AGGV curator brings experience to the classroom

by | Jul 27, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Faculty, Research, Undergraduate, Visual Arts

Heng Wu teaching her AHVS class

Art History & Visual Studies students once again had the unique opportunity this year to learn from professional art curator and adjunct assistant professor Dr. Heng Wu.

Currently the Curator of Asian Art at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV), Wu oversees one of the premier Asian art collections in North America and the finest in Western Canada. Her teaching practice focuses on museum research, curation and Asian art. She places great importance on applying the experiences gained from museum work to her research and teaching, while simultaneously incorporating her research findings and thoughts back into her practical work.

 Wu’s course — AHVS 202: “Confronting the Object” — brings real-world curatorial insights and experience into the classroom, showing students the professional side of museum work. “The course title may be ‘Confronting the Object’ but ‘confronting’ doesn’t mean to argue,” she explains. “I just want students to understand that objects are not neutral at all.”

AHVS students go behind the scenes at the Royal BC Museum (above) & the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (below), contributing to a greater understanding of object handling, acquisitional practices & display techniques

Objects are the focus

Objects are central to this course since Wu believes that they are at the centre of museums and curatorial practice. “Behind any museum object is a series of decisions, and every decision is made with thoughtful, professional thinking,” she says. “This is why I put objects as the centre of this course . . . looking at objects, describing objects, cataloging objects, handling objects: everything in this course is about objects.”

Wu explains how she structured the course to reflect real curatorial work, since she thinks it’s the best way for students to learn. “I want them to at least have a better understanding of museum work,” she says. To accomplish this, Wu frequently brings actual museum pieces and objects from UVic’s own 18,000+ art collection into the classroom and gives students real cataloging sheets to fill out, replicating the process of a professional curator.

“Every time I bring real objects from museum collections to the classroom and let students work with them, I can see their excitement,” she says. “I think it’s great.”

 

Real-world learning

Engaging with museums itself is also key to this course. Wu took her students out of the classroom three times over the semester to visit local art galleries and museums — including the AGGV and the Royal BC Museum — letting them get firsthand experience in a these settings and ask questions of working professionals.

“It’s great experience for them. If you’re only studying by reading textbooks, you don’t really have a sense of the real world.”

 

Handling objects from UVic’s art collection

Throughout the semester, Wu found her two positions — curator and professor — to be the perfect mix. She explains how she’d bring current museum decisions from the AGGV into the classroom for discussion. “[They] let me know what they like or don’t like, or what changes they want to see. I learn a lot from students, so I think this is perfect. I like the combination.” This also gives students the chance to understand what challenges curators face and let them join the conversation.

“I feel really fortunate to have the chance to step into two fields,” Wu continues. “I have felt inspired by the students and their responses to the objects many times. I enjoy teaching a lot!”

—Claudia Phillips, with photos by Shay Ball

UVic Workstudy students Claudia Phillips (Writing) and Shay Ball (Visual Arts) are just two of nearly 75 Fine Arts students hired annually to learn professional skills outside of their classes. Their work will now appear in various Fine Arts publications, on this blog and on our social media feeds.

International field school inspires Theatre students

by | Jul 21, 2026 | Theatre, Undergraduate

Thanks to its well-deserved reputation as an arts destination, Victoria has a big city’s amount of culture tucked into a small town’s space. But it’s always good for students to get a more big-picture perspective, which is where international field schools come in. In March, Theatre professor Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta took a group of students to the Netherlands to attend the 10th International Community Arts Festival (ICAF) in Rotterdam.

ICAF brought together artists from around the world who are using theatre as a tool for community building, education and social change; hundreds of participating students were then able to take part in workshops and panel talks, watch performances, build international connections and deepen their understanding of how community arts (or “applied theatre,” as we describe it) is created in different cultural contexts.

“For me, it was about getting a new cultural perspective on the arts,” says Anton Matsigura, one of 10 Theatre students who participated. “I was also excited to meet as many people as I possibly could to get perspective on theatre in their home countries.”

Fellow participant Savannah O’Heaney agrees. “I was attracted by both the idea of international travel and experiencing how different art can be in other places . . . I really wanted to see what else was out there,” she explains. “This year’s theme was ‘space for imagination’, so a lot of the workshops were about creating spaces for theatre and art to take place.”

Phoenix students at the event

Matsigura describes ICAF as being “kind of a no-boundaries festival . . . a lot of the work really pushed artistic and political boundaries. We were there for less than 10 days, and every single moment was just packed — there’s beauty and also challenges in that, but it was a great experience.” Describing it as “a bit of artistic whiplash,” Matsigura says that by day four, he was “consuming so much vastly different art that it was kind of hard to let it all sink in.”

As a self-funded field school, the students had to offset costs in a variety of ways, including mounting an online auction which raised about $3,500. (“We reached out to over a hundred companies for items that we could put up for bids, and that ended up covering our entire housing accommodation,” notes Matsigura.)

O’Heaney felt the experience offered her a radically different view on the practice of theatre. “Usually people get consumed with the idea of fame and celebrity, but this was more about how having an impact with your art was enough . . . it took away that toxic industry aspect of it and made it more about what the practice of art should be like.”

“This trip definitely inspired me to continue seeking a different perspective in everything that I see,” says Matsigura. “It may sound bizarre, but I really appreciated the Dutch directness towards their art: they didn’t always make it easy for us to understand . . . it was okay to spend time figuring it all out.”

Sadeghi-Yekta in the audience

 Both students clearly appreciated the horizon-expanding opportunity of the field school. “It was inspiring to hear people’s artistic success stories, which I honestly don’t think we hear enough,” says Matsigura. “Almost everyone there was practicing art as a profession in some capacity, making their life work around it. It was just nice to hear how this can all be made into a career.”

Theatre grad Laura Anne Harris practices patients

by | Jul 13, 2026 | Alumni, health, Theatre

While Theatre graduate Laura Anne Harris (BFA 2007) is known for her creative work as a playwright, director and actor through solo shows like Pitch Blonde and The Homecoming, she also offers far more intimate performances in her ongoing role as a Simulated Patient and Sensitive Exam Teaching Associate for medical schools in both Canada and the US, where she now lives. By accurately simulating specific symptoms of medical situations like appendicitis, cancer, stroke recovery or bipolar psychosis, her experience as an actor continues to help train hundreds of medical professionals. We caught up with her recently to ask about this fascinating offshoot of professional acting.

How did you end up becoming a professional patient?  
“I actually got into it through word-of-mouth: I was doing murder-mystery dinner theatre with a friend in Toronto who knew a company that was looking for new ‘patients.’ I needed a side gig while I was auditioning and acting, and it opened up a whole world for me. I’ve been doing it for about 14 years now, and right now it’s about 75 per cent of my acting work. I love doing it!”
 
How many different medical situations have you simulated?
“Hundreds! Anxiety, delirium, depression, lupus, mania, STIs, alcohol withdrawal, bipolar psychosis, heart conditions, skin conditions, suicidal ideation . . . any sort of ailment you can think of, and many very strange ones I don’t ever remember the names of. I’ve also worked with chiropractors and nurses for insurance companies and educational programs where we were acting as parents at PTA meetings or doing parent-teacher interviews. One school even had people doing simulations with a priest — which I didn’t get to do, but would have been really interesting!”

Harris in character as a patient

 
What does it take to be good at what you do? And how does it all actually work?
“You don’t have to be an actor to do this job, but it’s better if you are because you can create better simulations. It feels like film work in the way you perform; it’s actually some of the most grounded acting I’ve ever done.
 
There are many different ways to learn a case. We work from scripts or rehearsal videos — which can include prompts, background information or describe your position on the bed or in the room — and preparation can take as little as 30 minutes or as much as three hours. Timing varies from 15- to 45-minute in-person sessions to one-hour online sessions. Other times it’s a full day where I’m getting a series of simulated vaccines or IVs, doing heart or lung exams, checking for edema . . . it depends on the learning objectives. A lot of it is focused on improving diagnosis, medical skill sets and a doctor’s ability to communicate. Because this falls under the applied or educational theatre umbrella, you have to really understand improvisation.
 
You need to be comfortable with thinking on your feet and going with the flow because you’re working with learners who could do things that are not in the script. A good simulated patient tends to be quite normal, benign and grounded — but you also need to be able to access your emotions pretty freely, because there are times when you have to get really upset.”
 
What’s the hardest part of this kind of work? Conversely, what’s the most rewarding part? 
“The biggest challenge is maintaining your character. If, like me, you’re doing a lot of different sims in one week, you can get your wires crossed, which can be very difficult. And it can really be draining to play the same patient all day, so you need to pace yourself.
 
The best part for me is the feedback sessions after the simulations, which I approach from an active-learning perspective: Did you have any goals coming in? What did you find particularly challenging? I want the learners to feel good about how they communicate with their patients. They need to realize they’re going to meet all types of people from all walks of life and must be prepared for that. There’s a lot of negative aspects of the healthcare profession, but we’re trying to make positive change — which is a wonderful thing. It can really be amazing and quite rewarding to be part of their learning.”
 
When you were in theatre school, did this ever come up as a professional option?
“Well, there’s that famous episode of Seinfeld where Kramer is a simulated patient in a wacky situation with a group of student doctors — but otherwise, no, I’d never really heard of it before.”
 
Has doing this changed the way you experience being an actual medical patient yourself? 
“Absolutely! I always have a checklist of things I’m going to talk about with my doctor. I’ll be as prepared as I think they should be, which I don’t think most people do. I also teach gynecological exam techniques, so I’ve given notes about that in real time, too: I’ve had that experience where I’ve said, ‘Okay, I’m going to give you some notes about how that went . . .’  which is hilarious! For that work, we’re called Sensitive Exam Teaching Associates, and we get trained very specifically on this kind of trauma-informed and gender-affirming care.”
 
What’s next? What do you still want to accomplish? 
“I’m currently working on two new scripts and co-writing a screenplay. In terms of this career, I hope to keep doing it: since simulated patients are all ages, there’s no generational gap. It’s a great working environment and I feel really blessed to be working in this field!”
 
This article originally appeared in UVic’s Torch alumni magazine