory introduces us to some deep Indigenous learnings around land and water as teacher, the language of water, and how we're all connected through water. He describes a workshop at North Vancouver's Polygon Gallery, on the theme of "Land as teacher", where he introduced the slow media practice, and points to his hopes of developing a course dedicated to slow media. He touches on how he's drawn to the dynamic aesthetics of water with his camera; and offers an invitation for people around the world (even me, and you!) to contribute to the community of slow media practitioners he's looking to cultivate through a dedicated website: https://www.slowmediacommunity.com/.

Music:
Memories of Better Times by Gurdonark
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
Firefly Memories by rewob
CitySkies by Airtone

Siobhan McHugh is an internationally recognized podcast producer and critic, founder of the first journal of radio documentary and podcast studies called RadioDoc Review, an oral historian, a writer, and Associate Professor in Journalism at Wollongong University in Australia. In this episode, edited from a Zoom conversation between McHugh and Sarah Van Borek that took place in December 2020, Siobhan touches on the relational and non-verbal aspects of sound; speaks about sound as a metaphor; and shares her 3 key tips for working towards cross-cultural cooperation in situations of ongoing settler-colonialism.

Music:
Please Don't Blow It by Mapumba
Everyday Instrumental by Airtone
CitySkies by Airtone

Sound effects:
wind-at-door-howling by bosk1
apocalyptic-soundscape-ambiance by erokia
waves-lapping by cyoung510
rain-on-canvas-awning by 1888software
water-drop-single by eminyildirim
waver-drop by eminyildirim