A new (and different) school year
Welcome to issue 13 of the Fine Arts Connector and the start of a new academic year—one that we can definitely say will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
With only about 3,500 students on campus and the majority of classes being held online, there’s no question UVic looks and feels different right now. But here in Fine Arts, we are still offering a number of face-to-face courses—primarily in Theatre, Visual Arts and the School of Music—and the changes to our campus spaces mirror the changes in our teaching curriculum.
If you’re curious about what life will be like on campus this fall, check out this short UVic video.
Normally, Fine Arts offers well over 200 public events a year, but while we have a few events confirmed (see below), we’re still figuring out exactly what our fall events will look like. More on that in the weeks ahead, but be sure to keep an eye on our social media feeds in the meantime.
As always, please enjoy—and circulate—this collection of material featuring our faculty, students, alumni, staff and guests as a way of both sharing what our creative community is up to and keeping us all connected. You can also help by keeping us in the loop if you’re working on a live-streaming project, have online material to share or are involved in something you’d like people to know about: just email either fineartsevents@uvic.ca or johnt@uvic.ca.
Finally, you can sign up here to receive automatic notice of The Connector each issue.
New faculty members
The new academic year also sees three new full-time faculty members joining Fine Arts: Beth Stuart as an assistant professor in Visual Arts, Kathryn Mockler as an assistant professor in Writing and Dr. Anthony Tan as the School of Music’s new assistant professor of composition.
Beth Stuart works in an expanding range of media including writing, painting, ceramic, performance, textiles and sculptural installation, and has taught at OCAD University, the University of Guelph and the University of Toronto Mississauga. Recent material research has convened bizarre Victorian bathing customs, the politics of stretch, time travel, melting rock with her bare hands, pizza and contemporary art as a site of ritual sublimation.
An award-winning teacher who comes to us from Western University, Kathryn Mockler is the author of four poetry books and six short films. A TIFF Talent Lab Alumnus, Praxis Screenwriting Fellow and San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Fellowship winner, she specializes in film/TV writing, poetry, short fiction and climate/ecological writing, among other areas. Her latest short film, Tornado, appears as part of the Arizona Underground Film Festival this month.
Anthony Tan is an award-winning composer, pianist and electronic musician who draws artistic influence from conceptual metaphors, an attention to the psychophysical experiences of sound and a reflection on music’s cultural context. A fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, he comes to us from the University of Colorado (Colorado Springs). He has presented his music at major festivals in North America and Europe, and has been commissioned by numerous international ensembles.
Welcome to all!
Media roundup
Carey Newman on colonial statues
Visual Arts Audain Professor Carey Newman was recently quoted in The Tyee article “Tearing Down Our Monumental Mistakes” about the push to remove problematic historical monuments across Canada, and the need to focus on how to transform the spaces these colonial statues held.
“They’re anti-reconciliation,” said Newman in the article. “They are not history. They are an illustration of a version of history . . . . They don’t serve the same kind of purpose as art.”
“For me, art is about expression of ideas about challenging people to think differently, about bringing beauty or commemoration for things that we never want to forget. Those things don’t exist in statues that are really about remembering a particular person for a particular purpose and, very often, a person who was an architect of something that was inherently oppressive.”
A new position
In August, very busy Theatre PhD alumnus Taiwo Afolabi appeared on the OMNI TV program New Canadians as part of a panel discussion on how his experience as a UVic Crossing Borders Scholar provided opportunities to find connections in the community. And while Afolabi had been the Manager of Artistic and Community Engagement with the Belfry Theatre (a position for which they are now hiring), he recently accepted a position as assistant professor Socially Engaged Creative Practices with the University of Regina’s Faculty of Media, Art and Performance.
As part of his farewell to Victoria, Afolabi speaks with Belfry artistic director Michael Shamata about his time at the Belfry in this short video, and in August he also held this artist conversation for the Creative Mornings series titled “Stress: To Peel or Not to Peel?” We congratulate Taiwo on his new position!
Music student explore reconciliation
As reported in this September 20 Times Colonist article, first-year School of Music student Lucas Hung has created a series of video interviews with four WSANEC members to explore what reconciliation means in Canada. Hung hopes his project—titled Taking Reconcili-Action—will inspire others to seek out their own first-hand learning about Indigenous cultures.
Hung has interviewed SENĆOŦEN language revitalization advocates John Elliott and Pena Elliott, as well as Tsartlip master carver Charles Elliott and Salish artist Chris Paul. The project, funded in part by the Heritage B.C. Heritage Legacy Fund, includes a guide for teachers to lead students through their own Reconcili-Action projects.
“We wanted to show teachers, if you want to do something like this, here’s all the things that you can learn from just having a single conversation,” Hung said.
Student involved in social justice mural
Back in August, a group of 17 artists united to paint a mural in Bastion Square, with the intention of raising awareness around injustices suffered by Black and Indigenous people and people of colour. One of the artists is current Visual Arts undergrad Laveen Gammie.
The finished mural reads “More Justice More Peace”, with each artist changing large white block letters into individual pieces of artistic expressions. “It is perhaps a fitting metaphor for the project,” said Gammie in this Times Colonist article. “The letter starts out as white in the beginning and becomes filled with colour as the day wears on.”
Theatre student Zooms over Shakespeare
As the arts community continues to adapt to the new restrictions, our students continue to find new ways of staying involved. In this recent BC Local News article, current Theatre student Ryan Kniel discusses teaching and producing virtual stage plays using video conferencing platforms.
“Learning how to film on Zoom, how to collaborate as an ensemble in an online environment and how to communicate with scene members that you don’t see in a physical rehearsal are all important skills in this new world of theatre,” says Kneil.
Kniel was among 12 young actors from across Canada selected for funding from the RBC Emerging Artists Project, which included a spot in the Riotous Youth program—a paid internship with Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach festival, whose 2020 season was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Alumni guitarist
As noted in this recent article in The Province, School of Music alumnus and Vancouver-based guitarist Adrian Verdejo has put his COVID time to work developing new music initiatives.
Now an instructor at both Vancouver Community College and Douglas College, Verdejo has made a name for himself as a new music guitarist over the past decade, but with COVID cancelling planned travel activities, he’s been busy developing videos, podcasts and new online performance opportunities for other musicians. “Fortunately, projects started to come in,” Verdejo says in the article.
Improving diversity
Vancouver’s CityNews recently spoke with Theatre alumni Cecilly Day and Rahat Saini, who shared their perspectives and experiences facing race-based barriers in the program. Acting Dean of Fine Arts Allana Lindgren is quoted about the department’s commitment to improved diversity, inclusion and anti-racism efforts.
“While we have actively sought ways in recent years to expand our awareness and build skills in equity, diversity and inclusion, including ant-racism, we realize that there is more to do,” says Lindgren.
Festival voices
Writing professor Deborah Campbell kicked off the 2020 author season for the Sunshine Coast Literary Reading Series—which has been running for more than 40 years—by offering the first public reading in their pivot to Zoom. The event was mentioned in the Coast Reporter newspaper.
Carey Newman
Taiwo Afolabi
Upcoming events
Orange Shirt Day is September 30
UVic is committed to reconciliation. We’re working to foster respect and mutual understanding with all Indigenous peoples and communities. You can partner in the work of reconciliation by listening, learning and sharing on Orange Shirt Day.
Orange Shirt Day at UVic goes virtual this year, featuring a conversation between UVic Chancellor Shelagh Rogers and Phyllis Webstad, whose story sparked the drive to recognize Orange Shirt Day. Join the virtual event at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to wear an orange shirt (available at the UVic Bookstore) on Sept. 30 as a visual symbol of our awareness of the need for ongoing reconciliation. The UVic shirt was designed by Visual Arts Audain Professor Carey Newman.
You can show your support by uploading a photo of yourself wearing an orange shirt (or email your photo to socialmedia@uvic.ca) and be part of UVic’s social media campaign (use the #OrangeShirtDayUVic).
Proceeds from t-shirt sales support the Elders Engagement Fund and the Witness Blanket Project. If you already have an orange shirt, please consider making a $20 donation directly to the Elders Engagement Fund this year.
Read more about the history of Orange Shirt Day here.
The Art of Living in the Time of COVID
Given this year’s topic, it’s appropriate that the 15th annual Lafayette Health Awareness Series will take place as a webinar at 7pm on Thursday, October 1.
Hosted by Chancellor Shelagh Rogers and featuring a performance by the School of Music’s Lafayette String Quartet, guest speakers include BC Chief Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry, UVic Medical Sciences instructor Terence Tam (of the Victoria Symphony) and Steven Taylor (author of The Psychology of Pandemics).
“We’ve long believed that what affects one of us truly affects all of us—and we’ve never had a topic been more true to that idea than this,” says the LSQ’s Pamela Highbaugh-Aloni. “Let’s just keep living and figuring out what we need to do.”
The Art of Living in the Time of COVID is presented in partnership with UVic’ Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health. Donations will help establish a Lafayette Music and Health Legacy Fund.
Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards
Formerly known as the ProArt Alliance Awards but now dubbed the Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards, watching for a livestream broadcast of the 2020 program from 5-6pm Saturday, October 3.
Fine Arts will be participating this year, with Acting Dean Allana Lindgren making an announcement, as well as Audain Professor Carey Newman once again presenting his award for the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art. Last year’s awards saw Fine Arts alumni Matthew Payne, Lindsay Delaronde and Colton Hash win all three categories; this year, there will be more awards presented in more categories.
The 2020 awards will be expanded to include a number of new categories and broaden the accolades to a wider number of local arts practitioners. Find out more here.
Resources
Free UVic masks for all
Even with limited numbers of people on campus, common areas can be congested, making it difficult to consistently maintain a safe physical distance. If you’re working on campus this fall, UVic recommends that you wear a mask in public indoor spaces like hallways, stairways, building entryways and other high-traffic areas, especially where it’s more difficult to keep distance.
With that in mind, UVic-branded reusable face masks are now available for each on-campus student, faculty and staff member. Just show your ONECard at the University Centre ONECard office to receive your mask throughout September and October.
AGGV FASP program
Our colleagues at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria would like to remind all faculty and students about their Fine Arts Student Pass program.
Whether students are visiting solo for artistic inspiration or as part of a class assignment, the FASP program offers unlimited admission to the AGGV for the entire academic year—for just $12. (That’s only $1 more than a single admission ticket!) The FASP Membership is valid from September 1, 2020 (or date of purchase) to August 31, 2021.
Simply forward this link to your students and they can register online, then present their e-ticket at the front desk along with student ID. In addition to unlimited free entrances to the AGGV, Fine Arts students also receive email invitations to gallery events, their e-magazine and a 10% discount in the gallery shop.
While possibly of most interest to Visual Arts and Art History & Visual Studies students, this offer is open to any student currently registered in the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Students may also want to get involved with the AGGV’s volunteer program. With more than 300 volunteers working together with staff as assistants, docents and special event hosts in a variety of departments (education, curatorial, collections, advancement), it can be a good opportunity to gain experience for students who love art.
A giant achievement
The work of Department of Theatre design professor Patrick DuWors was featured in the 2020 edition of the Critical Costume Conference and Exhibition, hosted by the Costume Agency Artistic Research Project.
Originally intended to be a live event in August, the international exhibition was moved online due to COVID. With a focus on the agency of costume in performance and how costume can generate or be a centre of gravitation in performance, Critical Costume 2020 is supported by the Norwegian Artistic Research Program, Oslo National Academy of the Arts and Norwegian Arts Council.
DuWors, an alumnus of the Theatre department himself, was featured for his costume designs—alongside Robert Leveroos’ puppet designs—for Ghost River Theatre’s award-winning production of GIANT. As part of the exhibition, DuWors moderated two of the conference’s working group sessions.
GIANT tells the story of wrestler Andre the Giant. As a way of exploring the hyper-masculine, yet incredibly flamboyant, world of professional wrestling, five female actors played all parts—including Andre.
The Critical Costume Exhibition presents artworks that treat costume as their main medium—often as a starting point for a performance, and always as a crucial aspect of a performance. This exhibition aims to emphasize the immediacy and intrinsic nature of costumes to everyday human life and a person’s sense of self: connection to body, movement, identity, expression, sensuality, emotionality. The costume is a bridge between the body and the world.
Built on two main strands of costume performances—communication and exploration—eight further categories then unfold under these two central ideas, including “Identity Agency”, in which DuWors’ work is featured.
“The puppet design explored the dramaturgical role of scale, while the idea of masculinity-as-character was expressed through the costume design,” notes DuWors in the Critical Costume description of the production.
“Skins and shells formed the foundation of our approach. Shapes and textures meant to augment and distort the bodies of the five women inhabiting a very masculine profession were inspired by action figure versions of Andre once sold as toys. In each scene, the performers would attempt to put a different piece of Andre ‘on’ – to wear him as a way to understand him.”
Be sure to explore the remarkable range of work on display at Critical Costume 2020.
Singing for life
When graduating School of Music soprano Chelsea Kutyn decided to film a rehearsal for her graduation recital this spring, she had no idea that it would soon lead to national press coverage as a result of a life-threatening health risk.
When the campus started to shut down in March, Kutyn thought it would be a good safety measure to film herself singing.
“When we heard that countries were going into lockdown, my accompanist and I decided to film something just in case—we thought the building might be closed, but we never expected one of us to get sick,” she says.
Yet shortly thereafter, Kutyn fell ill. “They weren’t testing for COVID yet, but the doctors and nurses all said it was ‘suspected COVID’ due to my symptoms and the timeline of how it progressed.”
And while the School of Music did indeed close, Kutyn suddenly found herself unable to perform her grad recital due to illness—yet her performance video not only saved the day (“Luckily I passed with flying colours!”) but also helped her win the Victoria Medal, awarded annually to the Fine Arts student with the highest GPA in the faculty.
But the story of the young singer who contracted COVID but still graduated top of her class caught the attention of the media, with interviews appearing in the Times Colonist, CHEK TV, CBC News, Global TV, CBC Radio and even Newsweek magazine.
While she’s wary of being branded a cautionary tale, Kutyn does see the value in sharing her story. “I just hope it brings awareness to others who feel it’s not as much of an issue as it really is,” she says.
“If you don’t personally know someone who has been affected, people seem to assume it can’t happen to them. I would never wish that situation on anyone; it was a really terrifying situation.”
Read the full version of this story here.
Art on view locally
As the weather turns, it’s a good time to head indoors and see some of the art on view by faculty, students and alumni of the Department of Visual Arts. The first Visiting Artist on the 2020 academic year, being offered online by the Visual Arts department, features Toronto-based artist Kim Dorland.
Dorland pushes the boundaries of painted representation through an exploration of memory, material, nostalgia, identity and place. Drawing heavily from the Canadian landscape and his huge appetite for the history and language of painting, the loose yet identifiable scenes are interjected with areas of heavy abstract impasto. His refusal to remain faithful to one medium or approach plays into the symbiotic nature of his work.
You can watch & engage with Dorland’s Visiting Artist lecture starting at 7pm Wednesday, September 23 at this Zoom link.
A Kwakwaka’wakw multimedia artist, Cook says this installation represents Umetl, The Raven, who had the ability to transform and carry messages between the spirit world and the life we live today.
“This installation is about Umetl rising up again, restoring the balance that has been broken by governments who are signing agreements over resource extraction with corporations, contaminating the waters, the inequality being forced upon the minority races and sexes, the lack of support and protection for women and children, the LGBTQ community, BLM, ILM, and the many more who are suffering due to capitalistic power and gain.”
Three alumni at Legacy
The work of three Visual Arts alumni are part of a pair of exhibits current open at UVic’s downtown Legacy Gallery (630 Yates).
TUKTUUYAQTUUQ (Caribou Crossing) features work by Maureen Gruben. Tuktuuyaqtuuq is the Inuvialuktun name of Gruben’s home on the Arctic coast (known in English as “Tuktoyaktuk”) and means “looks like a caribou.”
In TUKTUUYAQTUUQ (continuing to November 14), Gruben works with multiple facets of the animal to show how integral they are to Inuvialuit life, providing food, clothes, tools and stories.
Also on view is To Fish As Formerly: A Story of Straits Salish Resurgence (to November 21) a group exhibit curated by UVic alumni XEMŦOLTW̱ Dr. Nicholas Claxton (School of Child and Youth Care) and Katie Hughes, and featuring work by Visual Arts alumni Sarah Jim and Colton Hash alongside the likes of TEMOSEN Charles Elliott, J,SIṈTEN John Elliott, Chris Paul, Dylan Thomas, Temoseng, aka Chasz Elliott.
Art on view distantly
Out of town, professor Paul Walde’s Weeks Feel Like Days, Months Feel Like Years is on view at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska until October 31. A generative sound artwork in which performers are invited to interpret a series of five text-based scores responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Weeks Feel Like Days is available as both an audio/video installation at the museum and an audio gallery on the website.
The scores were composed to be performed by individuals or groups in isolation, and welcomes performers to reflect on their own experiences during the pandemic.
Walde’s Tom Thomson Centennial Swim video installation recently closed at Touchstones Museum of Art and History in Nelson, after a run interrupted by the COVID outbreak, and three works from his Alaska Variations album were recently featured on the UK radio show, Signal to Noise.
“The questions and concepts of diaspora are of deep, personal interest to me as a person of colour born in Canada of mixed Asian heritage,” says curator and managing director Cheryl Sim.
RELATIONS presents a selection of work by artists who address questions of diaspora from diverse perspectives, methodologies and aesthetic languages. The medium of painting, with its deep and complex history, becomes a particularly provocative lens through which to explore the complications and diversities that are analogous to the richness of diasporic experiences. This collective body of work also aims for an intergenerational dialogue and presents artists whose work has pushed the boundaries of what painting is and can be.
Created with software used by the film and gaming industries, and using data from NASA’s missions to Mars, Richardson has created a realistic representation of the Mars landscape covered by the debris of centuries of exploration. Despite the apparent abandoned state of the planet, some of the spacecraft continue to work, looking for signs of life.
New book for chair
The latest book by Art History & Visual Studies chair Marcus Milwright is now out: Middle Eastern Encounters: Collected Essays on Visual, Material, and Textual Interactions between the Eighth and the Twenty-first Centuries was recently released by Georgia Press.
A wide-ranging volume, Middle Eastern Encounters focuses on interactions between the Islamic world and other regions. Topics explored are as varied as relief-moulded pottery production in Raqqa, the construction of palaces in Samarra, portraiture in Arabic manuscript painting, images of Muslim rulers in early Modern printed books and the broadcast of the medical examination of Saddam Hussein.
Milwright, a professor of Islamic art and archaeology, also focuses on the challenges involved in the study of cultural interactions between Islamic and non-Islamic regions. The volume also includes a previously unpublished study of recently discovered photographs, drawings and writings relating to the Middle East made by soldiers during and after World War I.
You can keep up on Milwright’s varied interests and influences via his frequent (and fascinating) posts on the Fine Arts Gateway to Art website.
Award noms for alumni & instructors
Along with the start of classes, September also sees the start of the annual book awards season—and so far, we’re looking at a bumper crop of nominations for Fine Arts alumni and instructors.
Kicking off the awards season is the $10,000 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, which annually celebrates the top short stories by Canada’s brightest emerging talents.
Among the 13 finalists for the 2020 awards are three Department of Writing alumni—Susan Sanford Blades, Cara Marks and Rachael Lesosky—all of whom will also see their work appear in the annual anthology, The Journey Prize Stories 32. (Winners announced October 21.)
Of the eight new books nominated for the annual $10,000 Victoria Book Prizes, only one wasn’t created by a member of our Fine Arts community. Nominees for the $5,000 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize include Writing alumni Carla Funk (Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood) and Steven Price (Lampedusa), former Writing faculty Lorna Crozier (The House The Spirit Builds) and Christin Geall (Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style), and Audain Professor Carey Newman and former Writing instructor Kirstie Hudson (Picking Up The Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of The Witness Blanket). Nominees for the $5,000 City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize include Writing/Theatre alumnus and current Writing instructor Mark Leiren-Young (Orcas Everywhere: The Mystery and History of Killer Whales) and Writing alumna Sara Cassidy (Nevers). (Winners announced October 4.)
Newman and Hudson’s Picking Up the Pieces is also a finalist in the $10,000 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, part of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards.
Victoria Festival of Authors
Writing alumni are well-represented at the upcoming Victoria Festival of Authors—Vancouver Island’s largest literary festival, which this year is being held online for free from September 30 to October 4.
Featured alumni writers include current City of Victoria Poet Laureate John Barton (Lost Family), Carla Funk (Every Little Scrap and Wonder), Kyeren Regehr (Cult Life), Mallory Tater (Pushcart Prize nominee), Amanda Leduc (The Miracles of Ordinary Men), Serena Lukas Bandhar (Pushcart Prize nominee), Arleen Paré (Earle Street ), Yvonne Blomer (Sugar Ride) and former student K.P. Dennis (former Victoria Youth Poet Laureate), plus Lorna Crozier (Through the Garden), and Carey Newman in conversation with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
You’ll find the full schedule and find registration info here.
Alumni film debut
Finally, acclaimed novelist and Writing alumna Eden Robinson is having a great fall, thanks to a feature film adaptation of her debut novel, Monkey Beach (screening Sept 24 at UVic’s Cinecenta—with will also hopefully include an afterword conversation piece between Robinson and director Loretta Todd). Robinson is also seeing her recent novel, Son of a Trickster, transformed into the new CBC TV series Trickster.
