Have you signed up for the Sept 5 New Student Orientation?

Wondering what it’s going to be like to be a UVic Fine Arts student? Get a snapshot of your upcoming year while meeting other students at our annual New Student Orientation event!

RSVP now for this free session & get a jump on the semester!

Date: Tuesday, Sept 5
Time: 2pm ~ 4pm (directly following UVic’s Welcome to the Territory event)
Location: Gather at the Phoenix Theatre building

Event description: The Dean of Fine Arts invites all first-year & new transfer undergraduate students in all five of our units (Art History & Visual Studies, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing) to attend this short introduction & overview of the Faculty, including speakers from Fine Arts Academic Advising & Co-op + Careers. You’ll have the chance to ask questions before breaking into groups for short, peer-led departmental orientation sessions and facility tours, plus a brief orientation in our computer labs.

By the end of this session, you’ll know what’s in which of our four buildings, where the faculty cafe is, how to access the computer labs, where to print assignments and art projects, who to talk to about your concerns, and so much more!

Join us for New Student Orientation on Sept 5

Wondering what it’s going to be like to be a UVic Fine Arts student? Get a snapshot of your upcoming year while meeting other students at our annual New Student Orientation event!

RSVP now for this free session & get a jump on the semester!

Date: Tuesday, Sept 5
Time: 2pm ~ 4pm (directly following UVic’s Welcome to the Territory event)
Location: Gather at the Phoenix Theatre building

Event description: The Dean of Fine Arts invites all first-year & new transfer undergraduate students in all five of our units (Art History & Visual Studies, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing) to attend this short introduction & overview of the Faculty, including speakers from Fine Arts Academic Advising & Co-op + Careers. You’ll have the chance to ask questions before breaking into groups for short, peer-led departmental orientation sessions and facility tours, plus a brief orientation in our computer labs.

By the end of this session, you’ll know what’s in which of our four buildings, where the faculty cafe is, how to access the computer labs, where to print assignments and art projects, who to talk to about your concerns, and so much more!

Witness Blanket seeks “soundtrack of resilience”

Carey Newman demonstrating his VR Witness Blanket project (photo: Ella Matte/Saanich News)

Already widely acclaimed for his powerful art installation the Witness Blanket, Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish multi-disciplinary artist and Fine Arts professor Carey Newman is now planning to weave in a digital layer by collecting sounds to contribute to an interactive virtual reality version into his much-loved art project.

Newman, UVic’s Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices, is working with School of Music professor Kirk McNally to collect sound recordings from residential school survivors to create a “soundtrack of resilience” for a digital version of the installation—the original of which is now permanently installed at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. Together with partners from the CMHR, UVic and Camosun College’s Camosun Innovates, Newman is developing a VR version of the Witness Blanket and he’ll be working with a team of Indigenous musicians to create a living soundtrack for the project.

The original Witness Blanket is a large-scale series of panels containing hundreds of items reclaimed from residential schools, churches, government buildings and traditional and cultural structures from across Canada. Just as Newman gathered the original objects, he and McNally are now looking to collect sounds for the digital version.

“In virtual reality, sound is part of the experience and audio allows people to explore the blanket in a new way,” Newman explains in this CHEK News story. “If each of the objects on the Witness Blanket had a voice, what would they sound like? What language would they speak? What songs would they sing?”

Participants are invited to record and provide a sound that can include music of traditional instruments, sounds of cultural activities like paddling or carving, the ambient tones of the natural world, spoken languages, songs, or any other sound associated with a person’s Indigenous identity or community.

As a sculptor and master carver, Newman himself is planning to contribute a recording of the sound of knives carving wood. “It was something that was taught to me by my father. To me, that’s something that I closely associated with culture,” he told the Times Colonist in this article.

Local and national media outlets are helping to spread the word about Newman’s latest project, with additional stories appearing in this Saanich News video story and this separate Saanich News story, Capital Daily newsletter, plus live interviews on CFAX Radio and CBC’s On The Island.

While the call for sound contributions is specifically for Indigenous peoples, there are opportunities for non-Indigenous allies to help with things like equipment and studio space. You can connect with the team by e-mail at witnessblanket@gmail.com.

Click here to watch a video about the new interactive project, including links to learn more about the original Witness Blanket.

You can also make an audio contribution to the project through this online form.

Zainub Verjee awarded Honorary Doctorate

The Faculty of Fine Arts is thrilled to announce that Zainub Verjee will be awarded the Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA) at the 2023 Fine Arts convocation ceremony.

You can watch Zainub Verjee’s address to graduating Fine Arts students as part of the UVic convocation livestream starting at 2:30pm Friday, June 16.

Zainub has been a trailblazer renowned for her pursuit of art as a public good. An award-winning public intellectual and cultural diplomat, Zainub has led the way in shaping arts and culture by developing legislation and strengthening public discourse on the centrality of art in society.

Currently the Executive Director of Ontario Association of Art Galleries in Toronto and , she is an accomplished leader in the arts and culture sector and holds over four decades of experience in shaping culture policy at all levels of governments and has contributed to the building of cultural institutions and organizations in Canada and internationally.

An archival image of Verjee from her GG profile video 

A storied career

Born in Kenya, Zainub is a visual and media artist and a fixture in the Canadian contemporary art scene since moving to Canada in the 1970s. She continues to further the cause of arts practitioners, bringing attention to the needs of women artists, artists of colour and Indigenous artists, while shedding a bright light on the issues of labour in the arts, with her tenacious support for the sector during the most fraught times of the pandemic.

Zainub served as executive director of the Western Front, a Vancouver Contemporary Art Centre, co-founded the critically acclaimed In Visible Colours, and contributed to the prison theatre program at Matsqui, now shifted to William Head Penitentiary in Victoria; she was also integral to the formation of the British Columbia Arts Council.

A laureate of the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Zainub exhibits around the world.

“UVic and Fine Arts recognize Zainub’s outstanding achievements in scholarship, research, teaching and public service, and look forward to celebrating her as a Spring 2023 Honorary Degree Recipient,” says Dr Allana Lindgren, Dean of Fine Arts.

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