The Friday Files - news to inform and intrigue
Did you know that each person who has HIV has a unique HIV sequence, and by looking at the similarities and differences between patients’ HIV sequences, it is possible to make inferences about the patterns of HIV transmission in the population?
Infectious diseases undoubtedly constituted the most serious health issues in the world until the beginning of the 20th century, when chronic diseases took over. Understanding transmission dynamics is essential for tailoring public health programs towards those most at risk of transmitting or acquiring HIV. This little snippet of knowledge was shared by our exceptionally gifted CMF scholar, Dr. Manon Ragonnet-Cronin. She was awarded the CMF scholarship to study the transmission of HIV at the University of Ottawa, giving her the opportunity to study at a fully bilingual university and, as she said, has laid the foundations for her career by teaching her phylogenetics. Ten years later, she is a Research Fellow at Imperial College London and still devoted to understanding HIV transmission, while also, like many researchers, working on COVID-19. She shares her story with us, below, in true Ottawa bilingual format! Have a listen
The CMF scholarship applications deadline is 31 January, 2021. For more information, including application details, you are welcome to get in touch.
Canadian Art Issue on Indigenous Sovereignty. On December 3, Canadian Art released a digital edition featuring Indigenous voices dedicated to the theme of Sovereignty. Put together by the magazine’s new Indigenous editors-at-large Ossie Michelin and Adrienne Huard, the exciting issue centres around both the sovereignty of Indigenous Lands as well as Indigenous bodies. A suggestion from outgoing editor-at-large Lindsay Nixon assembled by Michelin and Huard, it is a thought-provoking read from some brilliant writers and creatives.
A collection of articles, poems, reflections, and visuals present a landscape of different points of view. Poet and performer Deirdre Lee’s ‘A Digital Land Acknowledgement’ and ‘How to Share Stuff’ from performing artist Ange Loft and theatre worker Jill Carter both foreground a call to reconfigure relationships to land and resources. ‘Body: An Acknowledgement’ by arts programmer Quill Christie-Peters and the poem by trans author and artist Arielle Twist navigate the body connected to identity. A conversation between members of The Bannock Babes, a Winnipeg-based drag collective of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer performers, celebrates the performers’ community linked across different nations. Mask-maker Duane Isaac contributes arresting photographs that connect Land and body intrinsically (like the cover seen above). Connections to tradition resonate in the pieces by jewelry artist Ashely Kilabuk-Savard and artist Fallon Simard.
Ashley Kilabuk-Savard, Ulu, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
The text from human rights journalist Brandi Morin exploring the strength and healing foregrounded in art responding to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit People packs the strongest impact, reflecting on practitioners bringing to consciousness and calling for change against acts of violence still happening with alarming frequency. For its part, ‘Raising the Revolution’ by Afro-Indigenous community activist and scholar Tasha Spillett-Sumner reframes protest and art (specifically Black Lives Matter and Land Back movements) as acts of love and complicates ideas of protest and participation.
The entire issue is a call to reframe and reconsider sovereignty of Land and body from Indigenous perspectives. Read and view the full issue on Canadian Art’s website.
Our guest scholar Dr. Murray McKenzie reflects on the Canadian experience in London
Surely, I am but one of many Canadians in the UK contemplating my first Christmas away from home. There is nothing unappealing about the mince pies and mulled wine of the British holidays, of course. But it is an unusual end to what has been a very unusual fifth year for me in this country, and, as such, it is an occasion to reflect on what my life here in London has become.
The inevitable conclusion is that this year’s coronavirus pandemic has touched every aspect of daily life. Catching up with friends in British Columbia does not feel much different from catching up with friends at the other end of the Victoria Line, so long as one can persuade the Canadians to take a Zoom call shortly after breakfast.
I have found every aspect of my professional life transformed as well. In my teaching in Urban Studies at UCL, for instance, we have rapidly rewritten our courses around the theme of ‘emergency urbanism’ to position infectious disease alongside the climate crisis, political upheaval, and various other pressing challenges for cities everywhere. I have given virtual lectures to students tuning in from Colombo, Nanjing, and Panama City alongside the typical Camden flat.
Elsewhere, in music, my mostly Vancouver-based band, Gold & Youth, has been emailing recordings back and forth as we finalize our overdue follow-up to our first record, Beyond Wilderness (Arts & Crafts, 2013). It has been an extraordinarily difficult year for the music industry, like most cultural sectors, but the upside will be swells of creativity from artists whose promotional cycles abruptly halted, alongside swells of interest from listeners reminded of the irreplaceable benefits of the arts.
Finally, in my research role at the LSE’s Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, we are already beginning production on a book that will bring together analyses from emerging scholars across Southeast Asia of the social issues that the pandemic has brought into view. Their work has helped me understand my own experiences as much as it has helped me understand what is going in the region. Wherever one is in the world right now, there are questions to be asked about what has been learned this year about the fragility or resilience of community and urban life.
Then again, if this newsletter is reaching you at the end of another day of virtual meetings and trips to the kitchen for quintessentially British cups of tea, perhaps these questions are better posed in reverse: how can the familiar ideas of community and urban life help us to understand what it is we are trying to create in the lives we have lived this year? Join us in the weeks ahead when we look at this question!
This week's spotlight shines on Laura Petersen Eurin, Board Trustee for The Canadian Memorial Foundation. Laura is a communications professional, originally from Vancouver. She began her career at BC Hydro after completing a BA in French at the University of Victoria and the Journalism Programme at BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology).
In 1999 Laura and her husband moved to Paris to work. She said: "Not only did I love living in France, but I was fortunate to have some great opportunities working for global French companies such as Orange and Dassault Systemes. After my son was born, we moved to London in 2007 where I continued my career with Shell and Experian. Overall, London has also been a wonderful choice professionally. Internal Communication is a highly developed and well-respected profession here with a plethora of opportunities in numerous sectors. I’ve managed to evolve my career to other related areas such as business and culture change and employee engagement."
Laura also recently began a new chapter in life by going back to school, studying for a Masters in Internal Communications Management – a joint program led by Solent University and the Institute of Internal Communications, UK. As she shared with us, "Considering my last degree was in another lifetime, it’s been a challenging experience getting back into academics and to stick to a study routine. I’m really enjoying the intellectual debate and discourse and it’s been a real pleasure getting to meeting my new cohort of 25 other students from around the UK and abroad – albeit via Zoom."