Exploring the science & mystery of a whale fall

Whales may be the largest animals on earth, but what happens after they die still remains something of a mystery: even the name given to their deaths — “whale fall” — evokes a sense of the unknowable. But the latest Fine Arts graduate student to be named Artist-in-Residence with Ocean Networks Canada is seeking to both explore and de-mystify the unique relationship between a descending whale carcass and the countless species that will spend decades feeding on the biomass.

“Imagine you build a new apartment building and various people live there as it ages and eventually falls apart,” notes current Department of Writing MFA candidate Neil Griffin. “That’s what happens with a whale carcass: various scavengers and decomposers move in and out . . . there are even worms that take hundreds of years to burrow single-mindedly through a thick whale vertebrae to get to the marrow inside.”

ONC’s latest artist-in-residence 

As the fourth Artist-in-Residence (AIR) with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) — a continuing partnership with Faculty of Fine Arts graduate students that has engaged previous AIRs Colin Malloy (School of Music), Dennis Gupa (Theatre) and Colton Hash (Visual Arts) — Griffin will be fusing the creative with the scientific in a series of lyric essays titled Whale Fall, which will explore the ecological stages of whale decomposition from its last breath to its incorporation into the deep-sea ecoscape.

Fortuitously, Griffin’s proposal also lines up with ONC’s own multi-year project, Life After Death: Whale-fall Succession and Bone Decomposition Under Varying Oceanographic Conditions. Led by staff scientist Fabio De Leo, one part of this project will see a whale carcass deployed in 2025 at 890 metres off Vancouver Island under low-oxygen conditions, where it will be continuously monitored for three years with high resolution video and sensors.

“It’s a fairly new field, but some of the best minds thinking about it are right here,” notes Griffin.

Talking about science

Griffin — a trained biologist who spent a decade with the University of Calgary studying wildlife in the likes of Belize, Honduras and East Africa — sees a direct connection between his previous fieldwork and his current graduate work. His MFA thesis, for example, is The Museum of Ruin, a SSHRC-funded book-length essay exploring the biological and human history of extinction. The Tyee also recently published his essay, The Riddle of the Monkey Puzzle Tree, a fascinating conjunction of history, colonialism and natural science.

“All of my writing comes out of the tenants of wildlife biology: being the observer, trying to synthesize what you see together with what you think afterwards,” he explains. “These two fields of knowledge that we keep so far apart have at their shared core the same interest in raising up the depths and exploring the unknown—be that the psyche for the arts or the natural world for the sciences. When I saw there was a residency looking for that, it seemed right up my alley.”

Indeed, Griffin sees his ONC Whale Fall project as a natural extension of his thesis. “There’s enough connection for it to be relevant: the deep sea is also threatened by our incessant extractive activities, so there’s a lot of overlap in thought and material.”

New project, old interest

Griffin has been fascinated with the idea of whale falls since he first ran across mention of the phenomenon at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre during his biological studies.

“I was looking through some journals and found these grainy, almost horror-footage photos of whale falls,” he recalls. “There were pictures of a decomposing whale carcass on the ocean floor and the weird, weird animals that were eating it: hagfish, lampreys . . . these bizarre denizens of the depths that have adapted to this incomprehensibly difficult ecosystem to live in. They’re just waiting for this bounty . . . every time a whale fall comes down to them, this desert-like environment becomes a major hotspot of activity by a massive community of animals.”

While human history is inextricably connected to the oceans, Griffin notes that all we traditionally know of the deep sea is what got “spat up” on the shores. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that we started to literally look deeper into the oceans, an exploration ONC continues to this day.

Knowing the unknown

“I’ve always been interested in our relationship with the unknowable,” he notes. “What’s going on down there? It’s deep and dark and cold and mysterious and frightening . . . but also exciting. It’s such a rich vein of human imagination, and the lyric essay is a useful form for exploring all that. As a hybrid form of essay and poem, it allows me to combine a whole bunch of voices, which will give me a way to include not only science and interviews but also weave in ideas about the history and representation of the deep sea.”

Ultimately, Griffin feels his Whale Fall project is an ideal opportunity for him. “It’s a different skill set to talk about science than it is to do science. How do I make this into something people can latch onto, that makes them both excited and interested?”

He pauses and offers something of a mysterious smile. “I don’t know exactly what that would look like, but I’m excited by the possibilities of finding out.”

Follow Neil Griffin on Twitter: @prairielorax

The Artist-in-Residence program is a partnership between UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada, with additional financial support provided by the Faculty of Science and the University of VIctoria’s Office of Research Services. This continuing program strengthens connections between art and science that broaden and cross-fertilize perspectives and critical discourse on today’s major issues, such as environment, technology, oceans, cultural and biodiversity, and healthy communities. This program is open to all current University of Victoria graduate students who have completed most of their course requirements in the Faculty of Fine Arts with practice in any visual, written, musical or performance media. The next call for artists will be in Fall 2023.

Sound Genres explore sound as foundational practice

Paul Walde’s Glacial 

The School of Music will be exploring sound as a foundational practice with Sound Genres, a special multimedia symposium running May 26-28 and funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

More than just an academic symposium, however, the event —which is free and open to the public — will also feature an opening sound installation by Visual Arts professor Paul Walde on Friday night, a public performance featuring nine musicians on Saturday night, and a special commissioned Sound Walk on Sunday afternoon featuring artist-in-residence Tiess McKenzie and Kristy Farkas, the School of Music’s concert manager.

“If you go to a music department at a university, most often it’s classical music,” says organizer and Music professor Anthony Tan in this interview with the Nexus newspaper. “You have to know musical notation, you’re often playing orchestral instruments, and so what we’re looking at is how this study of sound from these perspectives can actually inform how we teach music in university, and how we can become more inclusive about these practices as well.”

Expect discussions to focus on the complicated relationship between “sound” and “music” on the one hand, and the tension between increasing globalized sound genres and the culturally-specific meanings felt by listeners and practitioners on the other.

“I think a lot of people have very diverse definitions of what music is,” says Tan. “If you listen to the sounds of the environment, it’s also music in a way, and our conference is about questioning that notion about what is music versus what is sound.”

About the symposium

Conceived and organized by Tan and fellow Music professor Joe Salem plus Postdoctoral Fellow Taylor Brook and PhD candidate Sean Kiley, Sounds Genres will explore electronically mediated sound and music genres in both academic settings (sound art, soundscape, electroacoustic etc.) and popular contexts (EDM, ambient, techno etc.).

Artists, musicologists, anthropologists, and other participants from across Canada will convene to share their artistic and scholarly work with a focus on how these diverse sound genres intersect and how they may be critically engaged to revise curriculums in higher education both inside and outside of music departments.

Special guests

All of the events at Sound Genres stress social connections between real people, but as artists, scholars, and practitioners, we also embrace the irony that some of our most intimate, personal, and physiological experiences are those mediated by creative artistic practices. For this reason, the symposium also includes sound installations, a sound walk, an evening practicum performance, a curated, ears-on library exhibit, and practical demonstrations of sonic applications in the classroom — all of which you can read more about here.

Friday night’s Sound Installation and reception in the Visual Arts building will feature work by Paul Walde (Glacial), Jan Swinburne (Internet Songlines), Michael Trommer (Ancient Thoughts & Electric Buildings) and Annie Dunning (House on Fire).

Saturday’s “Sound as Witness, Sound as Truth” session will feature UVic Associate Librarian Ry Moranexploring the long histories of Indigenous music as a source of resistance, resurgence and political power, alongside a live performance and dialogue with Nehithaw (Cree)-Dené and Michif (Métis) storyteller Zoey Roy.

Saturday evening’s concert will feature the likes of Hildegard Westerkamp, Rachel Iwaasa, Matthew Haussman, Sean Kiley, Zosha Di Castri, Jane Chan, Paula Matthusen, Terri Hron and Tina Pearson.

Sunday’s keynote will feature University of Toronto speaker Eliot Britton on “Supporting Creative Hybrids: Bridging Diverse Practices Through Music Technology”.

Throughout the Symposium, you’ll also be able to enjoy the “Musical Mutant Machines” on display in the School of Music, which were created by Monkey C Interactive’s David Parfit and Department of Writing MFA alum Scott Amos.

The final event will be the commissioned Sound Walk featuring Tiess McKenzie’s participatory multimediaexperience across the UVic campus, followed by Kristy Farkas’ live performance of selections from her work “Songs For Tree”, which takes you outside in nearby Finnerty Gardens.

Please bring your own mobile devices and (wired) headphones to experience this element of the piece.

Find full details and speaker biographies here

Summer Arts Series showcases arts technology

Looking to expand your artistic repertoire with new skills and practices? Fine Arts is once again partnering with UVic’s Division of Continuing Studies and Alumni Relations for our second annual Summer Arts Series.

This year’s series, running in July 2023, will focus on workshops and lectures centred on the theme of arts and technology.

Learners of all backgrounds will experience how current professional artists use technology with workshops that include exploring the possibilities of projection in installation art, coding electronic music with Sonic Pi and an interactive introduction to beatboxing and live-looping technology. A special lecture on digital tools in contemporary painting will round out our series.

Each session will provide opportunities to learn practical skills for transforming fine arts knowledge into career opportunities while also engaging with celebrated UVic alumni who are successful in their chosen career.

Sonic Pi: Coding Electronic Music

School of Music alum Marco Neri Garcia will walk you through Sonic Pi, an alternative and versatile computer application for creating and exploring sound. This largely intuitive tool employs simple computer code to create musical works.

1-4pm Tuesday, July 4 (face-to-face), $60

Beatboxing, Live Looping & Vocal Triggering

School of Music alum Matthew Haussmann is offering this fun, interactive and informative introduction to the art form and culture of beatboxing and live-looping technology. Beatboxing is for everyone and anyone with a tongue, lips and lungs can do it!

6-9pm Tuesday, July 4 (face-to-face), $60

Room Without a Trace: Projection Possibilities & Installation Art

What are the possibilities of projection art? Can a room be filled without leaving a trace? Visual Arts MFA alum and current instructor Leanne Olson explores how, in a time of materials and waste considerations, projection art offers a way to create an immersive space.

10am-5pm Wed-Thurs, July 5-6 (face-to-face), $195

Digital Tools & Contemporary Painting

Visual Arts MFA alum and current instructor Todd Lambeth will help you discover how digital tools are used in contemporary painting, and how a world mediated by images has changed the way we think about the painting medium.

7-8pm Wednesday, July 5 (face-to-face), $15

Be sure to visit the Summer Arts Series homepage for full details & registration info

Call for submissions: 3rd annual Student Impact Awards!

Are you a current or graduating Fine Arts student who’s been involved with some community-engaged creative activity in Greater Victoria between January 1/22 & May 31/23? If so, you could qualify for $1,000 via our annual Community Impact Award!

The Fine Arts Student Community Impact Awards will be awarded in Fall 2023 to undergraduate students who have demonstrated an outstanding effort in a community-engaged creative activity in Greater Victoria. Qualifying students are eligible to receive $1,000 for creative projects that went over & above their academic studies.

Since 2021, we have awarded $5,000 to 5 different students! (Read about our 2022 winners here and our 2021 winners here.) “In the arts, we put a lot of ourselves into our work because we love it,” says 2022 award recipient and School of Music student Isolde Roberts-Welby. “This award means that I can spend less time at work and more time pursuing opportunities and projects that are deeply fulfilling.”

Your activity may include — but is not limited to — any exhibit, performance, workshop, publication, curatorial, educational, digital, production and/or administrative role within the regional boundaries of Greater Victoria (Sidney to Sooke).

A completed submission package — including the submission form and all supporting materials — must be received by 5pm Wednesday, May 31, 2023.

Full application details can be found here: https://finearts.uvic.ca/forms/award/

Questions? Contact fineartsawards@uvic.ca

Annual BFA exhibition sees students developing their professional practice

While April sees most of campus focusing on final exams, graduating visual arts students are getting in one final taste of professional practice as they organize, curate, install and promote the annual BFA exhibit. Titled Don’t Need to Know to Feel It, this year’s show will feature 100 pieces by 23 emerging artists, showcasing their work in sculpture, performance, installation, painting, drawing, animation and digital media. With a gala opening starting at 7pm Saturday, April 15, and the exhibit running daily to April 23 in in 13 different exhibition spaces throughout the Visual Arts Building, there’s plenty of opportunity to see the work on display.

Don’t Need to Know to Feel It is a reminder that what we do as artists isn’t just for us, but for the whole world,” says graduating student and curation co-chair Stella McCaig. “Understanding beauty, magnificence and joy is not something you can learn, and therefore you need not know anything to feel it.”

Stella McCaig “Cars and Girls” (2023, installation shot)

A good example of that is graduating artist Jasper Pettman. A Two-Spirit/trans artist from Secwepemcúl’ecw (100 Mile House) and a member of Cowessess First Nation, Pettman’s practice explores personal conceptualization of identity as it relates to the physical realities of the body.

“I use acrylics and unstretched canvas to depict bodies in motion and transformation, often mirroring sensations I experience within my own body and experience as a Two-Spirit and trans artist,” he explains. “I also engage with similar ideas when I work with digital media, such as 3D modelling software and web coding, with extra emphasis on text and Indigenous language.”

Among Pettman’s work in the exhibit will be his Tumblr-based digital work “napêhkân.blog”, which is influenced by late ’90s/early ’00s internet art as seen on then-popular sites like Geocities and Myspace—but is given a contemporary twist with its focus on Indigenous resurgence and Indigenous language revitalization.

“Through building community and curation of my own space online, I want to imagine or re-imagine the era of early Internet blogging in a personal, Indigenous context,” he says. “I’m constantly updating the [HTML and CSS] coding as I learn new techniques, as well as creating content to post on the blog—including writing in Cree and my paintings.”

Jasper Pettman

Also graduating this year is Leina Dueck, whose work reflects her own cultural history as an artist of mixed Japanese, Canadian, German and Dutch heritage. She uses a variety of multimedia techniques—including canvas, cyanotype, sewing, textiles and photography—to exploring the “emotional baggage” of past events.

“The act of creating is a deeply personal and an intuitive experience,” says Dueck. “Each piece that I make represents a journey, a process of discovery and a way of engaging with the world around me.”

Her work in the grad exhibit will showcase a form of regalia created using traditional Japanese textiles and modern sewing techniques, with an added layer of cyanotype photography symbolizing “frozen moments and breaths of time”. “The concept of this regalia will be targeting my struggles with identity and the shifts I’ve had to make in order to resist being culturally fetishized.”

Ultimately, says Dueck, her goal as an emerging artist is similar to that of any established artist: to create pieces that both challenge and inspire. “I hope to create works that encourage viewers to question their assumptions and see the world in a new context and perspective.”

Leina Dueck, “Delirium” (2022, Cyanotype)

Don’t Need to Know to Feel It runs April 15 to April 23 in UVic’s Visual Arts Building.