Music professor’s climate commission explores the Northwest Passage

by | Jan 14, 2026 | Uncategorized

Sought for five centuries by European explorers as a sea route to China, the Northwest Passage was finally achieved by Roland Amundsen in 1906 and represented both a triumph of navigation and a shrinking of the globe. Today’s situation is more ominous, with melting ice gouging unprecedented new “passages” through the Arctic, threatening ancient ways of life and signalling a global crisis.

Violist and School of Music professor Joanna Hood decided to address this crisis creatively by commissioning a new piece from composer David A. Jaffe: the result was Northwest Passages: Thirteen Alarms from the Arctic — a musical soundscape that invokes the Arctic panorama and its contemporary disruption. Specifically written for 13 violas, Northwest Passages will be performed this month at the prestigious International Viola Congress in Paris as part of a special day focused on environmental issues.

“I’m not going to say this is a dream come true, because that sounds kind of hokey — but, in a way, it is, because climate change and environmental issues have always been passions of mine and to be able to bring them together with music is a perfect match,” says Hood.

The original commission had its world premiere at the 2024 SALT Festival in UVic’s Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, but now Hood and 12 other violists — including a large group of Music alumni — will be performing Jaffe’s Northwest Passages on January 21, led by conductor and fellow Music professor Ajtony Csaba.

“It’s pretty thrilling to be selected to be part of this,” says Hood, a longtime member who has never before been able to attend the Congress. “This is our 50th anniversary year, so it’s a very big festival with over 100 events happening across Paris.”

Participating alumni violists include Julien Haynes (Vancouver Symphony), Clayton Leung (Edmonton Symphony), Calvin Yang (Prince George, Vancouver Island and Okanagan symphonies), Isabelle Rolland (Vancouver Academy, Vancouver Opera) and professional musicians Joshua Gomberoff and Andrew Loe, plus members of the Victoria Symphony.

The original SALT 2024 performance

Composed in 13 diverse sections but presented as one continuous movement, the 13 distinct viola parts of Northwest Passages represents Jaffe’s latest exploration of same-instrument orchestration: the unique timbre allows for musical texturing suggesting glacial layering, sliding, splitting, melting and deformation, while also offering a lone personal voice through solo passages.

“Music is unique in that anyone can identify with it, no matter where they’re from or what their background or language is,” says Hood. “So music can really play a part in bringing awareness to the climate-change issues we’re dealing with on the planet, and this is a really wonderful way to support that.”

Watch the 2024 performance here

Robotics artist plots course for the future  

by | Nov 11, 2024 | Uncategorized

When it comes to transformational educational experiences, it’s hard to top that of Sie Douglas-Fish. Prior to arriving at UVic, they had never even left their 2,000-person hometown before — but now, as they graduate with a BFA in Visual Arts, they’re not only already living and working in a city of 4.2 million but also had their art featured on national TV and have a piece hanging in the Montreal offices of Amazon Web Services. That’s pretty impressive for a person who was roundly mocked in high school for simply wanting to be an artist.

“I grew up being told that my art was a waste of time and that my style wasn’t something people would want to buy,” Douglas-Fish recalls about their high-school years in the small BC town of 100 Mile House.

Dragon’s Den calling

But that didn’t stop them from choosing UVic as their degree destination and following a creative path that eventually saw their work featured on a 2023 episode of the national CBC TV show Dragon’s Den . . . on their birthday, no less. “Here’s these multimillionaires holding a piece of my art and saying, ‘Wow!’ It felt very validating to be acknowledged like that — and on my 21st birthday too.”

Not only did their time at UVic exponentially expand their creative, technological and entrepreneurialhorizons, but it also increased their confidence in their art, career and themself.

“The advantage of going to a university is that you have access to all these other experiences,” they say. “I had never engaged with other people about art before, let alone experienced an in-person critique of my work or had a life-drawing class. The first time I was actually able to see my own potential was at UVic.”

One of Sie’s pieces seen on Dragon’s Den

Sie officially graduates as part of UVic’s fall convocation ceremonies on November 13, which you can watch live here.

The future looks robotic

Hired straight out of school to work at Acrylic Robotics in Montreal — the robotic art company where they interned remotely during their final year of studies and also created the set of portraits seen on Dragon’s Den — Douglas-Fish is now doing things they never imagined they could. But their current path is a natural progression from both the digital art and graphics they did during three years as design director for UVic’s Martlet student newspaper.

Being at UVic also allowed them to gain experience as a freelance artist: not only by contributing art for the children’s book Sharks Forever by Writing instructor (and Fine Arts alumnus) Mark Leiren-Young, but also by setting up their first “artist alley” display at Victoria’s comic con — something they’ve since continued to do at other in cons in Calgary and Toronto. “I’m getting to the point now where I can travel to do them,” they say. “They’re really long days but are a lot of fun!”

Now based in Montreal, Douglas-Fish is currently seeing their art going out on a global tour with Acrylic Robotics and Amazon Web Services. “We’re taking one of our large robots to a bunch of different cities across the world: San Francisco, London, Seoul . . . my art is going to be seen in South Korea! How cool is that?”

As a full-time internal artist at Acrylic Robotics (a 10-person tech start-up whose motto is “Helping Robots Paint with Humans”), Douglas-Fish both creates original art and works with other artists to robotically reproduce their own pieces in sizes both small and large.

“We work with global companies like hotels where they need a duplicate of the same painting in every single room — like 500 of the same 20 paintings — or individual artists who want to create identical limited-edition paintings, kind of like what you’d do with prints,” they explain.

“I work with Adobe Illustrator and either create an original design or recreate the work of another artist . . . but a big part of my job is also preserving the artistic intention of the artist. There’s a lot of trial and error, but also a lot of artistic intuition: it’s fascinating!”

Showcasing their work at Toronto’s comic-con

They’ve also released their own collection with Acrylic Robotics, two pieces from which are now part of the permanent collections for both the American LGBTQ+ Museum and  Museum of Art & Design, both in NYC.

Building on their skills

Looking to the future (as only a robotics artist can), Douglas-Fish can see themself pursuing art direction in tech or maybe with a video game publisher like Ubisoft. But as a former high-school mentor and a three-year volunteer with UVic’s Peer Support Centre, they also like the idea of working with emerging artists.

“I can see myself teaching art at some point,” they conclude. “Maybe because I didn’t have an art community and nobody really cared about art in my town, it’s important to me to be in a position where I can support other artists. That was just something that I never had growing up.”

Sie’s work seen in the 2024 BFA exhibit

Fine Arts well represented at the 2022 Victoria Film Festival

by | Jan 31, 2022 | Alumni, Award, Events, Graduate, indigenous, Uncategorized, Visual Arts, Writing

Running February 4-13, both online and in theatres, the Victoria Film Festival will descend on Victoria with a new raft of films to delight movie goers of all stripes.

No stranger to the VFF, you’ll once again find Fine Arts well-represented in these films and events:

Writing alum Sean Horlor (co-director, Someone Like Me, Feb 5) : this award-winning documentary follows the story of Drake, a gay asylum seeker from Uganda. When a queer group unites to support Drake seeking asylum in Canada, unexpected challenges lead them down an emotional road together in search of personal freedom.

Writing’s David Leach (moderator, Welcome to the Metaverse, Feb 9) : Join Brett Gaylor (documentary filmmaker) and Mike Wozniewski (President & CTO, Hololabs) for a hands-on demonstration and discover the power and perils of facial-recognition data-harvesting technologies — and how to make your “metaverse” a “better-verse”. Moderated by UVic’s David Leach and SFU’s Kate Hennessy.

Theatre’s Leslie D. Bland (co-director, Tzouhalem, Feb 13) : This documentary examines the near-mythic figure of Cowichan Chief Tzouhalem, the account of his life from both historians and First Nations Elders, the folkloric tales concerning him, his impact on the modern relationship between the Crown and First Nations, and how his legend remains alive to this day, examining critically how his story has been told and passed down to us.

Writing’s Dan Hogg (producer, Esluna: The Crown of Babylon, Feb 6) : In this action-packed animated feature set in the retro-futuristic world of Esluna, a relic hunter and her crew must track down an ancient artifact known as the Crown of Babylon.

MFA alum Katherin Knight (director, Still Max, Feb 10) : See how artist Max Dean learned to cope with his cancer diagnosis the same way he has dealt with everything in his life: through art. Sometimes whimsical, ultimately touching, this journey is a life enhancing story as only an artist can tell it.

Theatre alum Trevor Hinton (actor, Fragile Seeds, Feb 10) : The dramatic thriller Fragile Seeds follows Ryann Temple, a therapist working with sex offenders who uncovers haunting secrets in her family’s past through the disturbed men she counsels every day.

Visual Arts alum Laura Gildner and former Visual Arts student Enda Burke (Posterful art exhibit, Feb 4-13) : We’ve asked 10 local artists to reinterpret their favourite indie film poster at the Atrium Building.

Visit the Victoria Film Festival’s website for how to attend these and other entertaining and thought provoking shows.

Fine Arts Wellness Day is back

by | Jan 15, 2019 | Uncategorized

Start the semester with a healthy mindset at the annual Fine Arts Wellness Day, running 11am-2pm on Wednesday, Jan 16 in the Fine Arts lobby.

All Art History & Visual Studies, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts & Writing students are welcome to drop by to sign up for a free chair massage, enjoy free healthy snacks courtesy of UVic’s Nutrition Programming & Services, fill up your water bottles at our rejuvenating hydration station & learn about stress management and other wellness tips from UVic’s Office of Student Life.

And don’t miss two great same-day wellness events happening just next door at UVic’s Interfaith Chapel:  the Pet Cafe (2:30 – 4pm) and the LOL: Laughter Meditation (2:45-4pm), both of which happen weekly.

The Fine Arts Wellness Day is a proud part of UVic’s wider Mental Health Awareness Week, which runs Jan 14-18 and offers a wide variety of activities including free yoga, the famed (and also free) Vikes black-light yoga rave, free meditation sessions, a free keynote performance by noted spoken word artist Shane Koyczan and more!

Wellness is an important part of both a general approach to life and student mental health. Fine Arts students often find themselves under additional pressures not shared by other students across campus, given the demands of rehearsals, instrument practice, performance and the push to be creative on top of maintaining a regular class schedule and keeping grades up.

Think well, be well, create well!