See How We Run! Conversations with Arts and Cultural Workers — with Julia Aoki, Kathy Feng, and Samantha Walters

About the Series Hosts

Julia Aoki

She has served as the Executive Director of Megaphone magazine, General Manager of VIVO Media Arts Centre, and General Manager and Programming Director of the Powell Street Festival, where she prioritized developing community centred programs. Julia currently sits on the board of 221A Artist Run Centre Society, and has volunteered with advocacy organizations such as the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres and DTES SRO Collaborative. Her writing on cultural expressions and community formations that are overlooked and underserved by commercial and political mechanisms and practices can be found in TOPIA, Space and Culture and a collection by Lexington Books.

Kathy Feng

As an immigrant and child of immigrants, she grew up between cultures in a constant process of learning, unlearning, and relearning. This framework informs the central themes to her work: in which memory and nostalgia are expressed through images, text, and the aesthetics of the temporal. Kathy holds a BFA in Visual Art with a minor in Art and Performance Studies from SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. She began working at SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement January 2020 as a Research Assistant for the Below the Radar podcast.

Samantha Walters

They are based on xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) lands. As an artist, she mostly works between contemporary theatre, directing, and video making. Their most recent works examine ecological relationships and post-human spiritualities, with a heavy favour towards the weird, the dark, and the camp. Collaboration within communities and alongside the non-human lies at the heart of her process. She grew up in England and Hong Kong and holds a BFA honours in Theatre Performance with a minor in English and a certificate in Performance Studies from SFUs School for the Contemporary Arts.