Am Johal steps in as curator-in-residence at Indian Summer Festival

Former director of SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement will program around theme of Borderless Solidarities for July event

AM JOHAL WILL BE curator-in-residence for the 15th annual Indian Summer Festival, running from July 3 to 13, programming around the theme of Borderless Solidarities.

Johal, former director of SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and codirector of SFU's Community-Engaged Research Initiative, is a podcast host, author, and guest speaker who also played a role as chair of the Indian Summer Festival 2020–2023.

“I’m excited to collaborate, work with diverse voices, and engage with artists and writers and thinkers,” Johal said in the announcement today. “We will announce our 15th anniversary programming very soon.”

The 2025 theme, Borderless Solidarities, is aimed at reflecting on the power of arts and culture to face a divided world of closed borders, rising authoritarianism, and violence, with an emphasis on the urgency for alternative thinking and living.

The two-week festival held at venues around town looks at a wide range of arts through a South Asian lens, bringing in novelists, artists, musicians, and visionaries from Canada, South Asia, and elsewhere.

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Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is a Webster Award–winning arts journalist who has spent more than three decades immersed in Vancouver’s performing arts, film, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

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