Roy Henry Vickers awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts

by | Jun 9, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, indigenous, Visual Arts

Roy Henry Vickers is a celebrated Indigenous artist, author, printmaker and storyteller of Tsimshian, Haida, Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv and English descent. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, the Order of BC and a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2019, he was even nominated for a Grammy Award for his design work on a Grateful Dead CD box set.

Now, he is the recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, presented as part of the Fine Arts convocation ceremony on June 10, Vickers studied at UVic before joining the Saanich Fire Department, he then left to study and graduate from the Gitanmaax School of Northwest Coast Indian Art. As noted in this Sooke News Mirror story, his former Oak Bay High teacher — and early UVic Theatre department designer — Bill West encouraged him to “paint what you see”. Vickers remembers the teacher saying, “Your colour blindness is an advantage because you simplify all the colours out there and paint what you see.”

Clearly, West was on to something, as Vickers’ internationally acclaimed artwork reflects the landscapes, wildlife and people of British Columbia. Characterized by clean lines and vivid colours, his distinctive artistic style blends his Indigenous heritage with a contemporary design, creating timeless and evocative pieces. Vickers’ influence is felt throughout the province — from founding his Eagle Aerie Gallery in Tofino to designing the Salmon Totem Pole for the 1994 Commonwealth Games. He also played a pivotal role in shaping the artistic direction of Vancouver International Airport’s new terminal, where his work remains prominently displayed.

With a career spanning more than 50 years, Vickers continues to leave a lasting legacy through his art and storytelling — sharing powerful messages of Indigenous self-determination, resilience and healing.

A perfect GPA means Writing student Caitlin Pierce wins the Victoria Medal

by | Jun 8, 2026 | Award, Undergraduate, Writing

Each year, Fine Arts presents the Victoria Medal to the student who earns the highest grades. This year, we are pleased to honour Caitlin Pierce, who not only graduates with a BFA in Writing but has also achieved a 9.0 grade-point average: in other words, a perfect GPA.

“This medal is a much deserved and wonderful validation of all that Caitlin accomplished as an undergrad,” says Lee Henderson, Writing professor and current department Chair. “She has a wild imagination, a storytelling talent that is truly remarkable and her writing is unmistakable for its originality and depth. I’m so happy for her to receive this accolade!”

Describing her as both a heartfelt, caring writer and a supportive, highly regarded member of UVic’s writing community, Henderson notes that Pierce has consistently been a strong and passionate advocate for her peers: she always seeks to uplift, in both her writing and her community relations.

While Pierce excelled in her Writing courses, she also diversified her academic portfolio by taking electives in health, philosophy, art history and visual arts, reflecting her rich and thoughtful approach to life. In fact, this is her second UVic degree, having already earned a Bachelor of Science in Biopsychology back in 2017.

A working phlebotomist with Island Health since 2019, she decided to return to UVic in 2022 after taking the memoir-writing course “Chronicling the Stories of Your Life” through UVic’s Continuing Studies. “I remember thinking, ‘Yeah, I really do actually like this: I’m going to apply!’,” she says.

Caitlin Pierce in the Writing office

“I started in the Sciences because it was the expected thing by my parents, to maybe be a doctor — because there’s this universal idea that you’re never going to get paid as a writer — but after COVID happened I started wondering why I was doing it,” she admits. “I mean, it’s a useful job, but I don’t really enjoy it. So I figured now that I have a career to fall back on, maybe it’s time to chase my dreams instead.”

When asked how she achieved such a notable GPA, Pierce said it came down to “just showing up and really enjoying the work I was doing. I think that’s the difference between this and my first degree: I’ve really, really enjoyed this one and it felt like what I was supposed to be doing.” She pauses and laughs. “Okay, maybe a bit of perfectionism helped too.”

When asked for particularly influential faculty members during her degree, she quickly singles out the likes of creative nonfiction authors Deborah Campbell and David Leach, poet Marita Dachsel, fiction writer Yasuko Thanh and art instructor Cliff Haman. Pierce also gives a big shout-out to her parents (“they’ve been so supportive!”) and her partner Eliza Musselwhite, who is also a Writing alumna. “I don’t think I could have done any of this without them,” she says.

Professor Henderson recalls being particularly struck by Pierce’s latest work this past spring while she was participating in a field school on relational aesthetics and fiction at the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island, with whom Fine Arts has a dynamic partnership.

“Her writing project was one of the most innovative and unexpected stories I’ve come across: a historical novel that is also science fiction, yet also a story about trauma, survival and loss,” he says. “Her novel-in-progress is a perfect example of the richness and thoughtfulness of her writing. Caitlin is a novelist to watch for, an important emerging voice in contemporary literature and someone I’ll be forever grateful I had a chance to work with.”

Eeman Masood’s digital tree grows in New York City

by | Jun 1, 2026 | Alumni, Award, climate, donor, Graduate, Visual Arts

New York City’s “Midnight Moment” is the world’s largest and longest-running digital public art program. Since 2012, over 100 contemporary artists have presented their work to millions of viewers on one of the most iconic public canvases: the electronic billboards of Times Square. There, for three minutes nightly and 364 nights a year (except for when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve), the ads are dimmed on 95+ screens from 41st to 49th Streets, and the art takes over.

For the month of February, a hand-painted animation of a banyan tree by Eeman Masood (Visual Arts MFA 2025) titled There is a voice that doesn’t use words, Listen — which was her MFA thesis project — transformed Times Square from one of the world’s most technological and chaotic boulevards into a poetic, immersive experience, reflecting on the silent languages of nature and the endurance of the natural world.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Masood earned her BFA from Lahore’s National College of Arts (NCA) in 2021 with a major in miniature painting before coming to UVic to pursue her graduate work on a fully funded scholarship. While at UVic, she was the recipient of several notable awards, including the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, the Jeffrey Rubinoff Graduate Scholarship, the Jessie Allan Forsyth Scholarship and the Canwest Global Scholarship in Video Arts.

Masood’s work explores the emotional and spiritual connections between nature, solitude and ecological awareness. Combining traditional techniques with contemporary mediums, she expands classical miniature painting through intricate works and hand-painted animations. We caught up with her recently for this Q&A.

What does it mean to you to have your work shown on such an enormous canvas as Times Square? Did people literally stop and “listen,” as the title encourages?

“It was a magical moment, truly, and I feel very grateful to have had this opportunity,” says Masood. “My work features the banyan tree, under which many gatherings and discussions used to take place. Bringing that tree to the busiest street in the world and projecting it above people kind of recreated the same sense of gathering—but in a very different way. I would go there every midnight to quietly stand among the audience, and it was so moving to see people stop, sometimes filming at first, but then pausing and just absorbing the work fully.”

MFA grad Eeman Masood stands in front of her hand-painted animation of a banyan tree,
spreading nature & calm across chaotic Times Square (all photos: Michael Hull/Times Square Arts)

Your thesis project specifically focused on the banyan tree: why choose that as your subject matter? And why did you choose to create a hand-painted animation?

“The banyan tree is one of South Asia’s most prestigious trees, often called the mother tree or the walking tree because it keeps expanding,” she says. “It’s also endangered, and I wanted to raise awareness about that. But the work goes deeper, reflecting on how we are part of nature and connected to the universe. The title of the work is a quote by the Persian mystic Sufi poet Maulana Rumi, asking us to reflect within. Being trained in traditional miniature painting, I wanted to translate the detailed, meditative connection between breath and brush into hand-painted animation, expanding the world of my paintings naturally into motion: in the video, the leaves move slowly and naturally align with the breath.”

You received a number of awards and funding during your graduate studies: what did that amount of donor support mean to you, and what did it enable you to do?

“I am deeply grateful to all the donors who supported me during my MFA studies,” she says. “As an international student, it’s very challenging to manage living expenses while producing work and investing in materials: these awards gave me financial relief, allowing me to focus fully on my creative practice without constant stress. They also enabled me to buy materials I needed and take risks in my work. Beyond the practical support, it felt encouraging to know people believed in what I was doing. I honestly couldn’t have completed my projects without their support.”

How did your time in the Visual Arts department impact your creative development? How much of an influence was your grad advisor, Kelly Richardson?

“My time at UVic will always be one of my most memorable periods. Moving to Canada, it became my first home, and I felt supported by faculty, staff and students. Facilities like private studios, editing rooms and scanners allowed me to experiment and work freely, which was crucial for my creative growth. Professor Richardson has been such a positive influence: when I arrived at UVic, I hadn’t imagined moving from painting into animation, and much of that transition happened because of her encouragement and support. She always pushed me to do better, and her own work was a constant inspiration. We connected on many ideas, and I’ve learned a lot from her practice and journey as an artist. She helped me believe in myself and my work, especially during difficult moments, and I’m deeply grateful for her support.”

What’s next for you?

“I recently completed an artist residency at the Banff Centre, where I began a new animation project that I plan to continue developing. Alongside that, I’m preparing a new series of paintings. Moving forward, I want to explore how animation and painting can continue to inform each other, expanding the worlds I’ve been building in my work. It’s an exciting time to experiment, take risks and grow my practice—I’m looking forward to seeing how these new projects develop over the coming months and years!”

This story appears in the UVic Torch alumni magazine

Three instructors earn teaching accolades

by | May 27, 2026 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Award, Faculty, Visual Arts

Congratulations go out to three Fine Arts instructors who earned accolades for their teaching this month: Ambreen Hussaini (left) won the Andy Farquharson Teaching Excellence Award at UVic’s REACH Awards, while Michael Reed received the Fine Arts Award for Teaching Excellence (Sessionals & Music Performance Instructors) and Laura Dutton earned the Fine Arts Award for Teaching Excellence & Educational Leadership.

Hussaini (AHVS) is recognized for advancing innovative, learner-centred teaching and mentorship. She fosters creativity, dialogue and critical thinking through reflective writing, visual analysis and community-engaged learning. Grounded in equity, curiosity and compassion, she brings decolonial frameworks and experiential practices — such as personalized territorial acknowledgments — into culturally responsive classrooms. By mentoring peers and TAs, facilitating workshops and developing curricula, Ambreen strengthens teaching practices across the university and inspires students to engage deeply with art, culture and one another.

Dutton (VISU) cultivates classroom environments in which students feel empowered, supported and recognized as individuals: her teaching approach fosters intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and professional confidence, supporting students as emerging artists with distinct voices and ambitions. Her dedication to teaching extends well beyond the classroom, serving as undergraduate curriculum representative, working closely with the program committee to develop curriculum and program navigation strategies. She is also one of the department’s strongest advocates for equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility.

Reed (AHVS/Medieval Studies) mobilizes his expert knowledge of medieval art, culture, and history with innovative teaching strategies that continually engage students, connecting the past to the present and showing the value of understanding history in the context of challenges facing us today. Grounded in the principles of EDI and intersectionality, his course design and dialogic pedagogy respond to the urgent call to replace colonial approaches to the European past; his desire to actively connect students to the past is enhanced by his embrace of technology, such as his use of an LTI grant to contribute to the Medievalism Mapping Project.

A previous REACH Award winner (2022) who has also received a teaching excellence award from Humanities (2021), to the best of our knowledge that makes Michael Reed the only UVic instructor to win three teaching awards in three different units on campus. A hearty congratulations on earning this remarkable milestone!

Research funding focuses on Indigenous artistic responses to plastic pollution

by | May 15, 2026 | Award, climate, Faculty, indigenous, Visual Arts

While there is a growing awareness of the global impact of plastic pollution, the most ubiquitous visuals we have of the harms of litter and microplastics alike may be of tropical sea turtles, polluted beaches, and damaged coral reefs. Few consider the critical impact it has on Northern regions, where microplastics contaminate oceans and sea ice, the landscape, and even the food chain, posing a threat to community health and biodiversity.

Now, $475,000 in new funding from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) offers Department of Visual Arts professor Heather Igloliorte the opportunity to create a series of new art-science collaborations while also increasing national awareness around the issue of plastic pollution in rural, remote, Subarctic and Arctic regions.

Titled “As It Melts: Northern Indigenous Artistic Perspectives on Plastics Pollution”, this two-year project will be led by Igloliorte — who is also UVic’s Canada Excellence Research Chair in Decolonial & Transformational Indigenous Art Practices — and Kirsty Robertson (Western University’s Canada Research Chair in Museums, Art & Sustainability) in partnership with the Inuit Art Foundation.

Announced on May 11, As It Melts will bring together a diverse group — including Indigenous artists, Indigenous and settler scientists, plastics and arts-based researchers, students, museum professionals, community members, Elders and knowledge keepers — to address the presence of plastic pollution in and around Indigenous communities, through the lens of contemporary art research-creation.

For this ambitious project, Indigenous artists will work with and learn from plastics pollution researchers and scientific labs across Canada, participate in knowledge exchange workshops, and ultimately create major research-based artworks, culminating in a nationally significant public exhibition and symposium aligning with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“This project is truly a testament to the strength of our collaboration, and the significance and urgency of the work before us,” says Igloliorte. “By harnessing the power of art to investigate plastics pollution — while also informing communities and the broader public of its harms — As It Melts will help people imagine cleaner, safer and more sustainable futures for our lands and waters.”

Fine Arts also recently announced $250,000 in funding from SSHRC’s New Frontiers in Research Fund and the Tri-Agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS) for Visual Arts professor Carey Newman’s two-year project focused on “Robotic Carving to Augment and Preserve Intergenerational Kwakwaka’wakw Knowledge Transfer.” Both these projects engage innovative new creative technologies to address concerns around the environment and the ongoing climate crisis while also forefronting Indigenous knowledge and practices.

Heather Igloliorte (photo: Julie Grenier)

“These grant successes by Carey and Heather highlight the remarkable trajectory that Fine Arts is on,” says Kirk McNally, Associate Dean Creative Activity, Research & Administration for UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts. “They build on our reputation for excellence in creative activity and research that explores the potential of creative technologies, and our deep engagement with the environment and the climate crisis. They also highlight UVic’s commitment to Indigenous-led scholarship and creating an environment where Indigenous ways of knowing and being can thrive.”

By engaging with community-monitoring of plastics pollution and on-the-land research in Northern, remote and rural Indigenous communities, As It Melts intends to dramatically shift both awareness of and response to the impacts of plastic pollution on wildlife, the environment and humans in Canada. This project will effectively respond to Phase 2 of the Canada-Wide Action Plan on Zero Plastic Waste, while also establishing decolonial methods for further research.

As It Melts will be guided by an advisory committee made up of Indigenous community leaders and arts professionals. It will also be supported by innovative partnerships with organizations and labs across the country — including UVic’s Taqsiqtuut Indigenous Research-Creation Lab and Western University’s Centre for Sustainable Curating — in parallel to Indigenous knowledge and artistic and cultural approaches, linked with lived and embodied experience of the impacts of plastic pollution.

Research funding focuses on developing innovative Indigenous robotic technologies

by | May 13, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, climate, Faculty, indigenous, Visual Arts

Carey Newman working on his Totem 2.0 system developed with Camosun Innovates  (photo: Camosun College)

Department of Visual Arts and Art History & Visual Studies professor Carey Newman was announced on May 13 as the recipient of new funding from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to develop a new robotic carving system to better preserve traditional Indigenous carving techniques. By exploring the interconnection between Indigenous knowledge, technology and art, this innovative technology will ethically embed robotics into education and creative practice while offering new ways to access, interpret, preserve and teach traditional knowledge.

Newman, also UVic’s inaugural Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices, will be receiving $250,000 over two years from SSHRC’s New Frontiers in Research Fund and the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS) for his project “Robotic Carving to Augment and Preserve Intergenerational Kwakwaka’wakw Knowledge Transfer.”

Carving is core to Pacific Northwest Indigenous Peoples’ social, legal, and cultural orders.  From the ornamental to the utilitarian, miniscule to monumental, carvings — be they drums, masks and rattles or canoes, poles and structural support for big houses — integrate into every aspect of life.

Now, this interdisciplinary project will see Newman join with UVic researchers from Mechanical Engineering & Computer Science (including professor Keivan Ahmadi) with off-campus partners including Camosun College’s Camosun Innovates and the Royal BC Museum to design and build an adaptive robotic system which will operate in collaboration with a master carver to augment and preserve the intergenerational knowledge transfer of carving practices in Northwest Coast Indigenous art.

“Traditionally, carving is passed down through close, hands-on mentorship, often within families or communities, but current efforts face increasing disruption due to climate change, cultural shifts, land/language loss, legacies of colonialism and urbanization,” says Newman. “This project offers new ways to enhance generational continuity and help young people engage and learn using novel digital collaboration technologies designed to protect and strengthen carving knowledge.”

The final version of the pole Carey Newman is carving above, now placed outside Pacific Opera Victoria’s Baumann Centre in Victoria  

Rather than automate artistic methods, Newman’s project will instead complement a carver’s tools by communicating culturally rooted practices over time. This work will provide a careful, respectful approach that upholds the integrity and sovereignty of Indigenous knowledge systems while utilizing advanced computational models and processes. Creating a robotic carving system will allow new technologies to promote, respect and strengthen cultural resilience, as well as explore the reciprocal benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration in areas like robotic surgery and advanced manufacturing.

 “This award is especially meaningful for us to celebrate as it marks Fine Arts’ first successful NFRF and charts an exciting new path for collaboration and partnership across campus, and in our community,” says Kirk McNally, the Associate Dean Creative Activity, Research & Administration for Fine Arts.

The impact of this project is enhanced by alignment with Newman’s other federally funded cultural, environmental and political art project, The Seedling, which involves planting a Western Red Cedar then designing a digital 3D totem which will be carved in 600 years when the tree is mature. The Seedlingrethinks colonial concepts of economy, law and politics, while radically expanding planning and decision-making timescales.

Newman’s robotic system will be capable of real-time adaptation to carving variables like unpredictable cedar microstructures while combining experiential knowledge and technical innovation. Integrating deeply embodied, culturally grounded artistic knowledge with emerging robotic technologies involves high risks (both technical and conceptual) but offers high rewards (including generational knowledge transfer and commercial application and development).