Attention SFU graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty
Test Kitchen is an informal, interdisciplinary public forum for SFU graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty to share their work with others. To encourage the discussion of ideas-in-progress, Test Kitchen’s atmosphere is intentionally relaxed. Selected participants gather at the Gibson Art Museum, rather than in a classroom or formal conference setting. Presenters share the floor with colleagues from different disciplines, so conversation can rove across research areas, encouraging synergies between varied fields of inquiry. Each season, Test Kitchen’s sessions will be framed by an open-ended prompt offered by the Gibson’s curatorial team. Selected talks should be maximum 15 minutes in length, but any format is encouraged.
Test Kitchen 3: Digressions
A digression is described as a temporary departure from a subject or a wandering off topic in speech, writing, or thought. It is also understood as an aside, a tangent, or a deviation from a planned path. While the term can have negative connotations, digressions can also be profoundly generative, creating new pathways of inquiry, adding depth, or building tension. When and where have digressions proven crucial in your research trajectory? What presumptions have they frustrated, and what new forms surfaced in their wake?
Submit your 200-word proposal by September 20, 2026. Selected participants will be notified by September 27, 2026.
Test Kitchen: Digressions will run every Wednesday in November, 2026, from 12 to 1PM in the Gibson’s Forum. This program is free and open to all to attend. Brown bag lunch is encouraged.
Questions? Email thegibson@sfu.ca