Dr. Nijdam Featured in Podcast on Comics Project with Homalco First Nation



Dr. Nijdam’s work as Director of the UBC Comics Studies Cluster has been featured in a recent podcast by UBC’s Community Engagement Office.

The podcast explores a comics collaboration that has brought together a team of Indigenous graphic artists to create a series of short comics based on archival recordings of Elders from the Homalco First Nation. Together with Homalco member and the project’s lead, Tchadas Leo, Dr. Elizabeth Nijdam, the director of UBC’s Comic Studies Cluster, Cecil Hershler, chair of Education Without Borders, and Alina Pete, a Cree cartoonist and one of the artists hired to work on this project.

The conversation explores the importance of the project and its inception, favourite moments including a road trip where the artists and project team traveled to Bute Inlet to connect with the Homalco First Nation, and advice for others hoping to develop successful community-university partnerships and how comics can be a powerful tool for this work.