Music professor Lauren McCall keen to extend realities

by | May 28, 2025 | Faculty, Research, School of Music

Lauren McCall (photo: Shannel Resto)

When it comes to attracting new talent to our faculty, national borders are no barrier. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, Lauren McCall is the newest professor to join our School of Music faculty.

Music technology a draw

An assistant research professor in composition and music technology since January 2025, McCall says she was initially intrigued by both UVic’s natural and academic environments. “I was really interested in seeing another part of the world, and I love the School’s combination of music composition and music technology . . . that’s still a pretty new thing for music schools to offer.”

With areas of interest ranging from traditional composition to extended reality interactive systems plus music & computer science educational platforms, McCall received her PhD in music technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her MFA in Music Composition from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She’s had her own compositions performed around North America and Europe — some of which you can listen to on her website.

McCall says she was aware of UVic though the reputation of faulty members like George Tzanetakis (music & computer science) and Christopher Butterfield (composition), both of whom had connections with her own professors at Georgia Tech and Vermont College. “I got a really good vibe from that,” she says. “And then when I was interviewing, there seemed to be a real openness to trying new things — like laptop orchestras — so it seemed like a good fit with my own background and research.”

Extending reality

Laptop orchestras and extended reality technologies are of particular interest to McCall.

“With laptop orchestra, I like to build systems where people have non-immersive interactive systems on their computers to interact with other ensemble members through a cloud-based connection . . . it provides a lot of collaborative opportunities for ensembles with composers or even just creating new arrangements of classic music pieces,” she explains. “It could be just like a musical ensemble: you may have a group of four laptops over here and four over there but they have completely different parts and they play music together like they’re an orchestra — it’s really cool!”

While she embraces the future of music technology, McCall says she did come from a traditional background, playing and teaching clarinet, piano and saxophone. “I studied a lot of jazz and classical music, but in college I had opportunities to help teach laptop orchestra classes and create pieces for them,” she says.

Her work in extended realities includes virtual and augmented realities. “Sometimes I’ll build systems where people have VR headsets and they’re immersed in a virtual space, or have augmented reality on their phone and will use a digital overlay to interact with what they see through their camera in the real world,” she explains. “Or maybe we develop an application where the phone is your instrument and your sound design is based on interactions with the digital elements  . . . the range of possibilities are just endless.”

With UVic’s combined music and computer science program facing increasing demand, McCall feels access to technology and software are opening more doors than in the past. “Having a laptop isn’t such a barrier as it used to be and there’s so many different programming options: there’s both free and paid programs, online digital audio workstations . . . even social media includes sound-designing and video-editing tools now.”

She’s even hoping to conquer the learning barrier traditional music students sometimes face. “In music & computer science classes, students are always happy to tinker and test stuff out, but composition students tend to be a bit more hesitant. Sometimes they think it’s not for them or that it’s wrong to make mistakes, but the more we engage with these technologies the more people will be comfortable with them. It’s just about adjusting assignments so people don’t feel left out.”

Reflections on her first semester

Having just completed her first semester teaching courses in both composition and music & computers, McCall says some of her highlights included attending the School of Music’s student composer concerts and the annual West Coast Student Composers Symposium (featuring students from UVic, UBC and SFU), as well as getting out of the Music wing to enjoy the year-end BFA exhibit in Visual Arts and discover more of Vancouver Island.

“I enjoyed meeting my colleagues, working with students and getting to know UVic,” she concludes. “I’m looking forward to collaborating with people in the community and enjoying what the students and other professors are creating here.”

Hidden networks spark ONC artistic residency

by | May 22, 2025 | Award, climate, Graduate, Research, Visual Arts

From the human body’s neural connections to unseen water channels sustaining life in arid landscapes, the mysterious nature of invisible systems has always fascinated artist Parvin Hasani. “Hidden networks have always sparked my imagination and fueled my exploration of the intersections between art and science,” she says.

A Master’s student in UVic’s Visual Arts department, Parvin will soon be exploring deep-sea hydrothermal vents as the sixth Fine Arts graduate student selected for the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship. “My artistic practice began with exploring the idea of hidden networks,” she says.

After exploring the connection between neural networks and human memory for her Bachelor’s degree in Iran, Parvin then came to UVic to develop sculptural interpretations of ecological networks during her grad studies. “I was inspired by the idea of hidden water-management systems in Iran — where we have a thousand wells dating back more than 3,000 years that are all connected to each other beneath the earth — so focusing on water is part of my practice as well,” she says.

Exploring metaphoric parallels

All of that will come together this summer as Parvin explores the creative connections between memory, body and the environment through her conceptual sculptural practices. Specifically, she intends to use ONC’s oceanographic research on the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vent Field — an active, mineral-rich environment on the deep-sea Juan de Fuca Ridge — to draw metaphoric parallels between the rhythms of the ocean and the processes of the human body.

“It was interesting when I found out the hydrothermal vents looked like clustered chimneys, because visually they were similar to the wells in Iran,” she says. “I’m looking forward to learning about their surface texture and colour palette, because material exploration is a big part of my work. Researching the vent field data will also help me create my installation . . . scientific research has always informed my creative process—for example, during my undergrad, I created sculptures inspired by the structures of neurons, exploring how form carries meaning.”

By drawing on ONC’s research, Parvin’s sculptural installations will explore how unseen forces sustain both marine life and human experience, linking oceanic and bodily systems that shape identity and memory.

“Just as superheated, mineral-rich water rises from the seafloor, memory often lies beneath consciousness, waiting to surface,” she explains about the concept behind her residency. “This extreme ecosystem will be mirrored in sculptures embodying the rhythms of both the ocean and the body.”

September exhibition planned

With her ONC residency running May through August 2025, Parvin expects to have an exhibit and public presentation ready for early September. As a newcomer to Vancouver Island, Parvin is also excited to learn more about our coastal environments.

“The ocean has always been mysterious to me,” she says. “It’s kind of an unknown place that plays with the duality between surface and depths . . . I really wanted to explore how much the vastness of the of the water can inspire me to explore and push the boundaries of my work.”

Read about our previous Fine Arts graduate student ONC artistic residencies: Megan Harton, Neil Griffin, Colin Malloy, Dennis Gupa and Colton Hash,

Inaugural JRSP Artist-Scholar Residency announced

by | May 12, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, donor, Visual Arts

In partnership with the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park (JRSP), Fine Arts is pleased to announce that Canadian artist Siobhan Humston has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the UVic/JRSP Artist-Scholar Residency for 2025-2026. During her time at the Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island, Humston will develop new work combining themes involving music, synesthesia and humanity’s entanglement with the natural world.

“I hope to tie together the circles of music and visual art, drawing what I refer to in my relationship to the beauty and mystery of nature as ‘poetics of place’,” says Humston, who has an international practice. “This residency will also allow me to reconnect to this area of Canada, putting fuel to fire for my deep love for the Canadian west coast.”

Following an international call in late 2024, 57 people applied for the 6-week residency to be held annually at the Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island, followed by a week at UVic. After her residency, Humston will present an exhibit of the work and offer a public talk in October 2025 at UVic [date TBA].

“Jeffrey Rubinoff held that art was an existential necessity—an expression of mature conscience, evoking our innate sense of the sacred and the sublime. Far from diminishing individual conscience, such art elevates and inspires it,” says Karun Koernig, curator of the Rubinoff Sculpture Park. “Humston’s work exemplifies this vision, quietly co-mingling distinct form-worlds—the natural and the human. In her hands, everyday materials sourced from the land sublimate into visual poetry. Particularly compelling for us was Humston’s ambition to integrate a soundscape into her residency, resonating deeply with Rubinoff’s profound connection to music.”

Humston’s art has been exhibited in over 70 solo and group exhibitions in commercial, artist-run and public galleries, and is held in private and corporate collections in England, Europe, Australia and North America. She is the recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation Fellowship, a City of London arts bursary, Ontario Arts Council grants, a BC Arts Council education grant and, most recently, an Ontario Arts Council exhibition assistance grant for a 2024 solo exhibit. She has been featured on City TV Vancouver & Calgary, the Vancouver Sun and CBC Radio’s Arts Report.

Originally from London, Ontario, she graduated with a BFA in printmaking and painting from Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork, Ireland, followed by an MFA with a distinction in Art & Environment from Falmouth University in Cornwall, England. She then held a series of international artist residencies, including two years at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, England and a month at Hugo Burge Foundation at Marchmont Estate, Scotland.

She returned to Canada to set up a studio on the shores of Lake Huron, where her ongoing research about the connection between environmental art, nature, spirituality and science culminated with a solo exhibit, In the Garden of Exquisite Unknown, at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery in Sarnia, Ontario.

See her work here and follow her on Instagram.

Instructor & Lehan Lecturer wins $25K award

by | May 9, 2025 | Award, donor, Theatre

Congratulations go out to Theatre instructor and 2025 Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Lecturer d’bi.young anitafrika, who has been awarded a $25,000 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize.

An internationally acclaimed Black-queer-feminist non-binary dub poet, playwright-performer, dramaturge-director and scholar-activist, d’bi’s visionary contributions to theatre, education and leadership have made space for rigorous decolonial practice. You can watch their 2025 Lehan Lecture here.

With over 25 years of trailblazing artistry in plays, albums, books and leadership — their intersectional Anitafrika Method, rooted in Black feminist thought, has revolutionized arts-based practices nationally and internationally — d’bi also recently received a $242,500 Canada Council grant to establish a digital theatre archive, collaborating with Black Womxn Circle and UVic Libraries: KULA. While completing their PhD in London (UK), they have been leading training programs at Toronto’s Soulpepper and Obsidian theatres and here at UVic.

Selected from a field of 15 finalists, d’bi is one of five Metcalf winners: each receives $25,000 and chooses a protégé to receive a separate $10,000 prize: d’bi’s protégé is Sashoya Simpson, a Jamaican-Canadian writer, theatre practitioner and the associate artistic director of Watah Theatre and the Black Theatre School.

The Metcalf Prizes celebrate Ontario’s leading creators in the performing arts and is one of the largest unrestricted prizes for artists in Ontario, celebrating mid-career and early-career artists across multiple disciplines.

Writing grad Kyeren Regehr is Victoria’s newest Poet Laureate

by | May 5, 2025 | Alumni, Award, Graduate, Writing

Once again, the City of Victoria’s Poet Laureate position has gone to a Department of Writing alumni.

Writing grad Kyeren Regehr was recently appointed as the City of Victoria’s latest Poet Laureate. Regehr (MFA ’13, BFA ’11 + a Fine Arts Victoria Medal recipient) is an award-winning literary poet and the current artistic director of Planet Earth Poetry, one of Canada’s longest-running weekly reading series. She will serve her term beginning April 2025 and, in addition to curating community events, she will also be hosting The Poet Laureate Podcast.

“I’m honoured to serve as Victoria’s seventh Poet Laureate on lək̓ʷəŋən homelands and look forward to deepening our connection to poetry and one another,” she says.

Kyeren follows in the literary footsteps of previous Poet Laureates John Barton and Carla Funk (plus UVic grad Yvonne Blomer), making our grads three of the seven Poet Laureates since the position was created in 2006. Writing can also boast of having four previous Youth Poet Laureates among the 11 youth who have held the position: Eva Haas, Eli Mushumanski, K.P. Dennis and Aysia Law. (Shauntelle Dick-Charleson is the newest Youth Poet Laureate.)

Regehr is an award-winning poet, writer and the author of Cult Life, which was a finalist for the national ReLit Awards and Victoria’s own Butler Book Prize; her Disassembling A Dancer won the inaugural Raven Chapbooks contest. Her poetry has appeared in top literary journals and anthologies across Canada, Australia and the US, and she has won or been shortlisted for more than two dozen literary contests.

Beyond the page, Regehr’s background in professional dance and theatre gives her poetry an unmistakable rhythm. She once found herself in the finals of the Victoria Poetry Slam completely by accident after encouraging her students to perform. Now, as Artistic Director of Planet Earth Poetry, she continues to champion the literary arts

“We’re delighted to have the talents of Kyeren and Shauntelle representing the City as Poet Laureates,” says Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto. “I look forward to seeing their work inspire and connect residents of all ages through the power of poetry.”