The Blue Hour

CiTR & Discorder Magazine

The Blue Hour is a conversation – a dialogue about life, literature, science, philosophy and everything in between.

  1. Aug 27

    The Psychology of Climbing — Patrick Boudreau on Flow, Performance and Nature

    In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Patrick Boudreau, a postdoctoral fellow at the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre and Concordia University, about the psychology of climbing and our experiences of physical activity in nature. We discuss flow and other psychological states associated with excellent performance, why outdoor climbing can feel psychologically different from climbing indoors, and the role that nature, uncertainty and exploration may play in the climbing experience. We also talk about the mental preparation required for demanding outdoor adventures and Patrick’s ongoing research comparing the psychological effects of physical activity in natural and indoor environments.

  2. Aug 25

    Perpetual Evolution — A Conversation with Federica Mingolla, One of Italy’s Most Renowned Climbers

    In this conversation, I speak with Federica Mingolla, one of Italy’s most renowned climbers, about climbing, freedom, ambition, motherhood, and the ways our lives and identities continue to evolve. Federica is an Italian professional climber, alpinist and mountain guide. Born in Turin in 1994, she began climbing as a teenager and went on to build a career spanning sport climbing, multi-pitch routes and alpinism. She is now based in the Aosta Valley, where she works as a mountain guide. She also holds a degree in Sports Science and is an athlete for La Sportiva and Petzl. Our conversation moves between climbing and life beyond it: instinct and uncertainty, ambition and compromise, becoming a mother, and remaining open to change. Federica describes herself as being in a state of “perpetual evolution,” an idea that became one of the threads running through our conversation.

  3. Aug 11

    Why We Climb: Sophie Alexander on Identity and Belonging

    In this conversation, I speak with Sophie Alexander, a Master’s student in Kinesiology at the University of Victoria, whose research explores the relationship between climbing, physical activity, identity development and belonging. Sophie Alexander is a Master’s student in Kinesiology at the University of Victoria, where her research examines how climbing, social experience and a sense of belonging can influence physical activity and identity development. Our conversation centres on climbing as something more than physical exercise: how it can shape identity, confidence and connection, and how the social environment surrounding a sport can influence whether people feel that they belong and want to remain physically active.

  4. Aug 4

    Why Consumers Reject Cheaper, Cleaner Cars — Dr. Werner Antweiler on the Economics of Electric-Vehicle Adoption

    In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Werner Antweiler, an economist and Associate Professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, where he holds the Chair in International Trade Policy and chairs the Strategy and Business Economics Division. He is also an associate editor of the journal *Resource and Energy Economics* and a faculty member of UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre. Educated at the University of Cologne and the University of Toronto, his research spans international trade, environmental and energy economics, electricity markets and applied econometrics. His published work has examined the relationship between trade and the environment, renewable energy and electricity storage, international hydrogen trade, biofuels, vehicle emissions and transportation policy. He is also the author of *Elements of Environmental Management*, an interdisciplinary book bringing together environmental economics, law, engineering and business strategy. His latest paper, *Carbon Pricing, Capital Bias, and Electric Vehicle Adoption*, is forthcoming in the *Canadian Journal of Economics*. It examines why consumers may reject a cleaner technology even when it would cost them less over its lifetime—and what that means for carbon pricing, electric-vehicle subsidies and the design of environmental policy.

  5. Jul 28

    Dr. Jennifer Kramer on Nuxalk Strong: Dancing Down the Eyelashes of the Sun

    In this conversation, I speak with Jennifer Kramer. She is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and Curator of the Pacific Northwest at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University and has worked with the Nuxalk Nation since 1994. For more than two decades, she has worked alongside Indigenous artists, knowledge keepers and communities, exploring how museums can become places of collaboration, cultural renewal and shared authority. Her scholarship focuses on the visual and material cultures of Northwest Coast First Nations, particularly the Nuxalk and Kwakwaka’wakw, and includes questions of representation, repatriation, cultural property, art-market economies and collaborative museology. She is the author of *Switchbacks: Art, Ownership, and Nuxalk National Identity* and *Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer*, and co-editor of *Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas*. Through her research, teaching and curatorial practice, she has helped reshape conversations about Northwest Coast Indigenous art, museum anthropology and the evolving relationship between museums and Indigenous communities. Our conversation centres on one remarkable exhibition: *Nuxalk Strong: Dancing Down the Eyelashes of the Sun*. Co-curated by Snxakila–Clyde Tallio, Director of Culture and Language for the Nuxalk Nation, and Jennifer Kramer, it was the first exhibition devoted entirely to the Nuxalk Nation. Bringing together more than sixty historic Nuxalk treasures from museum, private and family collections, the exhibition at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology demonstrated how language, governance, law, ceremony, artistic practice and community leadership remain deeply interconnected. It also showed how museums can become places of return, reconnection and renewed relationships, while affirming Nuxalk sovereignty and self-determination. Jennifer is now co-authoring a forthcoming publication exploring the exhibition’s continuing impacts and legacies, tentatively titled *Relations and Returns: Reconnecting Nuxalk Treasures and Kin*.

  6. Jul 21

    Inside the Audain Art Museum: In Conversation with Dr. Curtis Collins

    In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Curtis Collins, Executive Director of the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, British Columbia. Few museum directors have experienced Canada’s artistic and cultural life as broadly as Curtis Collins. Over more than three decades, he has led galleries, museums and arts institutions across six provinces and one territory—from Fredericton to Dawson City, from Regina to Whistler—while also teaching at universities across the country and helping shape major exhibitions, publications and public programs devoted to Canadian art. Curtis has led the Audain Art Museum since 2018 and now serves as its Executive Director. During a remarkable period of growth, he has overseen exhibitions including Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob, Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast, The Coast Mountains: Recent Works by Edward Burtynsky and Karin Bubaš: Garden of Shadows. He is also the co-author, with 7IDANsuu James Hart, of the recent publication 7IDANsuu James Hart: A Monumental Practice, the first publication devoted to Hart’s extraordinary career. In our conversation, we speak about these artists, exhibitions and his recent publication, as well as the Museum’s Tuesday Night Talks and his research for The Tlingit: Four Centuries of Art, a major exhibition planned for 2028. We also reflect on Curtis’s journey through museums across Canada and the many ways museums bring artists, ideas and audiences together.

  7. Jul 14

    In Conversation with Dr. Sonia Del Re: The Intimate Life of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada

    In this conversation, I speak with Sonia Del Re, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada. Sonia Del Re holds a Master’s degree in Museology and a PhD in Art History. She first interned at the National Gallery of Canada in 2004–05 and officially joined its curatorial team in 2006. Today, she oversees a remarkable collection of more than 27,000 works of art on paper, created around the world between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. Her curatorial work spans Dutch landscapes, the Carracci, Chagall, Pre-Raphaelite drawings, Picasso’s Vollard Suite, Venetian portraiture, early European monsters, and, most recently, Gathered Leaves: Discoveries from the Drawings Vault. In our conversation, we speak about drawings, prints, the life of the vault, curatorial research, and what works on paper can reveal about artists, history, and the intimate life of images.

  8. Jul 7

    In Conversation with Professor Philip Stamp: Superfluid Helium and Quantum Vacuum Tunnelling

    Professor Philip Stamp is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Pacific Institute of Theoretical Physics, known as PITP, which he returned to Canada to establish in 2002. Mostly raised in New Zealand and educated in the United Kingdom, Professor Stamp began his academic life in philosophy and literature before turning to theoretical physics. He has since worked as a physicist in France, Spain, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, and the United States. His research explores many aspects of quantum mechanics, including macroscopic quantum phenomena, quantum tunnelling, quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology. In this episode, we speak about his recent work with collaborators on superfluid helium and quantum vacuum tunnelling. The research uses an ultra-thin film of superfluid helium to examine the Schwinger effect, a famous prediction in quantum electrodynamics in which, under extreme conditions, the quantum vacuum may produce particle–antiparticle pairs. In Professor Stamp’s work, this idea is approached through vortex and anti-vortex pairs emerging in a quantum liquid. Our conversation turns to the meaning of the quantum vacuum, the difficulty of observing the Schwinger effect directly, the relationship between theory and experiment in physics, and finally, the strange beauty of a universe that is, in Professor Stamp’s words, both magical and real.

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About

The Blue Hour is a conversation – a dialogue about life, literature, science, philosophy and everything in between.

Information

  • Creator
    CiTR & Discorder Magazine
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    157
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright CiTR & Discorder Magazine
  • Show Website
    The Blue Hour