Thursday, February 3, 2022

Applied Public Health Chair in healthy environments for climate change and northern food security announced

This article was originally featured on the Water Institute's website.

Kelly Skinner, associate professor in the School of Public Health Sciences and Water Institute member, was appointed a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Applied Public Health Chair in Healthy environments for climate change and food security in northern Canada.

The prestigious position, one of only seven awarded, includes $1.15 million in funding over five years for highly focused research that improves health equity for citizens in Canada and around the world.

“By understanding climate change impacts and identifying local adaptations in the food systems of communities in northern Canada, we can better support the well-being and sustainability of communities, the environment, and land,” Skinner said.

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and the CIHR announced a total of $10 million to increase public health research capacity in Canada. This investment includes $8 million for seven new Applied Public Health Chairs to carry out research programs in infectious diseases, urban and environmental health, and disease prevention, and $2 million for new research to address population and public health priorities. 

Skinner’s research will capture the innovative entrepreneurship of community-led food initiatives in adapting to climate change to improve food security, northern food systems and environments, health equity, self-determination, well-being and overall health. The community-engaged research will be based around several case studies with communities in the Northwest Territories.

The vision for the Chair is to broadly learn from and enhance community capacity to address place-based priorities and inform both climate change and food security action and self-determined support-structures at local, regional and territorial scales. A key aspect of this Chair is working closely with decision-maker Dr. Jennifer Fresque-Baxter, several other knowledge users, and community partners to be able to see policy windows and share case study findings.

The research builds on and extends existing collaborations among stakeholders, including government, health institutions, provincial and community organizations, researchers, trainees and, most importantly, with Indigenous partners to support innovation and knowledge transfer, as well as advocacy for social justice of Indigenous food systems, cultural policies, and greater equity for Indigenous Peoples and northern communities.

“We recognize the vital importance of investing in public health research to better protect the health and safety of all Canadians. The recipients of these applied research chairs will work with public health leaders to design and implement new approaches to addressing the complex health challenges facing Canada and help build a healthier future for everyone,” Duclos said in the announcement.

Learn more about professor Skinner’s research.

Post-pandemic, urban planners are seeking a return to 'old normal' in downtown areas

City living has been radically changed by the spread of COVID-19. But planners of downtowns in mid-sized areas are more interested in returning those spaces to the way things were.

In a study led by researchers at the University of Waterloo, urban planners were asked to identify the attributes that contributed to the success of downtowns prior to the pandemic as well as the attributes that would facilitate their post-pandemic recovery. 

While some urban scholars predict that recovery will lead to a “new normal,” the planners surveyed are primarily focused on restoring the “old normal.” This suggests that the planners are not preparing for any fundamental changes to past practices even in the face of changing reality.

“Despite calls for greater creativity and innovation, there is essentially no difference between what planners viewed as more important to downtowns pre-and-post the pandemic,” said Pierre Filion, an emeritus professor in the School of Planning at Waterloo. “There will not be any radical transformation of post-pandemic downtowns from the pre-pandemic downtowns of the early 21st century that would change the basic forms and functions.”

The findings show the ideal revived downtowns will exhibit many of the same functions in a distinctive built environment even with much attention being paid to the impact of the pandemic on the largest metropolitan areas. For instance, there will be increased use of outdoor and green spaces, more mixed-use development, particularly in residential areas; and transportation models friendly to walking and biking.

“Downtowns are likely to remain distinctive places within the cities, characterized by a mix of higher-density land uses, including specialized retail, office employment, and housing,” Filion said. “There will not be any radical transformation of post-pandemic downtowns from the pre-pandemic downtowns of the early 21st century that would change the basic forms and functions.”

The study identified government as an obstacle to the successful revitalization of mid-sized downtowns. However, many of the proposed recovery policies require government intervention, especially in public-private partnerships and collaborations where there is no single organizational structure that is appropriate.

Even with the increased government funding, the researchers noted it will be impossible to sustain the required levels of public investment in the revitalization of mid-sized downtowns in view of reduced government revenues in the long run.

The study, Planning for Post-pandemic Downtowns of Mid-size Urban Areas, was recently published in the journal of Planning Practice & Research. 

UWAG reopens gallery with two exhibits on February 9

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery will be open to visitors with proof of vaccination beginning February 9, Wednesdays to Friday from 12 noon to 5:00 p.m. with a limit of 5 visitors at a time.

Exhibition documentation will posted on the UWAG website.

VESSNA PERUNOVICH

Here. In Absence

Here. In Absence is informed by the unsettling disposition of the world we live in and our collective experience over the last two years of pandemic. Echoing various crises in society today, the works in the exhibition evoke a reflective space for contemplation and connection around themes of isolation, division and belonging, expanding on concerns at the heart of Perunovich’s practice: boundaries, displacement and migration.

I am Still. Traveling anchors the viewer to a place that is neither foreign nor familiar. Filmed in 2020 at the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant beside Lake Ontario, the video depicts the artist walking around this seemingly abandoned environment dragging the burden of a nautical Jacob’s ladder. An ethereal soundscape composed around the industrial sound of a locomotive underlines the Sisyphean task the artist is engaged in, and suggests places elsewhere.

Reversed Code is informed by messaging codes such as Braille, an alphabet for the visually impaired; binary code used for computing and patterns in weaving; and ethical codes of conduct such as the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Rights and Freedoms. The ten screens that make up the installation strike a poetic balance between darkness and light, beauty and violation. The work invites us to contemplate the precarious role of language and communication in a world that feels increasingly confusing and isolating.

Both works are being exhibited in North America for the first time. The exhibition is generously supported by production grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.

Vessna Perunovich is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist whose work embraces performance, video, sculpture, painting and drawing, to address issues around home, displacement and boundaries. Her work was included as part of So-Called Reality, Risk Change Project, National Gallery of Montenegro (2020); and Ad Infinitum, part of the 13^thHavana Biennial, Cuba (2019). Recent solo exhibitions include “Fragments of a Whole” at the Contemporary Art Gallery Pancevo, Serbia (2021) and "Shifting Shelter" at Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary (2019). She has exhibited as part of international biennials in Cuba, Albania, England, Venice, Portugal, Yugoslavia and Greece, and attended residencies in Banff, Berlin, Bursa and Istanbul, New York, Beijing and Malta. Her survey exhibitions Borderless and Emblems of Enigma toured to galleries and museums across Canada and Europe. She is the recipient of a Chalmers Fellowship Grant (2019) and has been awarded grants by The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.

UWAG is inviting members of the University community to a conversation with Vessna Perunovich and artist, curator and art historian Bojana Videkanic on Thursday February 10 at 7:00 p.m. You can register via Eventbrite.

RAVEN DAVIS

Mmenwenmad | To Save for Later

Mmenwenmad | To Save for Later is a new body of work by Raven Davis rooted in acknowledging the physical body, and lived experience as an incalculable, unwritten document. Davis’ monochromatic images capture the artist on the coastline of Mi’kma’ki, also known as the Atlantic coast. Through movement, sound, and the juxtaposition to land, body, Davis engages with a common archiving two-drawer filing cabinet that is incapable of archiving the continuum of one's lived experience or intimate relationships with the land. Exploring transgenerational epigenetic matrilineal inheritance, Davis embodies a personal choreography that expresses the impacts of colonialism, trauma, disability, transness, diaspora, and relationship to the land. In doing so, Davis draws on their previous body of works with monuments, creating temporary tributes honouring the water, land, sky world. Questioning, what has been deemed “worthy” of saving, what has been lost, and what has been intentionally left out.

Raven Davis is an Anishinaabe, 2-Spirit, transgender, disabled multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator whose mother is from Treaty Four in Manitoba. Davis was born and raised in Michi Saagig Territory/Toronto, Ontario, and resides and works fluidly between Toronto and Kjipuktuk/Halifax. A parent of three sons, Davis works within the mediums of painting, performance, and media. Challenging systemic oppression, Davis fuses narratives of colonization, race, gender, disability, transformative justice, and 2-Spirit/Indigiqueer identity in their work. Davis’ performance and art practice bravely embodies their lived experience, reclaiming histories of Indigenous peoples’ restoring cultural knowledge, and honouring land, water and collective kinship futures. 

This exhibition is an extension of the CAFKA.21 biennial, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost. CAFKA would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Winter weather closings and other notes

You may not have been able to see it through the steady snowfall yesterday, but the University of Waterloo's main campus closed at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday due to the deteriorating weather situation and concerns for the safety of people walking, biking or driving on campus. I'm told this closure affected a single evening class, but other on-campus activities were similarly curtailed.

Today, the University's campuses are open, but Bright Starts Co-operative Early Learning Centre is closed due to inclement weather.

The Library has announced that it will be expanding in-person services and hours starting Monday, February 7 as the University welcomes students back to campus, including the re-opening of its book stacks.

More details about specific services and access to the Library's collections is available on the Library's website: https://bit.ly/ServiceUpdateFeb7.