The conference will take place on Inclusion Day, Jan. 18, from 11:30am to 8pm, at 280N 91亚色 Lanes, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend the free event.

This is the third annual Inclusion Day at 91亚色. Guest speakers will provide participants with internal and external community perspectives 鈥渢hat will no doubt enhance our path of continued learning听about the wealth that diversity brings,鈥� says No毛l Badiou, director of 91亚色鈥檚 CHR.

鈥淚nclusion Day provides an occasion to highlight the diversity on our campus and the value and importance of ensuring that each and every member of our greater community, students, staff and faculty, is included in 91亚色's activities, whether in the classroom, during extracurricular events, or academic and administrative meetings,鈥� says Badiou.

Left: No毛l Badiou

This year's theme of "building allies for equity" is in keeping with CHR's goal of further enhancing the individual understanding of barriers faced by certain members of the 91亚色 community with a view to exploring ways that we can help eliminate these barriers, he says.

鈥淭he key in creating a more equitable community is to further each of our individual understanding of the incredibly rich diversity of our community and be empowered with knowledge about how to value this diversity by being more inclusive, as well as appreciative and respectful of our differences. It is a tall order, but one that can be accomplished by having a growing number of partners and supporters within our community.鈥�

Director of the City of Toronto鈥檚 Equity & Inclusion Office, Uzma Shakir will deliver the opening keynote address at noon, along with a panel comprised of 91亚色 students. A host of talks will follow throughout the afternoon.

The first sessions will include 91亚色 PhD psychology candidate Kaley Roosen (BSC Spec. Hons. 鈥�07, MA 鈥�09) and Access 91亚色 discussing disability awareness: The Power of Language, and Professor Faisal Bhabha and second-year law student Adrienne Lipsey of Osgoode Hall Law School looking at the meaning of religious accommodation. The Aboriginal Student Association at 91亚色 will host a workshop exploring notions of identity for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth and the impact of gender roles and access to cultural resources in urban Aboriginal communities. 91亚色 student Sana Siddiqui, an MSW student, will explore the historical and political roots of Islamophobia and its current manifestations through a variety of hands-on activities, video clips, case studies and interactive discussion. She will also offer strategies for building networks of allies against Islamophobia.

During the second round of sessions at 2:30pm, Jennifer Dalton (LLM 鈥�06, PhD 鈥�10), a visiting scholar with 91亚色鈥檚 Centre for Refugee Studies, will present 鈥淔rom Kelowna to Attawapiskat: Forging Aboriginal-Canada Alliances to Build Aboriginal Equity鈥�. She will discuss the continuing inequities that plague Aboriginal communities across the country despite the Kelowna Accord, which sought to bridge the inequity gap. This interactive workshop will emphasize the need to forge positive alliances between Aboriginal communities and the government. Bobby Siu from 91亚色鈥檚 Equity Studies Department will address 鈥淏uilding Allies for Equity in the Workplace: Some Considerations for Persons with Disabilities鈥�.

A third group of sessions will begin at 4pm, covering topics that look at the purpose of 鈥渧oice鈥� if no one is listening and relationships for creating change and inclusion. Ragini Sharma, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education, will hold an interactive workshop Broadening the Vision, Deepening the Roots, from 4 to 5:15pm, where participants can talk about their experiences of religious diversity on campus and will be challenged to broaden their vision beyond an identity based solely on religion.

An evening reception with keynote speaker Tim McCaskell, a social justice advocate and author, will follow the final sessions.

For a full lineup of sessions and speakers, visit the Inclusion Day web page on the Centre for Human Rights website. To register, .

For more information, contact Nythalah Baker, CHR senior adviser, education & communications, at nythalah@yorku.ca or ext. 55682.

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The study, conducted at 91亚色 and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, appeared online yesterday in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. It looked at children between the ages of four and six, concluding that 90 per cent of those studied showed significant cognitive gains after only 20 days of training on interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons. These results were confirmed by imaging data which indicated that brain changes had taken place following the exercises.

Right: Cognitive gains were experienced in children between the ages of four and six after just 20 days of training on an interactive music-based training program. Click on the image to view one of the programs used in the study.

鈥淥ur data have confirmed a rapid transfer of cognitive benefits in young children after only 20 days of training on an interactive, music-based cognitive training program. The strength of this effect in almost all of the children was remarkable,鈥� says study lead author Sylvain Moreno, who carried out the research while at 91亚色. Moreno is now lead scientist at Baycrest鈥檚 Centre for Brain Fitness in Toronto.

91亚色 Distinguished Research Professor Ellen Bialystok, principal collaborator on the study, says the results also have impact beyond the benefits of musical education.

鈥淭hese results are dramatic not only because they clearly connect cognitive improvement to musical training, but also because the improvements in language and attention are found in completely different domains than the one used for training. This has enormous implications for development and education,鈥� says Bialystok, a member of 91亚色's Department of Psychology and associate scientist at Baycrest.

In the study, 48 preschoolers participated in computer-based cognitive training programs which were projected onto a classroom wall and featured colourful, animated cartoon characters delivering the lessons.

The children were divided into two groups: One received music-based training that involved a combination of motor, perceptual and cognitive tasks, and included instruction on rhythm, pitch, melody, voice and basic musical concepts. The other received visual art training that emphasized the development of visuo-spatial skills relating to concepts such as shape, colour, line, dimension and perspective. Both groups received two one-hour training sessions each day, over four weeks, led by Royal Conservatory instructors.

Researchers tested the children for verbal and spatial intelligence before and after the training using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (third edition). The team also conducted brain imaging using non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG), which measures brain activity.

When children were retested five to 20 days post-program, researchers found no significant increases in verbal intelligence or brain changes for the children who completed the visual art training module. However, they found quite a different result in the children who took the music-based training: 90 per cent of those children exhibited intelligence improvements 鈥� five times larger than the other group 鈥� on a measure of vocabulary knowledge, as well as increased accuracy and reaction time.

The scientific team included Tom Chau, senior scientist at the Bloorview Research Institute and Canada Research Chair in Paediatric Rehabilitation Engineering, and Glenn Schellenberg, professor in the University of Toronto Mississauga鈥檚 Department of Psychology. George Brown College provided assistance in the early stages of software development for the training programs.听

The study was supported by a grant to Moreno from the Ontario Centres of Excellence, and a grant to Bialystok from the US National Institutes of Health. The scientific team also included Raluca Barac and Nicholas Cepeda of 91亚色.

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, which will take place throughout downtown听Toronto, features the work of more than 500 local, national and international artists听

Theatre Professor Shawn Kerwin collaborated with Laurel McDonald to create "", an 鈥渁rt-app鈥� for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The app is one of five interactive installations featured in Technological Displacement, a production of the Canadian Film Centre鈥檚 Media Lab, at the Bata Shoe Museum on Bloor Street.

听

Above: Professor Shawn Kerwin has developed a new art-app for the BlackBerry PlayBook. It will debut at Nuit Blanche.

"Alone Together" uses poetic wordplay and expressive videos to remind us that we can always reframe our relationships. Kerwin developed the piece during her five-month residency at the CFC Media Lab earlier this year.

Technological Displacement is one of the 38 projects in Zone A, whose overarching theme, Restaging the Encounter, attempts to capture the fleeting moment when the political become poetic.

Another project in Zone A is by 91亚色 visual arts听alumna and multimedia artist (BA 鈥�73), located in Barbara Ann Scott Park at the heart of College Park. The work transforms a memorable phrase from Canada's national anthem into a giant haiku poem, made from flowers and cut wood floating in a water-filled pond.

Left: True Patriot Love by visual arts听grad Chrysanne Stathacos

The theme of Zone B is The Future of the Present. The works on view in this sector use new technologies to form a vocabulary for a non-pictorial art.

Visual arts grad (MFA 鈥�96) and her collaborator Lance Winn are contributing , a multimedia work that addresses the nature of surveillance, mechanization and control. Installed at Ryerson University鈥檚 loading dock on Gerrard Street, Projektor resembles a prison tower, with a roaming spotlight video projection that exposes a barren prison yard and a prisoner who attempts to escape the light.

Collaborators since 2002, Jones and Winn share a common interest in the mechanisms of reproduction and the impact they have on representation. Their work focuses on the edges of the two-dimensional image and a desire to see beyond the limits of the frame.

Also in Zone B is , an installation at 62 Bond Street by film alumnus (BFA Spec. Hons. 鈥�02). 听Reibling argues that the dolly shot (where the movie camera glides along rails) is the most revered, powerful and evocative moment in the making of a film.听 To create 12 Hour Dolly, a film crew will set up a circular dolly track and shoot film continuously for 12 hours straight. Located in the centre of the track is a makeshift stage with a single stool.听 One by one, spectators are invited to sit centre-stage and participate in the making of the film, which will be streamed live onto an adjacent wall.

Right: Dylan Reibling's take on the dolly shot took 12 hours to film

Reibling is an award-winning filmmaker whose work, exploring the mechanics of narrative,听ranges from stop-motion animation and drama to interactive prototypes.

Two other 91亚色 film alumni, (MFA 鈥�11) and (MA 鈥�09) co-created , a sound, video and interactive performance installation in the form of a "silent disco" on the P1 floor of The Atrium on Bay鈥檚 underground parking lot.听The work grew from the artists鈥� desire to explore the troubling policies entrenched in national and territorial border politics, and to question access and mobility within those borders. Participants are invited to listen with headphones to musical tracks听with lyrics referencing the text inside passports, and to watch related video projections.听

Bamboat听is a film and video artist whose work centres around aspects of diasporas, critiques of nationalism, and the ways in which the queer body relates to sites of mobility.听 Mitchell is a documentary filmmaker and media artist whose work explores performativity, memory, statehood, space and architecture.

Left: Border Sounds is a sound, video and interactive performance installation by two 91亚色 film alumni

Maria Coates, a graduate student in art history and curatorial studies, is interning with the curator of Zone C, 91亚色 art history alumnus Nicholas Brown (MA 鈥�08), who comes to Nuit Blanche after a two-year stint as curator of Toronto鈥檚 Red Bull 381 Projects.

Brown鈥檚 theme for Zone C is You had to go looking for it. Convening in the wake of the recent civil unrest around the G20 meeting in the city, the project invites the masses to transform and occupy Toronto's financial district. Artists will open up the area as a place of otherworldly encounter, ambivalent assembly and enthusiastic competition, inverting and misusing the symbolic language of corporate capitalism.

Coates, whose research centres on contemporary Latin American art, is working on , an installation by Mexican-born, Los Angeles-based artist Camilo Ontiveros. The project is a large-scale vigil that invites audience members to light a candle in commemoration of the lost lives of migrant workers in Ontario. It reaches out to individual passersby as well as organizations that represent the interests of labour, including United Food and Commercial Workers Canada and the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts.

鈥淲hat attracts听me to Camilo's project in the context of this international, corporate-sponsored, city-run festival is how it offers a space for pause and reflection in honour of something that we tend to overlook,鈥� said Coates.

Coates appreciates the opportunity to intern with Brown 鈥� a relationship brokered by Art History Graduate Program Director Anna Hudson. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been great to work with a recent grad whom I could relate to through discussions of contemporary art and what鈥檚 entailed in becoming a curator in Toronto. Nick has been a great mentor in guiding me through the process and leaving room for me to perform in a meaningful way,鈥� she said.

Also in Zone C are a performance installation by visual art alumnus (MFA 鈥�10) and Tibi Tibi Neuspiel, and by John Notten, a visual arts and education graduate (BEd 鈥�87, BFA 鈥�87).

Right: The Tie Break is a performative re-enactment of the most riveting episode in the history of tennis

Pugen, whose work has been featured in publications such as Artforum and Adbusters, is a recipient of the K.M Hunter Award for Interdisciplinary Art. His collaborative piece, The Tie Break, is a performative re-enactment of the 鈥渕ost riveting episode in the 鈥� history [of tennis]鈥� (ESPN): the legendary fourth set tie-break at the 1980 Wimbledon men鈥檚 singles finals between Bj枚rn Borg and John McEnroe. The matches will take place hourly at 25 minutes after the hour at Commerce Court, North Plaza on King Street.

狈辞迟迟别苍鈥檚 Intensity invites the audience to explore the presentation centre for a luxury condominium development, but delivers a vast and sprawling tent city.听As in the 2002 eviction of Toronto鈥檚 waterfront tent city, viewers are forced to move out of their temporary tent homes every few minutes. Installed in the Arnell Plaza of the Bay-Adelaide Centre, this all-night drama echoes the realities of makeshift communities around the world that rise up in the wake of human tragedy.

Left: John Notten's Intensity delivers a vast and sprawling tent city. Viewers must move out of their temporary homes every few minutes in a re-enactment of the 2002 eviction of residents from Toronto's waterfront tent city.

Toronto鈥檚 sixth annual Nuit Blanche kicks off at 6:59pm on Saturday, Oct. 1 and runs to daybreak on Sunday, Oct. 2.

With 134 installations, the celebration covers the city鈥檚 entire downtown area, from Roncesvalles Avenue in the west all the way to the Distillery Historic District in the east, and from Bloor Street to the Lake Shore. Admission to all events is free.

Photos courtesy听of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

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