I’ve been attending a number of public talks as of late - the most recent being Thursday night’s “Remembering Our Chinatowns: A Trio of Readings and Booklaunch” at the Museum of Vancouver. Rebeca Lau spoke about her maternal grandmother’s story of growing up in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico (Mami); Chad Reimer, a historian, researched the historical space and peoples in Chiliwack’s Chinatown (Chilliwack’s Chinatowns, A History); Larry Wong recounted his tales of growing up in Vancouver (Dim Sum Stories). Wong’s reading of a few of his stories from the 40s to the 60s was so charmingly hilarious and I really enjoyed them.

Beforehand, I toured the two key exhibits happening there: Bhangra.me (closes New Year’s Day) and Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver (until August 2012). Bhangra, I learned afterwards, was curated by one of my teachers from a ten day Museum Studies courses I took during my first summer of grad studies at UBC. I like seeing small connections like that. It’s an interactive show recounting the history of Bhangra following it’s rise in the Lower Mainland since the 1970s. The latter show was not as big as I was expecting but being able to stand next to glowing neon signs (from the 1950s era and beyond) was an immersive experience. Collectively, the way the signs hummed was slightly eerie, considering there were no other visitors and there was a feeling that I could be electrocuted at any moment, or that radiation was seeping into my bloodstream. I can still hear the buzzing.

Last weekend, Ethan Zuckerman at the Chan Centre engaged us — as part of the 2nd annual Human Rights Lecture — on “Cute Cats and the Arab Spring: when social media meets social change.“ A new term I learned was Slacktivism which made me think of how many people I know who participate in this act, myself included. Zuckerman’s talk will be posted on CBC Radio’s Ideas in early December, if you’re interested in hearing it.

Prior to this was a talk at the Museum of Anthropology with Joy Kogawa (author), Marie Clements (playwright), and jamie griffiths (photographer and artist) on “Artists’ Responsibilities” in the depiction of challenging or contentious topics. This session was held in the physical space of the MOA’s main exhibition, hiroshima, which consists of beautifully lit photographs by Ishiuchi Miyako (it’s the first time this work has been shown outside of Japan; I highly recommend it).

The photographs depict items that individuals were wearing or had on hand when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan in 1945. From false teeth, a tube of lipstick, to a camera (fried beyond immediate recognition), a memorable image for me was of a shirt - cream coloured with dark polka dots. As a result of the explosion, the polka dots had all fallen out and it was mentioned that they’d burned impressions onto the body of the girl or woman who’d been wearing it. Kogawa herself is a survivor of the internment camps many Japanese-Canadians in British Columbia were shipped to following a growth of anti-Japanese sentiment throughout Canada at that time.

Image of Martin Creed’s installation of Work No. 890: Don’t Worry, 2008 as part of the Singapore Biennale earlier this year, in the Old Kallang Airport.