Writing professor wins Bill Good Award

by | Nov 6, 2025 | Alumni, Award, climate, Faculty, Writing

Congratulations go out to UVic Writing professor Sean Holman on winning the Bill Good Award at the 2025 Webster Awards on Nov 3!

The Bill Good Award is presented to a BC individual or organization that makes a significant contribution to journalism in the province, or addresses a community’s needs & benefits via journalism — and, as the Wayne Crooks Professor in Environmental & Climate Journalism and founder of the Climate Disaster Project, Holman certainly qualifies on many fronts.

An award-winning investigative journalist before joining UVic’s teaching faculty (and also a UVic Alumni as well), Holman’s words to the awards audience were appropriately insightful.

“We are becoming a fact-resistant society, where experience is more important than the evidence, where what we believe is more important than what is real — and that means it’s a troubling time to be a journalist,” he said.

“We are activists for the truth at a time when the truth is hard to find, and even harder to tell. I’m so honoured to be part of that community.”

Holman keeps fighting the good fight as he trains the next generation of journalists in the Climate Disaster Project, teaching his students to use a trauma-informed approach and building a model of cooperation that can be replicated in newsrooms as they shrink.

Read the full award citation here. 

Call for grad student proposals: 2026 ONC ArtScience Fellowship Program

by | Oct 31, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, climate, Graduate, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) are now calling for graduate student applications for the paid 2026 ONC ArtScience Fellowship program. The application period closes on December 23, 2025.

The ArtScience Fellowship 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 Fine Arts graduate students who have completed most of their course requirements with practice in any visual, written, musical or performance media, or art historical research. Co-led and sponsored by Fine Arts and ONC, the Artist-in-Residence program receives additional financial support from UVic’s Faculty of Science.

Our most recent ArtScience Fellow was Visual Arts graduate student Parvin Hasani. As the sixth Fine Arts graduate student to hold this position, she proposed exploring the extreme ecosystems of deep-sea hydrothermal vents via her sculptural practice. The result was the September 2025 exhibit and artist’s talk, Tides of Memory. 

 

“Scientific data gave me the language of [vent] formation and collapse, but art practice allowed me to interpret the knowledge,” she explains in this video about her fellowship activities.

Learn more about previous ONC artistic residents, Megan Harton (Music, 2024), Neil Griffin (Writing, 2023), Colin Malloy (School of Music, 2022), Dennis Gupa (Theatre, 2021) and Colton Hash (Visual Arts, 2019).

About the ArtScience Fellowship

The ArtScience Fellowship (previously known as the ONC Artist-in-Residence program) will ignite cross-disciplinary exchanges, interacting with Fine Arts faculty members and scientists & staff at ONC, as well as with other individuals using ONC’s world-leading ocean facilities. This program is inspired by the ArtScience Manifesto of 2011, and numerous references to this concept in the literature. The Fellow will learn from and engage with the current research, connecting it to their own practice, and to wider societal and cultural aspects, creating work for public presentation at the end of the residency. The Artist will also be invited to contribute as a lead or co-author in scientific conference proceedings and/or journal articles.

 
The selected Artist will actively engage with researchers on a variety of ocean science themes that may include:
  • Deep Sea Ecology
  • Seabed-Ocean Exchanges
  • Coastal Ocean Processes
  • Marine Natural Hazards
  • The Ocean Soundscape
  • Arctic Ocean Observing
  • Ocean Big Data.
 
The ONC Artist-in-Residence program is established to:
  • explore the potential of the arts or alternative cultural practices in the area of the visions, challenges, philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical aspects of the ocean and the impacts humans have on it;
  • add a complementary artistic and creative perspective to ocean science, the societal ramifications of its exploitation, and its cultural aspects;
  • create opportunities for potential new research questions, experimental approaches and knowledge synthesis resulting from interaction between the arts and science; and
  • help envision and communicate the potential long-term impact of ocean changes on humanity.

Proposal Submission

Interested applicants are to email ONC’s Dwight Owens at dwowens@oceannetworks.ca with the subject line “Ocean ArtScience Fellowship,” and attach:
  1. the artist’s CV
  2. a concise portfolio of previous relevant artistic work;
  3. a letter of motivation explaining your interest in the program and its alignment with your past experiences and future career goals; and
  4. a 500-word project proposal with a separate project-costs budget.
The application period closes on December 23, 2025. Applications will be reviewed by representatives of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada. Artists may be contacted for an interview or to supply further information before a decision is made.

Public Event or Exhibit

At the conclusion of the fellowship, the Fellow will host a public event and/or exhibit within a specified budget agreed to during the fellowship and depending on the type of project. Assistance for marketing and/or ticketing could be made available from other UVic departments (Visual Arts, Theatre, etc.) 
Financial Provision for the Artist
The residency period will be May 1-August 31, 2026. A cost-of-living stipend of $3,500/month will be paid to the selected Fellow, with limited additional funds to support production or materials. At the conclusion of the residency, the Fellow will plan and deliver a public exhibit and/or event sharing the fruits of the fellowship. This event will be promoted by ONC and Fine Arts.

Parvin giving her ONC talk

 

About Ocean Networks Canada

Established in 2007 as a strategic initiative of the University of Victoria, ONC operates world-leading ocean observatories for the advancement of science and the benefit of Canada. The observatories collect data on physical, chemical, biological, and geological aspects of the ocean over long time periods, supporting research on complex Earth processes in ways not previously possible. The observatories provide unique scientific and technical capabilities that permit researchers to operate instruments remotely and receive data at their home laboratories anywhere on the globe, in real time. The facilities extend and complement other research platforms and programs, whether currently operating or planned for future deployment.
 
The ArtScience Fellowship was initiated by ONC’s late Chief Scientist Kim Juniper, whose leadership and transdisciplinary approaches continue to inspire many in the ArtScience space.
 

About the Faculty of Fine Arts

With experiential learning at its core, the Faculty of Fine Arts provides the finest training and learning environment for artists, professionals, and students. Through its departments of Art History and Visual Studies, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing and School of Music, the Faculty of Fine Arts aspires to lead in arts-based research and creative activity and education in local, national, and global contexts by integrating and advancing creation and scholarship in the arts in a dynamic learning environment. As British Columbia’s only Faculty exclusively dedicated to the arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is an extraordinary platform that supports new discoveries, interdisciplinary and diverse contributions to creativity, and the cultural experiences of the students and communities UVic serves.
With thanks also to the Faculty of Science for their support.

Meet Music’s 2025 Concerto Competition student winners

by | Oct 28, 2025 | Award, Events, School of Music, Undergraduate

This year’s UVic Concerto Competition celebrates exceptional musicians whose talents span genres, generations, and geographies. The competition finals were held in April 2025 and we can’t wait to hear them perform their winning concertos with the UVic Symphony Orchestra and UVic Wind Symphony in our 2025-26 concert season. Congratulations go out to School of Music students Tamsyn Klazek-Schryer, Olivia Pryce-Digby and Ethan Page!

Tamsyn Klazek-Schryer

Violinist Tamsyn Klazek-Schryer is a vibrant and versatile artist whose musical life bridges classical performance, traditional fiddle, jazz vocals, and even silver jewelry design. Currently completing her degree in violin performance under the guidance of Ann Elliott-Goldschmid, Tamsyn brings her creative spirit to every note.

Before coming to UVic, Tamsyn studied at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music and has received numerous accolades, including awards from the GVYO, Musicians Performance Trust Fund, and Early Music Vancouver. She’s participated in prestigious programs such as PRISMA, Quartet Fest West, and Victoria Baroque, and was invited to the 2024 Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Competition in Whitehorse.

A Playful Mozart with Serious Demands

Tamsyn won the competition with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Major which she will perform with the UVic Symphony Orchestra on November 1. “I love the playfulness in Mozart’s writing,” says Tamsyn. “He was only 19 when he wrote this concerto, and you can hear his youthful spirit in every phrase. It’s a very joyful experience to perform.” 

Despite its cheerful nature, the piece demands incredible finesse. “The precision required to play any Mozart concerto is always a challenging ambition. It took a lot of careful study to bring it to life. There were no answers in the ink. With the guidance of my instructor, I had to figure out how to bring meaning to the music,” she says. “I composed all my own cadenzas for the performance, which pushed my creativity even further.”

Blending Traditions, Finding Her Own Voice

At UVic, Tamsyn has found a space that nurtures artistic freedom and cross-disciplinary exploration. “I used to think classical music was about finding one ‘correct’ sound. UVic has shown me that our unique voice on our instrument is just as important. There’s deep value in blending tradition with self-expression.”

Beyond classical music, Tamsyn performs with Celtic group Aràen and folk group The Four Folks, and shares her handmade jewelry through Juliet Creatives.

On her playlist: Djaliya by Ablaye Cissoko, Hideous Towns by The Sundays, Finn’s Rescue by The Foreign Landers.

Watch her perform here or follow her creative worlds on Instagram: 
@araen.theband, 
@thefourfolks
, @julietcreatives

Olivia Pryce-Digby

Whether singing in cathedrals, Off-Broadway productions, or multidisciplinary operatic showcases, soprano Olivia Pryce-Digby is a storyteller at heart. A fourth-year voice student studying with Benjamin Butterfield, Olivia brings a deep emotional sensibility to her performances, grounded in both classical training and creative curiosity.

Olivia has worked with some of Canada’s top vocal ensembles, including the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Vox Humana, and That Choir, and serves as a choral scholar at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria. Her theatrical experience includes featured roles in The Little Mermaid and Fearless, as well as a collaboration with South African dancer Gregory Maqoma in Broken Chord. Olivia also recently created March Madness, a bold, multidisciplinary work reclaiming the narrative of the “hysterical woman” through operatic performance.

Finding Depth in Barber’s Knoxville

Olivia will be performing Knoxville: Summer of 1915 by Samuel Barber with the UVic Symphony Orchestra on November 28.
“I still remember the first time I heard this piece — it was enchanting and emotional from start to finish,” Olivia says of Barber’s Knoxville. “The poem is a love letter to family, to home, to the magic of the everyday. It may simultaneously break your heart and heal something deep within.”

With its lyrical complexity and emotional nuance, the work is both technically demanding and richly expressive. “My biggest challenge has been managing my breath efficiently while maintaining the effortless storytelling quality that the piece demands,” she says. “Working in small sections and using breathing exercises has been my strategy.”

Olivia came to UVic after encouragement from Professor Butterfield and says her time here has reshaped her understanding of music. “I thought I knew a lot before, but I was just scratching the surface. UVic has fostered a deep curiosity and a love of detail that will stay with me forever.”

As she prepares to graduate, Olivia is aiming for graduate studies and a future in opera and oratorio, with a growing interest in teaching and mentorship.

On her playlist: Everything from medieval troubadour dances to Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder — and she was one of the top 0.01% Mozart listeners in 2024!

Follow her journey on Instagram: @livprycedig

Ethan Page

Percussionist Ethan Page is in his fifth year of Music Performance at UVic, where he is a 4-year Entrance Scholarship recipient and a leader across ensembles. As section leader in both the Wind Symphony and Symphony Orchestra, Ethan plays an impressive range of instruments — from timpani and snare drum to vibraphone and marimba (his personal favourite). He has performed widely in Victoria’s music community with the Canadian College of Performing Arts, Ensemble Laude, the Victoria Conservatory of Music, and the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra.

A Rare and Radiant Marimba Voice

Ethan chose Séjourné’s Concerto for Marimba and Strings for its rare combination of neo-romantic lyricism and virtuosic brilliance. He will perform the piece with the UVic Wind Symphony on March 27.
“There aren’t many pieces like this in the marimba repertoire. I love how dynamic and colourful it is — from the melancholic and cathartic first movement to the energetic, lively second movement,” describes Ethan.

Though captivating, the concerto comes with technical hurdles. “The eleven-tuplet runs were especially tricky,” Ethan explains. “I spent many hours practicing slowly with a metronome and I’ve gotten to the point where I’m fairly comfortable with those sections now.”

Studying at UVic has been transformative for Ethan, expanding his percussive horizons beyond drum kit to mallet instruments and chamber repertoire. “Seeing my professor and peers play marimba with four mallets inspired me immediately. With my instructor,  Aaron Mattock’s guidance, I’ve developed a work ethic and technique I never thought possible.”

Looking ahead, Ethan plans to continue performing and collaborating in Victoria while also pursuing a second degree in Computer Science.

All 3 concerts will take place in the Farqhar at UVic. Tickets are available through the UVic Ticket Centre and at the door. UVic students with a valid ONECard can attend for free, and special ticket pricing is available for school groups.

Visual Arts MFA student earns Audain Award

by | Oct 6, 2025 | Award, donor, Graduate, Visual Arts

Edith Skeard (centre) receiving the Audain Award

Congratulations go out to Visual Arts MFA candidate Edith Skeard on being named one of five BC graduate students to receive a $7,500 Travel Award from the Audain Foundation on Sept 26. As a complement to the prestigious $100,000 Audain Prize (this year awarded to BC-based Dane-Zaa sculptor Brian Jungen), the Audain Travel Awards were established in 2019 to carve new pathways for student artists by supporting access to career-enriching international art experiences.

Skeard will use the award to travel to a month-long Sound Lab residency in Struer/Copenhagen for an exploration of sound art within a sculptural context.

“I feel very grateful to receive this award and very privileged to represent UVic at the Audain Prize,” says Skeard. “Denmark has a really vibrant experimental sound-art culture, and this residency is a way to deepen my practice within both sound and sculpture, and to pull my practice into an international space.”

Visual Arts chair Megan Dickie says, “Skeard produces multi-component installations with visual elements, sculpture, light and sound. They seek to create immersive environments that offer the viewer opportunities for transcendent experiences. In this work, the environment around us is transformed in ways that remind us that our own interpretations and experiences are like shadows of the real world.”

Skeard with Megan Dickie (left) 

Edie Skeard is a multimedia artist, woodwind player, and composer working primarily within sound art and sculpture. Their work focuses on building installation spaces through the intersection of light, sound, people, duration and tactility.

They are interested in collecting and collaging field recordings and improvisational sound, how sound and light creates/erases spatial boundaries, contemporary sculpture, tenderly noticing their environment, future archives, dreams, and the weaving together of different sensory mediums. They engage playfully with materials to understand the relationships between sound and objects and their ontological implications.

Skeard is our seventh Visual Arts MFA student to receive an Audain Travel Award, and our ongoing partnership with the Audain Foundation also includes the rotating Audain Professorship in Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest and our own contemporary Audain Gallery (established 2010).

Don’t miss Edith Skeard’s October 6-10 solo exhibit in the Visual Arts building’s Audain Gallery, with a public reception running 6-8pm Thursday, October 9. 

​

Inaugural JRSP residency showcases new sculptural work

by | Sep 24, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, donor, Visual Arts

A sculptural installation by Canadian artist Siobhan Humston will be on view exclusively at UVic from October 9-14, showcasing the results of a new artist-scholar residency created in association with the Jeffrey Rubinoff Foundation and UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts. The inaugural recipient of this new creative collaboration, Humston is just completing her six-week residency at the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island.

“It’s always hard to imagine what may come from working in a new place,” says Humston, who has held a number of international residencies. “As an artist, the JRSP presents a surprise physicality to me — even though my resulting work may not be large, I feel like it has taken a lot of energy and space to produce, which reflects on the expansive nature of the park itself.”

Selected in May 2025 from a field on nearly 60 international artists to be the first UVic/JRSP Artist-Scholar, Humston has spent her time at the sculpture park developing new work combining themes involving music, synesthesia and humanity’s entanglement with the natural world. The resulting exhibit will open with an artist talk starting at 4 p.m. Thursday, October 9, in room 103 of the Fine Arts Building, followed by a 5 p.m. exhibit opening in UVic’s A. Wilfrid Johns Gallery (MacLaurin Building A-wing). The exhibit will run daily through October 14, with Humston also engaging with Fine Arts classes.

Humston has been working with tangible aspects of Hornby Island’s natural environment as a sculptural medium, as well as more traditional tools like graphite and pigments, while also recording ambient sounds integrating Rubinoff’s monumental steel sculptures found across the [note size] site.

“Walking the fields and forested areas, drawing and photographing his sculptures, working in Jeffrey’s barn studio and reading his texts have all been deeply inspiring,” she says.

JRSP curator Karun Koernig notes that, “Humston’s work quietly co-mingles the natural and human worlds. Particularly compelling for us was her ambition to integrate a soundscape into her residency, resonating deeply with Rubinoff’s profound connection to music.”

Previous residency work by Siobhan Humston 

In addition to creating new work, Humston says highlights of her residency have included learning about Rubinoff’s creative life and spending an extended time at the park itself. “The combination of being on the land at this time of year, listening to the ravens conversing, seeing these massive, beautiful sculptures at different times of day in changing weather . . . it’s all been so exciting and nourishing.”

Humston’s art has been exhibited in over 70 solo and group exhibitions in commercial, artist-run and public galleries, and is held in private and corporate collections in England, Europe, Australia and North America. She has a studio on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario.

2025 ONC ArtScience Fellow debuts exhibit

by | Sep 5, 2025 | Award, climate, Graduate, Visual Arts

When Parvin Hasani applied for the 2025 ArtScience Fellowship with Ocean Networks Canada — the sixth Fine Arts graduate student to hold this position — she proposed exploring the extreme ecosystems of deep-sea hydrothermal vents via her sculptural practice. Now, after spending the summer in conversation with ONC researchers and constructing her own conceptual pieces, she’s ready to debut her exhibit, Tides of Memory.

“Initially, I imagined creating pieces inspired by vent chimneys, but the work shifted toward a more layered connection,” Parvin explains. “I began linking the vents not only to geology but also to the deep mind — tracing parallels between flows of iron, water, and the ways memory forms and erodes.”

Ultimately, she came away with a deeper sense of how scientific ways of seeing the deep ocean could intersect with artistic imagination. “Hydrothermal vents revealed themselves as natural infrastructures — hidden, porous networks where flows of minerals and water carry echoes of memory across deep time,” she says.

Tides of Memory runs September 8-12 at the Audain Gallery in UVic’s Visual Arts building, with a public talk at 5pm Tuesday, September 9 in Visual Arts room A146.

Combining art with science

Thanks to ONC’s oceanographic research on the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vent Field — an active, mineral-rich environment on the deep-sea Juan de Fuca Ridge — Parvin was able to create a visual interpretation of these hidden systems that was grounded in her MFA sculptural practice.

“My graduate work explored water infrastructures, which shaped the way I began to think about the ocean and hydrothermal vents as kinds of natural infrastructure,” she says. “The materials and the techniques I used — plaster, brass in scagliola and electro-etching — allowed me to transform scientific information into installations and sculptures.”

Using these creative processes, she was then able to echo mineral growth and erosion. “These pieces translate data about vent fields into installations and sculptures that act as bodily archives of memory and time.”

The surprise for the artist was finding how deeply the notion of hidden networks resonates — “whether in the porous chimneys of hydrothermal vents or in the ways we imagine memory,” she says. “Talking with scientists, I felt we were tracing the same invisible lines from different worlds.”

Hear from the artist

As well as learning about her process and getting a guided tour, audiences at the public talk will learn more about the artistic and scientific concepts behind the exhibit.

“I’ll share how Tides of Memory reimagines hydrothermal vents through installations and sculptures — as bodily archives where geological processes, iron, and water become metaphors for memory and survival across deep time,” she says.

The call for applications for the 2026 ArtScience Fellowship will go out in Fall 2025. Read about our previous Fine Arts graduate student ONC artistic residencies: Megan Harton, Neil Griffin, Colin Malloy, Dennis Gupa and Colton Hash.