Out Of Office Hours Collective: The Mega-Event and The City

Out Of Office Hours Collective: The Mega-Event and The City

DATE: Tuesday, June 30

TIME: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

VENUE: 312 Main

Out of Office Hours is a new student-led collective bringing together students from UBC, SFU, and communities across Metro Vancouver to collectively learn from community expertise about activism and social justice in the city. The collective emerges from the 2026 “What Kind of University do we Want?” conference and a student-led panel entitled “Student as Producer” where we shared a desire for radical love and change in the university. As of now, students, staff, and faculty are navigating increasing precarity and uncertainty within academic institutions and  the collective seeks to create space for action-oriented learning beyond the campus — connecting students, organizers, researchers, and community members.

Our first session focuses on the relationship between mega-events and the city. As Vancouver hosts FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, we will explore how large-scale sporting events reshape urban space, housing, policing, policy enactment, and community life. Through discussion and shared reflection, participants will examine how cities are transformed by mega-events, and the afterlives of ‘temporary measures’ introduced as part of such events. By bringing together organizers and community advocates, the conversation will reflect on lessons from past organizing around the 2010 Olympics and consider what forms of future oriented collective action and civic engagement are needed in the present moment.

Speakers:

No registration needed!

The collective’s teach-ins are supported by UBC Public Humanities Hub, in partnership with The Mainlander publication. Pivot Legal Society serves as a partner for this first teach-in. 

All are welcome!

Light food will be served.

Curatorial Practice as Public Scholarship: On fluid geographies and transdisciplinary forms 

DATE: Friday, June 19

TIME: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM

VENUE: Reliance Theatre, Emily Carr University, 520 East 1st Ave., Vancouver

In this presentation, Martha Kirszenbaum interrogates the methodologies of an eclectic curatorial practice developed across diverse geopolitical landscapes. The talk examines the fluid negotiation between art institutions and experimental, non-traditional spaces, illustrating how to navigate differing cultural terrains while resisting sometimes rigid institutional frameworks. Kirszenbaum will analyze her approach to centering contemporary culture at the critical intersection of the visual arts, music, performance, and popular culture. Through a selection of past and current projects, she investigates the construction of an independent, interdisciplinary curatorial practice that remains deeply embedded within global subcultural discourses.

Speaker:

Martha Kirszenbaum is a curator, writer and editor based in Paris. Her work has explored multidisciplinary and decompartmentalized approaches to curating art practices, bringing together visual arts, performance, dance, film and music. She graduated from Sciences-Po in Paris and Columbia University, was the curator of the French Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, and founded and directed Fahrenheit—an exhibition space and residency program in Los Angeles. She previously held positions at MoMA, New Museum and Centre Pompidou and has organized exhibitions, screenings, performances and talks at renowned international institutions. She is a regular contributor to numerous art publications, sits on the Editorial Board of CURA. Magazine, and teaches internationally. 

No registration needed!

In partnership with:

Can a river have rights?

Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda (PhD candidate, GRSJ) talks about her partnership with FEMIPA, a federation of Indigenous women in the Peruvian Amazon, their fight for environmental protections, and more.