New Student Orientation Sept 8

by | Aug 31, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

Wondering what it’s going to be like to be a Fine Arts student at UVic? Get a snapshot of your upcoming year while meeting other students at our annual New Student Orientation event!
NSO runs 1-4pm Tuesday, Sept 8: we’ll all start in the Phoenix Theatre building before breaking out into individual groups. Register now for this free session: https://www.uvic.ca/orientation/fall/faculty-sessions/index.php
If you’re not sure about attending, here’s 5 good reasons to join us:
  1. Ask frank questions and get honest answers about whatever’s on your mind
  2. Learn where everything is: Fine Arts has 4 distinct buildings and it’s helpful to know where to go before classes start
  3. Meet other students in your program in a relaxed peer-to-peer setting
  4. Find out about your student association and how it can improve your overall experience
  5. Reduce your uncertainty and increase familiarity with Fine Arts faculty, staff and resources.
After a short introduction and overview of the Faculty, you’ll hear from our Indigenous Resurgence Coordinator, Academic Advising, Co-op + Careers and UVic Libraries. Students will then break into departmental groups for short, peer-led orientation sessions and facility tours, plus a brief orientation in our computer labs and a lobby info fair. You’ll come away from this session with a good understanding of your department, your student association, the facilities/equipment available to you, and who to talk to if you need assistance in the year ahead.
This event is open to all new and transferring students in Art History & Visual Studies, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing and the School of Music.

Three ways donor support can help

by | Aug 24, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, donor, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

Lynda Gammon in the renovated computer lab 

Not surprisingly, student support in the form of scholarships, bursaries and financial prizes is the most popular form of donor support we receive. Consider Doug Gray, who created the Eleanor Gray Memorial Piano & Voice Duo Competition Prize in 2025 to both honour the memory of his mother and support Music students in two of our strongest areas — voice and piano.

We are also fortunate to have more named 
professorships than most UVic faculties, thanks to the likes of the Audain and Rubinoff foundations, and generous philanthropists like Wayne Crookes and the Southam, Lehan and Wurlitzer families. These endowed positions ensure that recruiting top-tier research talent remains a priority in Fine Arts.

Another area where donors have a direct impact on the student experience is with facility upgrades. There’s no question that our purpose-built facilities have long set us apart from other universities — yet those unique labs, studios, galleries and performance spaces also require constant technological upgrades to remain competitive.

Longtime Visual Arts professor Lynda Gammon has remained engaged with both Fine Arts and Victoria’s arts scene since retiring in 2015, now working with students as a Professor Emeritus. Realizing that one of the Fine Arts computer labs was in need of an upgrade, Gammon donated $10,000 this year to assist with much-needed improvements and to finance a new computer system — a change she was happy to make, given her history with the space: Gammon was Associate Dean under former Fine Arts Dean Anthony Welch when the first Fine Arts computer lab was established in the early 1990s.

“There was a lot of contention back then about whether computers could even be used to make art and what their role in the Faculty would be,” she recalls. “It took quite a bit of effort to push it forward — but once it was established, it quickly made such a huge difference.”

With Gammon’s assistance, the walls of our smaller computer lab — which serves as a digital photography
studio with a large-scale printer and negative scanner — have now been changed from peach to gray (to better reflect the true colour of photography), a magnetic photo board has been installed and a new computer was purchased which can run 3D neural-net calculations to better manipulate digital imagery.

Gammon appreciates the unique contribution retired faculty members can make. “We’re not your average donor: because we’ve been involved with the University and the students, we have a better idea of what’s needed,” she says. “I remember what it was like when we got a new piece of equipment — like the large-format printer — and how it not only allowed us to teach better but also helped my own art career. Incoming students are going to want to do things that are more than just traditional painting or sculpture.”

Offering first-hand experience with cutting-edge technology is just another way for our students to gain a competitive edge. “Once they graduate, they get jobs because they’ve learned how to use our computer systems,” she says. “It’s so essential for artists to not find technology scary, to realize how it might fit in with their practice . . . if you don’t take some of those fears away when they’re students, then it becomes an unapproachable barrier.”

Orion Fund marks 30 years of donor impact

by | Aug 18, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, donor, Faculty, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

Saeed Teebi

Phillipe Pasquier

Rachel Podger

When it comes to ongoing donor impact, it’s hard to imagine anything more lasting than the Orion Fund
in Fine Arts. Named for the constellation whose visibility across most of the globe makes it a universal symbol of human connection to the cosmos, the Orion Fund is appropriately used to bring the world to UVic by making the talents and achievements of visiting artists available to both students and Victoria’s wider community, who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

Originally established with an $80,000 investment from donor Josephine Berthier in 1996, the Orion Fund was then endowed by a further million-dollar bequest when she passed away in 2000. Today, it serves a variety of functions: the Orion Fund can finance short-term visits by distinguished guests from other parts of Canada and around the world, while the Orion Program for Visiting Artists & Scholars in the Arts is used for arranging longer visits, lasting up to a term.

The Orion Fund also makes it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions, establishing relationships that encourage and foster future exchanges. “I’ve witnessed first‑hand how the Orion Fund enriches not only our faculty and the wider community, but also how time spent on our campus with colleagues and students, meaningfully shapes the visiting artists’ and scholars’ own creative and scholarly work,” says Kirk McNally, Associate Dean Creative Activity, Research and 
Administration. “The fund allows us to build lasting relationships with a global community of thinkers and makers which is a remarkable gift and an enduring legacy of its generous donor.”

Paul Wong

Meryl McMaster

Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie

Building for the future

We have also recently seen the creation of the Orion Incentivization Program, which annually provides extra Orion funds to our units if they invite scholars/artists who have lived experience regarding disability, racialization, gender and sexuality, and/or can help us to advance our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion action. “It has been incredibly valuable for our students to interact and learn from visiting artists and scholars from a wide range of demographics and lived experiences,” notes Dean Allana Lindgren.

Thanks to the Orion Fund, this past year saw over 15 international artists and scholars visit our classrooms and studios, including poets and authors Karen Solie, Saeed Teebi, Doretta Suk-Chong Lau and Kaie Kellough; AI scholars Phillipe Pasquier and Mike Ananny; conservator Helene Tello; musician Rachel Podger; Theatre artists Will Kilroy and Christie Maturo; and visual artists Allison Glenn, Meryl McMaster, Kristiina Lahde, Paul Wong, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie and Lan Yee.

And, over the past five years, we’ve brought in more than 70 guests solely as a result of the Orion Fund: that’s a remarkable return of creative expertise and international experience resulting from a direct investment by a donor in student support. Considering that most of today’s students had yet to be born when Josephine Bertheir made her initial donation in 1996, it really speaks to the lasting, long-term impact of her gift.

Arts & Culture keep Canada strong

by | Aug 10, 2026 | Alumni, Events, indigenous, Writing

If you’re looking for a quick indicator of the global, social and economic impact of Canadian arts & culture, look no further than Heated Rivalry.

A Canadian TV series developed by Canadian creators, starring Canadian actors, filmed in Canada, soundtracked by Canadian bands and based on books by a Canadian author, Heated Rivalry hit the zeitgeist in a way rarely seen. With just six episodes, the first season generated over a billion dollars via the combined sales of books, music, tourism, fashion, streaming services and actual hockey tickets, which saw a whopping 40% surge in demand.

That it also managed to marry the seemingly disparate worlds of professional hockey and queer culture is as remarkable as the fact that Canadian arts & culture is still seen as expendable in times of economic hardship.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, the arts make a vital contribution to our economy: a 2025 report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce found arts & culture contributed $131 billion to Canada’s GDP in 2024 and supported over a million jobs nation-wide. And, since 2011, arts-sector spending growth has outpaced all other sectors — including oil and gas, construction, agriculture, manufacturing and both wholesale and retail trade — generating $17 billion in federal and provincial taxes.

As the popularity of shows like Heated Rivalry, Schitt’s Creek and the Disney+ series Washington Black (co-
produced and based on the award-winning bestseller by Fine Arts alum Esi Edugyen) continue to prove, it’s our cultural icons who keep Canada strong internationally, with Canadian exports of cultural goods and services hitting an all-time high of $27.1 billion in 2023 — twice that since 2011.

Yet, as former MP and Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps noted in her April 2026 Hill Times opinion piece, the Federal government’s economic conversation still
primarily focuses on boosting Canada’s fossil-fuel, auto
and construction sectors. Ironically, this ensures jobs for primarily male-dominated industries, while government spending on arts & culture strongly benefits women, youth and IBPOC / 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Numerous studies have also proven how participation in arts & culture boosts democracy and civic engagement, increases the academic performance of students, and improves the overall health and wellbeing of Canadians.

UVic remains an essential part of that story: home to BC’s only stand-alone fine arts faculty, we’ve been training generations of arts practitioners, cultural leaders and creative researchers for nearly 60 years, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to succeed in our fast-changing world.

With political uncertainty south of the border, we do need to keep our elbows up . . . but it’s also essential to drive home the impact and relevance of Canada’s diverse and vibrant arts industry. UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts continues to bring over 20,000 people a year to campus thanks to our 300+ cultural and scholarly offerings — making us UVic’s largest and most consistent academic unit for public engagement.

Keep up on our events throughout the year by subscribing to our monthly e-news via finecomm@uvic.ca

Visual Arts grad student Edith Skeard explores ocean sounds

by | Aug 4, 2026 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Award, donor, Graduate, Visual Arts

While they may have just graduated in June 2026 with an MFA in Visual Arts, multi-media artist Edith Skeard isn’t quite done with UVic yet. This summer, they are the latest Fine Arts grad student named to the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship program.

Skeard has been spending their summer creating sound works from ONC’s immense data collections. “I’ve been learning from their science team and engaging with the Oceans 3.0 portal,” they explain. “My primary focus has been on the relationship between seismic events and the flora and fauna of the ocean . . . . this is a really lovely opportunity to focus in on sound and the library of hydrophones ONC has.”

Given that biology underpins a lot of their practice, this ArtScience collaboration is well within Skeard’s purview. “It’s been really wonderful to learn about their work, engage with the sea and create new sound works which utilize their data,” they say. “This was a unique opportunity for deeper, focused research-making.”

Oceanic fascination

Skeard says their ONC application centred on tsunamis and earthquakes — which were present in their MFA work — and aligns perfectly with both the ecological and technological aspects of their artistic practice. Despite coming from Saskatchewan (or perhaps because of it), Skeard  has always been fascinated by the ocean.

At UVic’s ONC, Skeard has been able to coordinate and perform for one of the ONC community’s lunch-and-listen sessions (where they and two Prodigy program ArtScience fellows played new compositions), as well as meet with different scientists, attend tour their Marine Technology Centre and attend an Oceans Past Symposium. Still to come in August is a site visit to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.

“My welcome has been warm and the science team has been generous with their time and knowledge sharing,” they say. “I’m learning a lot and feeling immersed in the different teams and activities. This year is quite special in that there are several sound and music researchers and fellows working at ONC this summer. It’s been really interesting to hear how other folks are interpreting the data in their works.”

New projects

At ONC’s Ocean-Climate Building headquarters (found at UVic’s Queenswood campus), Skeard has installed a sculptural “listening station” in the lobby, which they describe as more of “a personal sound experience” than a formal installation. “It plays a continuous loop composed from ONC data and changes every month . . . the sound is deeply environmental and pulls from ONC’s vast hydrophone data. So far, folks have been really interested in listening and I’ve received good feedback on it.”

Skeard will also be participating in Abyssal Soundings: A Concert Utilizing Ocean Networks Canada Data, running from 11am-1pm Sunday, August 16 in UVic’s Philip T Young Recital Hall. In addition to Skeard, the lineup will feature Distinguished Music Alumna Eve Egoyan plus Valeria Valle, Urano Trincado, Omar Shabbar, Kieran Maraj and Visual Arts professor Joel Ong, who is also a Canada Research Chair in Emergent Digital Art Practices — each of whom will present their own interpretations of ONC data gleaned during their tenure.

Register here for this free August 16 event! 

Skeard’s ONC listening station

On the rewards of donor awards

Since coming to UVic from Saskatchewan to complete their MFA in Visual Arts,  Skeard has seen their creative work blossom thanks to numerous donor awards. During their two-year period of study, Skeard has received the Audain Foundation Travel Award, the Laura Carberry Scholarship in Fine Arts, the Robert W. Ford Graduate Scholarship, Audrey St. Denys & M.E. Johnson Scholarship, Helen Pitt Fine Arts Scholarship, Jessie Allan Forsyth Scholarship, John and Myrtle Tilley Graduate Scholarship, the Jeffery Rubinoff Art as a Source of Knowledge Graduate Scholarship and, most recently, the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship.

“I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish my studies without this generous funding, which was in large part the labour and coordination of the graduate advisors in Visual Arts,” says Skeard. “I’m very grateful to have been able to pursue my thesis with less friction and less reliance on external income. It is such a gift to be able to work freely towards research and making.”

Working mainly with sound, sculpture and drawing, Skeard uses granulation software to modify a mix of field recordings, woodwinds and voice to compose their sound. “I’m interested in the ways that the body and materials intersect, and am very open to experimenting with materials when working in the studio,” they say, explaining their work is often inspired by a fascination with labyrinths, translation, dreams, repetition and desired paths. “I often treat sound as tactile and materials as dense poetics — contemplating gestures of embodied time.”

 After earning both a BA (Philosophy, Honours) and BFA (Visual Art) at the University of Regina, Skeard began considering how graduate school could blend their passion for music with more visual work: having previously collaborated with School of Music Masters alumni — who all spoke highly of their experiences here — and realizing that a Visual Arts MFA offered studio space and the chance to work interdisciplinarily, Skeard decided UVic was the perfect place to continue their education. “It’s a rewarding process for those who want to be challenged and reflect on their work in a new context,” they say of their MFA work. “The community it fosters is really a large part of the experience.”
This past year, Skeard has been very busy mounting two solo exhibitions, participating in interdisciplinary showcases and activating their Audain Travel Award. In Belgium, they visited curators, galleries and the Orpheus Institute — a premier international center for advanced musical studies and artistic research — before connecting with the Bureau for Listening, a leading artistic research group in Copenhagen.

Watch for more news about their ONC installation coming up in September 2026.

—with files by Claudia Phillips and 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.