Selected programs in this themed framework include: 


Requiem for the Polar Regions, Lou Sheppard, 30min This series is an aural record of the shifting masses of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. Using data provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado this automated program generates a musical score based on the perimeter and concentration of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. The program maps the coordinates of the ice imagery to a musical scale, generating a distinct composition each day. Ice reaching further from the poles sounds as lower notes, closer sitting ice at the poles translates to higher notes. Discordant and jarring, the imperfection of the translation points to the disorientation and loss connected to climate change. Sheppard prepared two compositions for listening, the first features a requiem of the lowest ever recorded ice levels in the Arctic and Antarctic, the second is a requiem of the highest ever recorded ice levels in both regions. 


Working With and from Within Community - Great Ocean Dialogues, 33min
This session of Great Ocean Dialogues features Taloi Havini, Sarah Hunt, Jaymyn La Vallee, Carol McGregor, Faith Sparrow and is moderated by Sarah Biscara Dilley. Within discourses of reconciliation, much has been discussed and written on the topics of consultation and collaboration between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous academics, curators and researchers. However, how do we want to work with each other as arts workers from different Indigenous Nations? How do we want to work with, and from within, our own communities? How can this work re-shape the way that our labour is valued, displayed, circulated and critiqued? How can it change the way future generations enter into artistic and intellectual work? And how do we care for ourselves and others within the complications of community life? Great Ocean Dialogues is an Indigenous-led gathering produced in partnership between the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones, SFU Galleries, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. 


Interview at Blacktown Native Institution Artist Camp, Leanne Tobin, 3min
An interview with Artist Leanne Tobin about her work titled It Starts Here, Now, a work that acknowledges the dark history of Blacktown Institute and invites the community to participate in the creation of a work as a way of making a gesture towards healing and cleansing of the place. 


Quiescence Exhibition Artist Interview, Burrard Arts Foundation, Holly Schmidt, 4min
Quiescence is a state of inactivity or dormancy; waiting for the right conditions to flourish. This short interview explores the exhibition and work of 2019 Burrard Arts Foundation Artist in residence Holly Schmidt. With a practice deeply connected to humans, plants and the constructed social systems that intertwine all beings, Schmidt describes how she created an otherworldly world of 'flipped topography' for her residency. Schmidt invites a more intimate contemplation of quiet beings that so often fade into the scenery. 


Evacuate, Dr. Jen Rae & Marco Cher-Gibard, 7minThis audio work consisting of a range of sirens and alarms was originally diffused during Portage: Flotilla a two-year project let by Jen Rae in collaboration with architectural designers Mittul Vahanvati and Munir Vahanvati. In Flotilla, where evacuate was diffused, decades of echoing sirens and warnings from the global science community have gone unanswered. 


Songs from Why The Caged Bird Sings, Cheryl L'Hirondelle & Collaborators, 15min
Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s multi-year project Why the Caged Bird Sings – a participatory and community-engaged, five-day singing, songwriting and recording workshop that involves small groups of incarcerated women, men or detained youth along with their literacy educators and/or cultural programmers in federal prisons, provincial correctional centres and youth detention facilities in the land that is now known as Canada. The song lyrics created by the participants are strung together to create a narrative using consensus as a way to create equity so that everyone’s voice is heard and validated. 


The Disarming Case to ACT NOW on Climate Change, Greta Thunberg, 11minIn this passionate call to action, 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg explains why, in August 2018, she walked out of school and organized a strike to raise awareness of global warming, protesting outside the Swedish parliament and grabbing the world's attention. Thunberg says. "All we have to do is to wake up and change." Can we? 


Protect Me from My Protector, Chandra Melting Tallow, 20min Constellations is a sound art and experimental narrative collective that illuminates international artists making sound works that convey meaning through evocation and abstraction. Constellations is curated by Jess Shane and Michelle Macklem. Protect Me from My Protector extends past personal relationships to confront power relations, particularly between the state as a protectorate and marginalized communities. When these communities are depicted as irrational and hysterical, the state reasserts power to remove their agency. As a result of such abuses of power, the world is heard and experienced differently by marginalized communities. Music that once signaled romance can be recast as a tool of manipulation. 


Black Lives Didn't Matter: Fungibility & the Black body, Syrus Marcus Ware, 15minThis talk was originally given at a TEDx series event at the University of Toronto. What is the role of art in the struggle for rights? According to Syrus Marcus Ware, a core member of Black Lives Matter Toronto and the coordinator of the Art Gallery of Ontario's Youth Programs, "If activists are the soldiers, then artists are the street medics". Ware's talk demonstrates how art will always continue to support those fighting for a more just society.  


One Seed at a time, Carey Fowler, 17minA TED talk that is over 10 years old, but continues to remain every bit as relevant. The varieties of wheat, corn and rice we grow today may not thrive in Climate Change. Fowler takes us inside a vast global seed bank, buried within a frozen mountain in Norway. This talk was originally given as a TED talk in August of 2009. For more information visit: www.ted.com.