Hamilton artists Katrina Camilleri and Cheyenne Federiconi have come a long way since high school. The two longtime friends and graduating Mac students have just put the finishing touches on their upcoming art exhibit.

They’ll be showing a joint collection of original artwork at Manta Contemporary Gallery starting April 4. Aptly entitled BOMBS AWAY, their exhibit features pieces that seek to expose the “naked reality" behind political issues. The artists tackle war, violence, pop culture and sex in a way that is alluring yet unsettling.

The duo grew up in Hamilton and took high school art classes together before both enrolling in McMaster’s studio art program.

Coming out of high school as a painter, Federiconi says she now does more sculpture and performance art. Camilleri said she’s also discovered her preferred medium at Mac.

“I’ve found how to channel my personality into my artwork,” said Camilleri.

They said the biggest challenge of putting the show together has been reconciling their individual styles. After confirming their slot at the gallery at the end of February, the two had only a month to drum up original pieces for the themed exhibit.

Camilleri, who usually works in one colour, took on Federiconi’s vibrant colour palette, while Federiconi experimented with themes of war that aren’t usually a focal point of her work.

“We have two opposite styles, so finding one theme was hard,” said Camilleri.

Federiconi said her favourite piece in the show is an assortment of toy weapons, which she purchased and repainted pink.

“I [embellished] them with diamonds, pearls and lace to take objects often associated with violence and terror, and change their interpretation into something cute and non-threatening,” she said.

The artists say they’re excited to be showing at an up and coming gallery in Hamilton’s downtown core that doesn’t typically exhibit student work.

“Culturally, I think we [in Hamilton] embrace art more now,” said Federiconi, who referenced the boom that James Street N. has experienced in recent years with Artcrawl and Supercrawl.

Federiconi says she wants to make a living in Hamilton’s art scene after graduation this April. She’s got four or five exhibits under her belt, some of which she organized, and wants to keep going.

After graduating, Camilleri will be leaving Hamilton to pursue teacher’s college. She has aspirations to teach art at the high school level.

“I think the beauty of [Mac’s] program is that you start out new...and in your graduating year they let you go and apply what you’ve learned,” said Camilleri.

Their exhibit will be in the Manta Contemporary Gallery on King William St. The show runs from April 4 to 30, with an opening reception on April 12.

Yara Farran / The Silhouette

And on the second day, God created soul-crushingly awkward conversation followed by intense staring competitions and jilted laughter.

It’s these uncomfortable interactions that form the basis of many people’s social apprehension. These fears are further magnified when forced into the infamous, “Should I say ‘hi’?” quagmire, where you end up battling your greater sensibilities in a game of tug of war. While your big old heart is advising you to take the plunge and just say “hello,” your mind is forewarning of potential disaster. What if the person you want to say hi to doesn’t say hi back? What if they don’t see you? What if after this painful ordeal you end up sitting beside this person in class, and have to spend a whole fifty minutes pretending that nothing ever happened.

There are a few options to explore when faced with this existential dilemma, all of which have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

The Stare

You spot your part-time BFFL on the other side of the walkway. She’s walking briskly. You’re deeply wondering. She’s cheer captain, while you’re on the bleachers (at most Marauders games, that is). As you near her, you decide to pull the classic stare – an intense gaze that is a daring hybrid between Blue Steele and a collection of Gary Busey’s mug shots.

Pros: The stare, although initially creepy, can be quite understated when mastered. By quickly scanning your friend’s eyes you can determine whether or not they a) see you, b) show a willingness to say “hi” or c) aren’t in an early stage of catatonia. If your friend checks all three boxes, then you are all clear to proceed to the “Hey you!” phase.

Cons: The stare scores high on the creep-barometer. Staring too long or too intently is problematic, especially when attempted in a highly populated area. Also, the stare can be misinterpreted. What may mean approachable and casual to you can mean scathing and judgemental to others. And if the stare is anything like the latter, you’re going to have some explainin’ to do.

The Smile

You’re making your way to the stairs and you discover your professor taking a lovely afternoon stroll. You’ve talked to him a couple of times, but you’re still unsure if he knows that your name isn’t Kent. You want to be professional and warm and cool and awesome, all while maintaining the small inkling of grace that you (kind of) inherited from your mama. So, naturally, as your professor nears, you fall back into option deux, the smile.

Pros: This is my personal favourite. The best thing about this approach is that if your professor doesn’t see you/remember that you’re actually not Kent from fourth-period Economics, you can brush it off and pretend that your smile was directed elsewhere. Anyway, smiles are just so darn awesome. They make people feel good. They make you feel good, and really isn’t this what this whole thing is about?

Con:  The smile is almost 100 per cent foolproof, however, you need to take the smile spectrum into account. The “smile spectrum,” you ask? It’s the best way to evaluate whether a situation is in need of a full on toothy grin, head nod and finger point or a mild, sweet smize (yes, smiling with your eyes, ladies and gents). However, if you don’t have five seconds to pre-plan your smile, or if you’ve had past blunders with the smile spectrum (Did you once lick your lips while greeting your Nan?) then this one might not be for you.

The Pass

You’re at the hottest night club in town and the DJ is playing your fave remix of Coolio’s “Gangster’s Paradise.” You’re breaking it down in the middle of the dance floor, when suddenly you spot your ex-crush. You wonder whether or not you should say hi, or continue doing the electric boogaloo. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

Pros: By taking a pass, you can completely disregard all potentially awkward situations and pretend that you didn’t just see the former man of your dreams slowly rapping alongside Coolio. Dance on, player.

Cons: Correction. Passing can actually be way more awkward and cause you to feel paranoid and worried all night. Plus, if you see this person again in the near future, ignoring them can cause permanent emotional scarring and a lifetime of strained conversation at the chip table.

Well, that’s all folks! You now have the three best techniques under your belt to battle this predicament. But at the end of the day, if the stare, the smile or the pass don’t work, you can always go the unconventional route and just say “hi.”

Edgar’s posters have become the symbol of the No! Downtown Hamilton Casino group, a collection of activists, businesses owners and Hamiltonians that is extensively involved in raising awareness about the casino. Graham Crawford, owner of the Hamilton HIStory + HERitage storefront museum on James North, is a prominent member of the No! Downtown Casino group and has made a different poster opposing the casino every day for nearly the last two months.

“I’m almost embarrassed to say to people how little time it takes to make the posters,” said Crawford modestly. “I can’t draw, so the posters become my editorial cartoons because you don’t have to have much skill to make a poster.”

Crawford’s posters, which he shares through his Facebook page, make it clear that the result of the casino debate is something he cares deeply about. But the posters have convinced a lot of other people to care as well.

“My first ‘the new Hamilton’ poster focused on Supercrawl,” said Crawford, “and even I am social media savvy enough to know that when you get 236 shares in one day about something local that doesn’t involve cats it’s a big deal. The reach of the poster was probably tens of thousands. I’ve never had anything shared that much, ever.”

Everything that has changed James North over the last few years – the galleries, art crawl, Supercrawl – has done so slowly, deliberately and empathetically. Downtown Hamilton has showed us is that there’s a way for development to be good for everyone. Countless arts programs like Roots 2Leaf, the Urban Arts Initiative and Hamilton Artists for Social Change are dedicated to addressing poverty in many forms. What makes Crawford’s Supercrawl poster so affecting to so many people is that it puts into stark contrast Hamilton’s recent downtown development and the type of development that a casino represents - fast, less engaged with the rest of the city and harmful to at least some.

“A casino is completely inward facing by design, not by accident,” said Crawford. “Once they get you in there they don’t want you to leave. It’s why there are no windows. It’s why there are no clocks.”

Certainly PJ Mercanti, one of the main people involved in the proposed casino, is not evil. I’m sure he doesn’t see the city as just a source of income. It’s just that his vision and Crawford’s vision for the future of Hamilton are fundamentally different. One will probably never agree with the other, no matter how much debate. But even if a resolution will never be reached, at least there are people who care enough the city to see that it’s worth arguing about.

I recently wrote an essay that was about “great” literature. But the essay itself – and the mark I received – were not as great.

And it got me thinking about greatness – what makes for great writing, great art? Can an academic essay ever be great art? What would the standards even be? Who would set those standards and then decide if the essay met them? The writer? The reader? The grader? And how can I know so instinctively, so unquestionably that my essay is not great? Even if my grade had been stellar, somehow – somehow – I could never call it “great art”. Why is that? What constitutes great art?

What medium? What response? Is there a minimum grade it should be assigned? What spot should it fill on ANDY’s top 10 list? How should the artist feel before, during and after? Proud, disgusted, afraid? Who should judge its greatness? Professors, strangers, friends? What if it touches just one person? What if hundreds of people enjoy it, but none of them are truly moved?

Should it make a political statement? Should it make any statement? What if it’s simply beautiful and little else: a string of lovely words that sound like a meaningless poem; or a short film that includes gorgeous scenery with no intended symbolism; or a song that says nothing, but the artist’s voice is goose bump-inducing – are none of these “great” art? Or are they all? Should it be funny? Popular? Unpopular? Should it break rules? Should it follow rules, but with more flare than ever before? Should it shock, inspire, motivate? What if it does none of those things; what if it’s only an artist’s entirely selfish pursuit of self-expression? It seems that art in general inspires more questions than answers.

As ANDY compiled its top ten lists, we constantly asked ourselves similar questions: what makes for a great album, a great film? How can every album and every film that’s been released in 2012 be judged with one set of standards on one list? Surely the list would be incomplete, contradictory, controversial, and horribly, terribly, undeniably subjective. What’s the point then?

In my first year, I wrote a paper titled “why I write.” The essay was a very strange piece that my equally strange (but inspiring and wonderful) TA found moving somehow. But other readers dismissed the paper as bizarre and confusing. I wrote about a feathery blue pen that looked like an ostrich ready to take flight; I wrote about the empty spaces between your fingers; I wrote about the experience of watching someone walk away – watching the distance between your bodies expand until there’s nothing left. I wrote about a sun that looks like an egg yolk stretched across the sky; I wrote about a paper plane floating somewhere in the distance, with a love letter scrawled all over it.

It made very little sense. It resembled an academic essay in so far that it was typed words on a white page.

The experience of writing this essay was so consuming and yet so effortless that I had forgotten it was a piece that anyone would read other than myself. Producing those words, putting them together, taking them apart, was a cathartic, therapeutic, intense but peaceful process of liberation. It’s a feeling that also comes with certain movies, certain songs, certain novels, certain poetry, cer tain performances – and in those moments I don’t judge, rate, rank or grade the moment or the art. I just feel moved – and that is more than enough. To me, that feeling is what constitutes “great” art.

So take ANDY’s final five with a grain of salt. It certainly is a wonderful and meaningful selection of music and film – but that’s just our opinion.

By: Bahar Orang

First, the context.

About three weeks ago I wrote an article about art and Hamilton that argued the development of a neighbourhood does not do much to resolve poverty, and that low-income neighborhoods are a symptom for problems like unemployment, crime and poor health instead of a cause. I wrote that art should be used to express the full complexity of a neighbourhood, rather to simplify it, and that a neighbourhood should be something that every one of its members has the ability to change.

On the website where the article was posted, Jeremy Freiburger, the founder of a local non-profit arts service Cobalt Connects, left a comment saying he found the “article painful to read” and that the “distanced academic approach to understanding cultural community growth [is] as thin as the paper [the] article is written on.” So, naturally, I contacted Freiburger for an interview.

Part of what Freiburger’s organization does is figure out how buildings can be renovated and repurposed to best suit the needs of artists. Frieburger is almost like the poster child of gentrification, the process of a neighbourhood’s buildings being developed and increasing in price. In my article, I criticized the type of neighbourhood development that Freiburger is involved in as not actually being helpful to those in poverty. After speaking to him, I’m not so sure.

The Mulberry Street coffeehouse on James Street North is the result of work by Freiburger, and was also the place where he and I met. Before it was a coffee shop, Mulberry was Hotel Hamilton – infamously run-down low-income housing. I had seen the Mulberry coffee shop as the quintessential example of gentrification: a coffee shop for the wealthy took the place of housing for the poor, who ended up displaced.

“I’ve been involved in this industry  for a long time – the idea of regenerating buildings – and I totally understand the conversation around displacement,” said Freiburger. “The gentlemen that lived at Mulberry, the owners actually found them better housing, on [James] street for the same price they were paying here.”

The stories of displacement are told often, and loudly. The stories of how that displacement is prevented? Not so much.

Though I saw Frieburger as a figurative poster child for gentrification, it turns out that this had literally been true - but it was by no means Freiburger’s decision. “Maybe about a year or so ago, there was a big push from a group out of McMaster that came out on an art crawl, and had made up stickers about gentrification and calling people ‘fat cats,’ me in particular, and a number of other people, but I was named specifically,” said Frieburger. “They stuck them to buildings, they stuck them to artists’ artwork, they went around stickering wherever they wanted. That caused a huge rift in the community, for sure.”

This sticker campaign was needlessly confrontational, and I’m sure that it didn’t help anyone better understand the reality of how gentrification is playing out in Hamilton.

“To be equally confrontational, I found out who was leading that group of people, in my view, and found out that the person leading it was actually a professor from McMaster University,” said Freiburger. “So I wrote a rather scathing email to her and to Patrick Deane and her boss, and was responded to by the legal department at McMaster, asking me to cease and desist my actions or face a lawsuit, because what I was doing was defamatory. Yet, putting stickers with my name on it throughout the community saying I was an evil fat cat who was displacing poor people isn’t defamatory?”

Before speaking to Freiburger, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What ended up happening is like when a character in a movie seems like a villain, but they actually end up being pretty good. Snape provides a perfect example. When talking about difficult topics like gentrification, it’s important not to dismiss anyone.

“I think Hamilton is still at a point where we can shape how we want to change this city,” said Freiburger. “But if we can’t find a way to have positive dialogue about it, no one is going to change their ways.”

We glorify our youth – young at heart, young money, only the good die young. It is something we take for granted and, like most things in life, it doesn’t last forever. Eventually, we must all trade in our pimple cream for pills and our cellphones for cellulite. None of us really want to get old but most of us have to.

I know I never wanted to get old. I thought there was no dignity in old age (I’ve read The Stone Angel) and so I was reluctant when, for one of my courses, I had to go volunteer at a nursing home in downtown Hamilton. Like clockwork, every Thursday morning I would peel myself off my bed, down a cup of coffee and sprint to the city bus stop (I was usually late). In all honesty, I thought the volunteer experience would be tedious but it has been transformative. You see, while I’m there, I get to play the piano for one of the coolest people I know. I, Kristen Salena, get to jam with a retired opera singer who has travelled the world. Her soprano makes Mariah Carey sound like Louis Armstrong. Her rendition of “Moon River” is sublime. And even though she is a fantastic musician, she is an even better person. While I’m in no rush, I’m actually looking forward to getting old.

You never know which gems you’ll find in Hamilton and I think that’s why I love it here. Musicians, artists, actors and writers are everywhere. Creativity is everywhere. Humanity is everywhere. So peel yourself off your bed, down a cup of coffee and sprint to the city bus stop because you’re probably late.

Kristen Salena 

Art can be aesthetically pleasing and aesthetically disturbing. It can be bought, sold and even inked into your skin. But is it anything more than an intellectual or visual diversion - something to look at, think about and move on from? Who are the artists that create it? Who do they create it for? Does it matter?

Carol Becker does not create art; she talks about it. She has written and edited six books about art and artists in society. She used to work with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and now she is the Dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She thinks that art has a role, and that artists have a responsibility.

In fact, Becker takes a much broader view of what constitutes art, and how it is changing. She calls it “micro-utopian practice.” Her definition of “utopia” is “to critique what is present,” making a micro-utopia a particular critique on a particular issue. Throughout her career she has emphasized the subversive and critical potential of art to further dialogue and unsettle the status quo.

She views art as uniquely able to reveal the complexities of daily life that are hidden from public view. In the introduction to her edited volume The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Social 

Responsibility she phrases it rather succinctly: “The more simplistic the representation of everyday life … the more art must reveal.”

Becker thinks that artists can, and should be social critics. They should be able to freely engage in “micro-utopian” practice in the public arena. She views this as an integral part of a pluralistic, democratic society. But, in our age of ever-increasing privatization, how do artists fully participate in the public sphere and effectively engage micro-utopian practice?

There are, of course, many ways to do this, but of particular note in recent years are public demonstrations. While these are a far cry from paintings in a gallery, public demonstrations temporarily offer a critique of our present society. They may not be indicative of long-lasting or concrete change, but these instances create public dialogue and participative communities. They do not change our society through legislation, but through culture.

In the recent past we’ve seen Occupy, the Quebec student strike, the Arab Spring - many lengthy public demonstrations focused on raising awareness about issues plaguing our society. Would income inequality be such a hot-button issue today if Occupy hadn’t received the exposure it did? These demonstrations affect both the way in which we perceive issues and which issues we perceive.

Art has no single definition. It can exist purely for aesthetic purposes, but should it? Artists can and should play an active role in defining their roles and responsibilities in the 21st century. In our tumultuous age of protest, revolution and change perhaps we ought not question what art can be, but what it should be.

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Carol Becker will be giving a lecture entitled “Artists as Public Intellectuals: Engaging Micro-Utopian Practice” on Thursday, Nov. 29 at the Design Annex on James St. North from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Admission is free. This lecture is presented by the Public Intellectuals Project, along with Mac10 and the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s Design Annex as a part of the McMaster Seminar on Higher Education, sponsored by the Office of the President. 

Alex Epp

Art is an expression of one’s view of the world – and community art is this on a broad scale. During the month of October, one such art exhibit came to grace James Street North at the you me gallery. The exhibit, aptly named “Haimish,” was a collection of pieces made by the members of the Hamilton Jewish community and curated by Melinda Richter, to showcase their community history. “Working family stories and treasures of the Hamilton Jewish community” was the description of the collection, which featured art and stories mostly from the community’s children and elderly.

The term “haimish” means homey or comfortable in Yiddish, and was a perfect description of the atmosphere in the little gallery. The space had been transformed into a cozy living room, complete with a rug, fireplace and antique TVs. The art pieces were tidily tucked all around the room, as if in the private residence of an art enthusiast. Storyboards of the lives of some of the first members of the Hamilton Jewish community covered the walls, and the TV played videos of the elders talking about their first experiences in Canada.

Although the exhibit didn’t have a specific feature piece, the artwork made by the children of the community stood out as soon as you walked in the door of the gallery. Children had created displays of their families out of painted transparent sheets. The very last transparency was painted with a picture of their great grandparents, usually the first generation of the family to have moved to Canada. The next sheet was painted with pictures of the next generation, and so on until the very first sheet, which was a picture of the child. All the generations in a  family could be seen through the sheets, showing the history of that family and how the stories of the elders shape and guide the younger ones. This piece really captured the spirit of the exhibit and conveyed how important family and community history are to the identity of the individual, even after generations have gone by.

The community’s committee on the project decided that the best way to tell these stories would be through art. The pieces were all made by members of the Jewish and arts communities in Hamilton, as a volunteer effort. The curator of the project, Melinda Richter, hopes that this will inspire other communities to also tell their stories through art, as a way of preserving and displaying their unique identities within the greater Hamilton community.

Rabia Ahmed

When I was younger, art was my favourite class. It didn’t matter if you were good at it or not, you got to play with art supplies, put sparkles on everything and leave your desk and talk to your classmates. So when I got involved with McMaster Arts for Children last year, I was reminded of the importance of creativity. I was placed at the St. Brigid’s Catholic Elementary School in downtown Hamilton with some other students from McMaster for the entirety of second semester.

The most amazing thing about the program was the change I saw in the students over the months. My favourite was a youngin’ named Malakai who initially thought the crafts were lame but was bragging about his ideas by the end.

In an interview, Amy Lu, the president of MAfC, described the ideas behind the club.

Can you describe what you do, who are you affiliated with, and how you decided to reach out to specific parts of the community? 

McMaster Arts for Children (MAfC) members work in teams to run weekly arts & crafts and music activities for children in the Hamilton community throughout the school year. We work with several placements in the community, including the MSU Daycare, a number of elementary schools through the Virtual Y afterschool program run by the YMCA, and women’s and homeless shelters such as Inasmuch House and the Good Shepherd Centre. We choose placements based on where we think we can contribute positively, as well as based on our members’ interests and passions. For example, students at many of the inner city elementary schools with whom we work don’t have many opportunities to pursue artistic endeavors. The weekly visits by our MAfC teams give these students a chance to explore and engage their creative sides. Our work with Inasmuch House and the Good Shepherd Centre began more recently, based on our members’ passion to bring our work to children who stay at these local shelters.

What prompted the start of your club? What was the inspiration behind your initiative? 

MAfC was started around eight years ago by a small group of students who just wanted to bring their own passion for the arts to students in the local community. At that time there were really no other opportunities to do so, and so MAfC was born.

How do the children react to your presence? Do you notice a positive change in the children with every visit? 

The best part of MAfC is seeing the smiles on the faces of the children every week; I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Our teams are like special guests that come every week, so the children are always excited when we come in, and eager to find out what activity they’ll be doing that week. Over the course of our visits -- and often even after a single one -- we definitely notice some positive changes and growth in the children. Some of them may learn to tie knots or cut in a straight line for the first time. Over time they begin to discover their creative sides, and many of them are so proud that they’re beaming when they finish their craft for the week.

Why do you think the club has been so successful? 

Our club has been growing steadily: we now have more volunteers than ever before, and in response, have expanded our number of placements. I think that part of what makes MAfC successful is the fact that it provides opportunities to students who are passionate about what we do to be fully engaged in the process. Our members design the arts and music curricula that all teams follow, and each team works together before every placement to prepare the activity. We are not a club that just asks members to show up to a placement; our members are more involved and invested in what we do. Most of all, though, I think we are lucky to have a vision that resonates with so many students who are all passionate about what we do.

If you would enjoy bringing some artistic fun to children, email mcmasterarts@gmail.com.

Palika Kohli

Even as students have been breaching the barrier of the campus “bubble” in the past few years, many community social issues, both good and bad, remain under the average student’s radar.

The Vital Signs Report, released on Oct. 12 by the Hamilton Community Foundation, sought to shed light on community strengths and challenges through measuring the quality of life in Hamilton across 12 issue areas.

The report created three levels of concern through which community members could evaluate community issues. The Vital Signs Advisory Committee and several members of Hamilton Roundtable compiled the report for Poverty Reduction. Internet and telephone surveys randomly sampled various households across the city.

Across the board, survey responses noted that there was satisfaction with the community’s approach to addressing issues in “arts and culture,” “getting around (transportation)” and “the environment”.

The community was urged to take immediate action towards addressing the “gap between the rich and the poor” and “work-related issues.”

The most staggering and prominent finding in the report indicates the continued increase in number of people working full-time yet still living below the poverty line in Hamilton. The most recent data available, from 2006, shows that 6.7 per cent of Hamilton’s population is in this category. This average is a marked increase from both the Ontario average (5.5 per cent) and the Canadian average (5.8 per cent).

The gap between the rich and the poor, a major focal point for the Occupy movement, has persisted in Hamilton, mirroring larger national trends. In 2009, the poorest 20 per cent of Hamiltonians had 5 per cent of the total income, while the richest 20 per cent accounted for 41 per cent of the total income.

The report takes into account all the neighbourhoods across Hamilton, including the Westdale-Ainsley Wood area.

McMaster students were not specifically identified in the report. However, community engagement has been at the forefront of campus affairs. Community was a major part of McMaster president Patrick Deane’s visioning letter “Forward With Integrity.”

Siobhan Stewart, MSU President, emphasized the variety of ways in which students choose to engage in community affairs, especially through various MSU services and clubs.

“People find their own channel and have their own unique story about what community engagement means to them.”

Stewart also noted that there is increased mindfulness towards including both community and student opinion on Hamilton’s social issues.

Several McMaster professors and employees are actively involved in the Poverty Roundtable and have advocated for university involvement and projects to address social justice issues in Hamilton.

Gary Warner, former Director of the Arts & Science Program, past Chair of the Hamilton Community Foundation and Poverty Roundtable member, reflected on student knowledge of Hamilton’s inequalities.

“I think students are likely not aware of the impact of income disparity related to postal codes in Hamilton, which is reflected, for example, in vastly different life expectancy – 21-year gap – and in test results and gradation rates in Hamilton's secondary schools.”

The McMaster Poverty Initiative (MPI) is the most notable example of the call for collaboration between students, staff and faculty to examine Hamilton’s social justice issues.

Jeff Wingard, MPI Coordinator and a member of the Vital Signs Report team, remarked upon the increase in student awareness and engagement with the community, especially in exploring the community’s booming arts scene.

“[But] I think on the flip side ... there are deep pockets of poverty and real hardship that exist in Hamilton, which I think get a bit lost if you don’t see it [on campus]”

Wingard also spoke about the need for continued research on community inequalities and the equal importance of communicating this research to diverse audiences, including students and the populations being studied.

McMaster has a reputation of being both a research-intensive institution and school with a strong spirit of volunteerism and community engagement, most recently exemplified by events such as Open Streets McMaster and MacServe.

Warner suggested that in keeping with the recommendations made by the Forward With Integrity Community Engagement Task Force, McMaster should strive to assign higher value to community-engaged research.