Sean Holman presents at My Climate Story summit

by | Mar 28, 2025 | climate, donor, Writing

When 20 of the best climate storytellers from around the world present their ideas at the international My Climate Story project on April 10, UVic will be in the room as well: Writing professor Sean Holman was selected out of nearly 100 submissions to share a lightning talk about the ongoing impact of his Climate Disaster Project. Hosted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media and the Princeton High Meadows Environmental Institute, My Climate Story is a live, online, two-hour climate storytellers’ summit which you can watch for free.

About the Climate Disaster Project

Founded at UVic in 2021, the Climate Disaster Project is an international teaching newsroom that has trained hundreds of students at 13 post-secondary institutions to work on the frontlines of this ongoing humanitarian crisis by creating an extensive archive of eyewitness accounts.

“Educators at post-secondary institutions across Canada and around the world have spent hundreds of hours teaching students how to compassionately help survivors share their stories,” says Holman, UVic’s Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental & Climate Journalism. “Our students then take that knowledge into the community to co-create a people’s history of climate change that honours the human dignity of their experiences.”

To date, over 300 testimonies have been collected from disaster survivors and shared in local, national and international publications, as well as national radio and television broadcasts. 

About the Climate Storytellers Summit 

Over 20 speakers will present at the Climate Storytellers’ Summit on April 10. Join them live online to hear from people harnessing the power of climate storytelling across ages and stages, topics and time zones. The diverse lineup of speakers includes a journalist, poet, data analyst, healthcare executive, dancer, author, anthropologist, photographer, professor, oral historian, indigenous rights advocate, high school and college students, retired park rangers, and documentary filmmakers, among others.

Each will share a lively five-minute presentation about the ways that climate stories can disrupt business as usual, grapple with history and inspire hope. The summit and its companion documentation and resource hub will offer a platform to present climate storytelling work and to learn and connect with others working in this important space.

Stream the Climate Storytellers’ Summit live on Thursday, April 10. Full details and free registration here.

New exhibit & partnership

In other Climate Disaster Project news, Kamloops-based independent community news outlet The Wren has  published a series of testimonies from climate disaster survivors around the city and as far away as Bolivia, India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka.

Thompson Rivers University journalism professor Jennifer Chrumka has led the co-creation of these 24 testimonies with her students, and also arranged for short text excerpts to be presented as an art exhibition at the Kamloops Art Gallery in April: Fragments from the Frontlines: Voices and Portraits of Survival, featuring photographs from Jess Beaudin.

This is just the latest effort by the Climate Disaster Project to raise the voices of climate impacted communities to make sure their experiences aren’t forgotten and their knowledge is shared locally, regionally, and globally. 

“I don’t think that this is something that anybody can prepare for”, says TRU student Reagan Wilkinson, who shares her experience of 2024 hurricanes Helene and Milton with Climate Disaster Project contributor Hamida Marufu.

 

Indigenous research and community springs from arts lab

by | Feb 27, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, climate, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, News, Research, Visual Arts

From left: Heather Igloliorte with Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab staff Chris Mockford & Natalie Rollins

There’s a new Indigenous arts research space at the University of Victoria (UVic) that is looking up—way up—to the arts of the circumpolar region, as well as all along the Pacific shoreline and from Alaska to New Zealand, with Victoria at the center of it all.

The Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab is the latest project by Heather Igloliorte, UVic’s inaugural Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices, based in the Faculty of Fine Arts. Igloliorte’s prestigious eight-year, $8-million position is advancing reconciliation through the transformative power of art and innovative exhibition practices, and is supporting a new generation of students, researchers, educators, curators and artists to drive change through artistic practice.

“Indigenous people don’t necessarily have access to the same cutting-edge technologies that others do, just like they lack access to museums and galleries in the North,” says Igloliorte.

The development of digital and media-arts skills is one main area that will help remove these barriers by putting innovative tools—like augmented and extended reality—into the hands of students and artists alike. “They can experiment and see if they’re interested in bringing their current practices into a media art space … The potential is there for people to grow in exciting new directions.”

As such, the Taqsiqtuut Research Creation lab is addressing the key pillars of Igloliorte’s CERC: not only these practical digital skills but also the creation of exhibitions, the training and mentoring of students and youth, and the development of new policies and best practices for institutions that engage with Indigenous art and artists.

See the lineup & RSVP for the Feb 28 launch event here, including a 1pm welcome and panel discussion, a 3pm film screening and the 5-7pm installation walk-through and demonstration.

Listen to this interview with Heather Igloliorte on CBC Radio’s All Points West on February 27.

The “qiaqsutuq” installation on view at the opening of the Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab,
curated by Heather Igloliorte, Alysa Procida & Carla Taunton

Designing new collaborations

Open to students and Indigenous members of the artistic community, as well as visiting artists and artistic residencies (plus other community members by invitation), the Taqsiqtuut lab is named after the Inuktitut word for patterns and designs, which suits Igloliorte’s intention of providing a training and mentorship space at the intersection of both customary and digital practices.

“In the past, I’ve worked with artists who’ve learned how to take their beadwork practice and turn it into stop-motion animation, for example, or to take their work on the land and then translate that into a VR or an augmented reality film or project,” explains Igloliorte. “But it can also go the other way: we work with artists with a lot of training in digital or media practices who are now thinking about translating their work into a land-based practice, or an intangible heritage project.”

Currently run by a diverse mix of five (including faculty and staff, plus post-doctorate, graduate and undergraduate students), the lab is in the process of building up a technological library of project-based digital tools.

“We’ll keep building as we go,” says Igloliorte. “For a stop-motion project, we’ll invest in stop-motion technology, and when we work with seamstresses on an Indigenous customary clothing pattern-making workshop, then we’ll purchase a pattern-imaging device. “We also have a high-end video and media arts editing suite and a digital media arts technician who’s here to help students and community members realize their own far-ranging projects.”

Carey Newman demonstrates his Witness Blanket VR project to a visitor
during the launch of the Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab on Feb 28 

Championing research creation

Officially opened on Feb. 28 with an afternoon of panel discussions, art installations, project demonstrations and a film screening, the lab showcased dynamic emerging digital media projects. The Witness Blanket VR by UVic’s Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices and Visual Arts professor Carey Newman—which transitions a Winnipeg-based, reconciliation-focused sculptural installation into a virtual reality program accessible by anyone with a virtual reality rig—was also featured.

The Taqsiqtuut lab launch will also mark the conclusion of one of Igloliorte’s research projects centering on promoting and protecting Indigenous arts, culminating in a panel discussion with a local focus on the appreciation and appropriation of Northwest coast arts.

Previously a Tier 1 University Research Chair at Concordia University, where she co-led the Indigenous Futures Research Centre in the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology, Igloliorte is now excited to be creating an Indigenous research-creation lab here at UVic.

“This space is unique in many ways because of the areas we’re approaching with the CERC and the work that we’re doing,” she explains. “I’ve seen a lot of amazing arts-based technological labs, and I’m excited to partner with other institutions.”

One of these partnership projects is Qiaqsutuq, a multimedia sculptural installation which offers an Inuit perspective on climate change, as told Greek-chorus style from the perspectives of five gigantic Arctic animals or beings. It was produced with the Centre for Inter-media Arts and Decolonial Expression at Halifax’s NSCAD University—which is co-led by Leah Decter and Tahltan artist Peter Morin (who collaborated on UVic’s Big Button Blanket project back in 2014)—and which will engage another of her CERC partners, Western University’s Center for Sustainable Curating.

Igloliorte feels UVic—and Victoria specifically—is an ideal location for the Taqsiqtuut lab.

“Victoria is nestled at the center of both the Pacific and the North, from the west coast of North America on up to Alaska, then across the Arctic and around the circumpolar world, but also over to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Samoa,” she says. “I have a large network of colleagues and artists I’ve been working with for a long time—partners who are working and thinking across Indigenous cultures, and learning from each other in order to move towards this place of transformation and decolonization.”

Curating the future

In addition to maintaining her international partnerships and establishing the Taqsiqtuut lab, Igloliorte also carries a teaching load with the Visual Arts department and supports various community projects, such as jurying the Salt Spring National Art Prize and the Yukon Art Prize, and curating Newfoundland’s international Bonavista Biennale—all of which is part of her robust CERC position.

She will also host a UVic conference in May 2025 for all the stakeholders who contributed to her CERC application. “It will be a big international gathering of Indigenous scholars and museum directors, plus curators, artists and community members,” she says. “We’re coming together to make plans for publications, exhibitions, mentorships, public engagements and policy documents.”

Heather Igloliorte’s multifaceted and interdisciplinary work aligns with UVic’s commitment to ʔetal nəwəl | ÁTOL,NEUEL, as well as commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals focused on quality education, decent work, economic growth, reduced inequalities and peace and justice.

The “qiaqsutuq” installation was created by Jamesie Fournier (Nunavummiut/Yellowknife), Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukon Denaa & Inupiaq/Anchorage), Colo Lyne (Kalaaleq Greenlandic/Denmark), Malayah Maloney (Nunavummiut/Vancouver) and Taqralk Partridge (Nunavummiut/Ottawa), and curated by Heather Igloliorte (Nunatsiavummiut/Victoria), Alysa Procida (Settler/Toronto) & Carla Taunton (Settler/Halifax)

Top 10 Fine Arts stories of 2024

by | Jan 3, 2025 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Award, climate, donor, indigenous, Orion Series in Fine Arts, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

There’s no better time than the start of a new year for a moment of reflection on the previous year’s accomplishments. With that in mind, we’re happy to present the Fine Arts Top 10 of 2024: an inspiring series of story highlights about our students, faculty and alumni!   

Attendance at Fine Arts events cracks 20,000

It was a banner year for public participation in the Faculty of Fine Arts, with more than 20,000 people attending over 300 scheduled events. Thanks to our wide variety of cultural and scholarly offerings — including concerts, plays, recitals, exhibits, readings, poster fairs, film screenings, visiting artist talks and other special events — Fine Arts remains UVic’s largest and most consistent academic unit for public engagement.

Fine Arts is also an essential and vital cultural partner on campus and in the community, with a direct and lasting impact on the region’s quality of life. Victoria’s arts and culture sector employs over 10,000 people across the CRD and generates about $800 million GDP activity annually (2021 CRD study) — a core part of the $1.8 billion in added income UVic contributes to Greater Victoria.

The annual Visual Arts BFA show attracted over 1,000 people

A busy year for the Climate Disaster Project 

It was an incredible year for the Climate Disaster Project (CDP). Based out of our Writing department and led by Sean Holman, the Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism, the CDP not only mounted September’s world premiere of Eyes of the Beast:Climate Disaster Survivor Stories — the first full-length documentary theatre production based upon on-the-ground climate disaster reporting — but also collaborated with UK media outlet The Guardian in November to publish a series of COP29. And in April, the CDP was named the winner of a Special Recognition Citation for exceptional journalism that doesn’t fit traditional categories at the National Newspaper Awards — Canada’s top journalism awards — and was also nominated for awards with the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Canadian Journalism Foundation. The CDP also started a new partnership with Brazil’s newspaper and presented a two-day workshop as part of the Legacy Gallery’s summer exhibit, Fire Season, on top of its regular work collecting and sharing climate-survivor testimonies by students and instructors in 13 post-secondary institutions worldwide.  

“We are entering a new era of disaster, where our seasons will become increasingly defined by the traumatic events they bring, and we need to learn how journalism can help us survive those traumas together,” says Holman, who founded the CDP in 2021. “We are so honoured the National Newspaper Awards have recognized our efforts to empower disaster-affected communities inside and outside Canada.” 

Holman at the NNAs

Student Community Impact Awards tops $13,000

The annual Fine Arts Student Community Impact Awards recognize individual achievements or outstanding efforts made by full-time Fine Arts undergraduate students beyond their traditional studies — and 2024 saw us surpass $13,000 presented to 11 students since 2021. These juried, donor-funded awards were once again presented at the Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards in November.

This year’s recipients included Rebecca Fux (Visual Arts), Thomas Moore (Theatre) and Claire Jorgensen (Visual Arts), each of whom receives $1,000 for their individual projects. Rebecca received the award for her work mounting two exhibits of new paintings at separate local artist-run centres during her final year of studies: You Can Cry In Front of Me at Xchanges Gallery, addressing aspects of grieving and healing for young women after sexual assault, and The Weather Inside at the Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective. Thomas was recognized for his work directing and producing three shows with Timetheft Theatre Society — Of Theseus at the Victoria One Act Play Festival, the independently produced Horse Girl, and Carpet at the 2023 Fringe Festival — all of which provided opportunities for young queer and neurodivergent artists. And Claire received her award for winning a competitive commission to create a new large-scale mural embodying themes of diversity, community and wellness for UVic’s Island Medical Program — titled “A Dream of Vitality” — which she then painted live over the course of a month in the lobby of the Medical Sciences building. 

Jorgensen working on her mural

Kathryn Mockler wins Victoria Book Prize

Ww were thrilled in October when Writing professor Kathryn Mockler was named the winner of the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize for her new story collection Anecdote. Originally announced as a finalist alongside recently retired Writing professor Tim Lilburn (Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change) plus Writing alumni Ali Blythe (Stedfast) and Arleen Paré (Absence of Wings), as well as local poet Shō Yamagushiku (Shima), the prize came the same month as she was revealed to be one of three jurors for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry.

In her acceptance speech, Mockler noted that she was “humbled to be in the company of these finalists and their beautiful books” and then went on to donate the $5,000 prize to three local charities. “No matter how solitary the act of writing can feel, a writer is always addressing a collective, shared world — describing, analyzing, critiquing, redefining and expanding it,” she noted in her acceptance speech. “Writers cannot ignore the world that shapes their words nor the world that receives them.” 

Carey Newman named Royal Society Fellow

In September, artist and scholar Hayalthkin’geme Carey Newman was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. UVic’s Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices and a professor with both our departments of Visual Arts and Art History & Visual Studies, Newman has a regional, national and international impact by combining art and Kwakwaka’wakw knowledges to address Indigenous and environmental injustice. His projects — like The Witness Blanket and Seedling — transform conversations around reconciliation and decolonization across social, institutional and political paradigms, driving innovation and collaboration that challenge status quo approaches to research in the arts, climate, leadership, transsystemic law, collections management, conservation, technology and more. 

“Transformative change involves reaching hearts and minds. So, when I make artwork about specific issues, rather than telling people what to think or how to feel, I want them to engage with it on their own terms and take ownership of their thoughts and realizations,” explains Newman. “When something becomes personal it becomes important, and once it is important we are more willing to change our ways. Art has this power.”

So many guests! 

We had an incredible lineup of over guest artists this year who took time to share their knowledge and experience with our students and the community through masterclasses and public talks. Our popular Orion Series welcomed award-winning filmmaker Atom Egoyan, Grammy-winning soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Bertrand Chamayou, authors Carleigh Baker and Zehra Naqvi, artist Crystal Mowry, scholar Anna Dymond, art historian Alice Ming Wai Jim, screenwriter Michael MacLennan, theatre artists Randi Edmundson and Shizuka Kai, documentarian Ali Kazimi plus musicians Sandeep Bhagwati, Jude Brereton, Corey Hamm, Faustino Diaz, Jonathon Adams, Chloe Kim and Tom Foster. 

Our busy Visiting Artist series welcomed the likes of Jessica Stockholder, Kemi Craig, Justin Seiji Waddell, Debra Yepa-Pappan, Gootlh Ts’milix Mike Dangeli & Sm Łoodm Nüüs Mique’l Dangeli, Sonja Ahlers, Wayne Baerwaldt, Skawennati, Tina Rivers Ryan, Robert Burke and Julia Eden Hardenberg. Acclaimed author John Vaillant was our 2024 Southam Lecturer in Writing, while Gord Hill was this year’s Lehan Lecturer in Arts & Activism, and Joseph Kakwinokansum and Jónína Kirton were the guests for 2024’s sxʷiʔe ̕m “To Tell A Story” Indigenous Writers & Storytellers Series.

Various other guests included renowned pianist Minsoo Sohn (courtesy of the Martha Cooke Fund) while the Belfry Series saw Christine Quintana and Tobin Stokes speak to Theatre students.  

Award-winning filmmaker Atom Egoyan

This year’s Indigenous Writers series

Honorary Doctorates

Fine Arts was thrilled to see two Honorary Doctorates presented at UVic’s Fall Convocation ceremonies in November: En’owkin Centre co-founder Jeannette Armstrong (above left) was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) while Puente Theatre founder Lina de Guevara received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA). As an influential advocate for Indigenous peoples’ rights, Armstrong has been a force of change and wide-scale community impact through her artistic, research and educational vision; as a writer, director, educator and actor, de Guevara has left an enduring legacy on our national theatre landscape through her active support of immigrant and refugee communities.

Armstrong (left) & de Guevara 

New faculty members

Even in times of fiscal restraint, it’s important to keep our faculty cutting-edge, so we were excited to welcome a new group of professors this year. Critically acclaimed Canadian opera singer, national CBC Radio Saturday Afternoon at the Opera host and School of Music Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Marion Newman returned to campus this year as an assistant professor in Music; Vancouver author and poet Wayde Compton joined the Writing department as an associate professor; Ts’msyen Nation dancer, choreographer, Sm’algya̱x language learner/teacher and curator Sm Łoodm ‘Nüüsm Mique’l Dangeli is now an assistant professor of Indigenous Arts with our Department of Art History & Visual Studies; and assistant research professor in composition and music technology Lauren McCall is our newest hire, starting in January 2025 at our School of Music.  

Marion Newman

Alumni achievements

Back in March, UVic announced the recipients of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Awards and Fine Arts was once again proud to see three of our outstanding graduates included among the 18 recipients being recognized across the three categories: Presidents’ Alumni Award recipient Carrie Tennant (Music), Emerging Alumni Award recipient Dennis Gupa (Theatre) and Indigenous Community Alumni Award recipient Ivy Martin (AHVS/CRM). “This diverse group of graduates contribute their skills, passions and leadership to many different fields, including the arts, education, law, science, engineering and business,” says UVic President Kevin Hall. “Advocacy, community building and climate action are common threads woven through their work. In that sense, they shine a light on the values and priorities that define and unite us at UVic.” Read about their individual accomplishments on the alumni awards webpage. 

In other outstanding alumni news, viral internet comedy sensation Laura Ramoso (Theatre) mounted a global tour which included appearances at LA’s Netflix is a Joke festival, an appearance on CBC Radio’s Q and a sold-out performance at Victoria’s 1,400-seat Royal Theatre; 2024 graduate Sie Douglas-Fish (Visual Arts) made news by getting hired straight out of the program by Montreal-based Acrylic Robotics and saw their art featured on CBC TV’s national Dragon’s Den show; actor and playwright Medina Hahn (Theatre) filmed a movie version and recorded an interactive audio book of her Governor General’s Award shortlisted play Inheritance: A Pick-the-Path Experience; poet Cara-Lyn Morgan (Writing) published her latest collection Building a Nest from the Bones of My People, which explores her Indigenous (Métis) and immigrant (Trinidadian) roots; and CBC “30 Under 30” award-winning violinist Chloe Kim (School of Music) returned to campus as an Orion Lecturer.     

Martin (left), Tennant & Gupa

Fantastic philanthropy

We’ve saved the best news for last: despite being hit with the same budget cuts that have impacted UVic as a whole, we are thrilled to announced that we have raised over $4.8 million for the Faculty of Fine Arts this year—exceeding our 24/25 academic goal by nearly $1 million  . . . and with three months left in the fiscal year! Congratulations go out to hard-working Fine Arts Development Officer Samantha Krzywonos for her dedication and passion in working with our donors to ensure that our students have the best possible experience during their studies here.

The arts have always been and continue to be intimately linked to philanthropy—think of folks like Peggy Guggenheim, Alice Massey or Gertrude Vanderbilt—so it’s no exaggeration to say that we couldn’t do this without our generous donors. Whether it’s individual donations that fund projects like the Bruce More Chamber Singers Legacy Fund, the Student Community Impact Awards or the sxʷiʔe ̕m “To Tell A Story” Indigenous Writers & Storytellers Series, family memorials that create opportunities like the Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Lecture Series, or estate gifts that create exciting inititatives like the Martha Cooke Fund, our donors are an integral part of the Fine Arts  experience.

Finally, we would be remiss to not acknowledge the more generous philanthropic donations that have led to named professorships like the Jeffrey Rubinoff Nexus for Art as a Source of Knowledge fund, the Wayne Crookes Professorship in Environmental and Climate Journalism, the Audain Professorship in Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest, the Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecture Fund in Journalism & Non-Fiction and the Williams Legacy Chair in Modern & Contemporary Arts of the Pacific Northwest. These foundational gifts create positions for key faculty members to share their specific knowledge and experience with our students, the community and the world.

Thank you all!

Fine Arts development officer Samantha Krzywonos

Kathryn Mockler wins Victoria Book Prize

by | Oct 23, 2024 | Award, climate, Faculty, Writing

The Writing department’s 2024 Victoria Book Prize finalists (from left): Tim Lilburn, Ali Blyth, Kathryn Mockler, Arleen Paré 

This year, October should be renamed the “Month of Mockler”, given how much Department of Writing professor Kathryn Mockler has been popping up. Not only was she announced as a shortlister for — and eventual winner of — the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize (more on that later), but she was also one of three jurors for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, appeared as part of the Wild Prose literary roundtable “Alice in Monsterland: Alice Munro and other ‘art monsters’” and was one of the featured readers at the Department of Writing’s Faculty Reading Night.

But it was her Butler Book Prize win for her new story collection Anecdotes which really gave her cause to celebrate.

Named the winner at the annual public gala at the Union Club on October 16, Mockler was originally announced as a finalist alongside recently retired Writing professor Tim Lilburn (Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change) plus Writing alumni Ali Blythe (Stedfast) and Arleen Paré (Absence of Wings), as well as local poet Shō Yamagushiku (Shima).

It was a notable indicator of excellence that four of the five finalists were connected to our Writing department and, in her acceptance speech, Mockler noted that she was “humbled to be in the company of these finalists and their beautiful books”.

Prize money to charity  

While the win may have been a surprise to the author, her donation of the $5,000 prize money to three local charities was likely a surprise to the event’s audience. Yet such a move was not surprising for Mockler, who describes the act of writing as being “inherently political”.

“No matter how solitary the act of writing can feel, a writer is always addressing a collective, shared world — describing, analyzing, critiquing, redefining and expanding it. Writers cannot ignore the world that shapes their words nor the world that receives them,” she noted in her acceptance speech.

“In Anecdotes, I use personal experiences to grapple with violence, oppression and the climate crisis, and I am accepting this award at a time in which a genocide is being perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians with the support of the US, Canada and many European states—the same colonial forces responsible for the genocide of Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island.

“While Canada makes me complicit in these crimes through its arms sales and moral failure, I am deeply grateful to the judges and the Victoria Butler Book Prize for enabling me to donate the entirety of this award money to the following:

She concluded by saying, “I encourage anyone appalled by these atrocities to seek out groups like ArmsEmbargoNow and World Beyond War.”

About Anecdotes

Mockler’s sixth book, Anecdotes is her latest collection of characteristically disruptive writing (see also the 2020 anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis, which she co-edited) and is described as a hybrid collection of “dreamlike stories and dark humour” which examines the pressing realities of sexual violence, abuse and environmental collapse.

A finalist for four other awards (2023 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, 2024 Trillium Book Award, 2024 Fred Kerner Book Award, 2024 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award), Anecdotes was also recently reviewed in subTerrain Magazine.

Southam Lecture:John Vaillant

by | Oct 18, 2024 | climate, Events, Writing

Humans, aided by the fossil fuel industry (AKA the “fire industry”), have altered the chemistry of our planet and its atmosphere in life-changing ways. As a result, we are now crossing a threshold into a new climate regime marked by previously unimagined extremes and whipsawing instability. How we conceptualize and respond to this unprecedented challenge is of immediate and paramount importance, not just to our psyches and our souls, but to the future of everyone on Earth.

Listen to this memorable evening with acclaimed author John Vaillant (The Golden Spruce, The Tiger) as
he discusses his compelling new book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, about the catastrophic 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires. Vaillant explores not just the environmental and human toll, but also the broader implications of our relationship with a planet increasingly defined and deformed by the extreme events of human-fuelled climate change.

Vaillant recently won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize at the BC & Yukon Book Prizes for Fire Weather (Knopf Canada).

This is more than just a story of fire — it’s a warning, a call to action, and an unforgettable narrative of survival, resilience, and the undeniable power of nature.

Hear John Vaillant at 7pm Thursday, October 24 in room 105 of UVic’s Hickman Building • Free & open to all! 

A legacy of excellence

Vaillant is only the latest writer to be named a Southam Lecturer, joining the recent likes of Tyee founder David Beers, climate journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, science writer Erica Gies and many others. Since 2007, we have been bringing some of Canada’s leading print and broadcast journalists to campus to speak, teach and mentor our Writing students.  

The annual Harvey Stevenson Southam Lectureship — named after UVic alumnus Harvey Southam — is made possible by a gift from one of the country’s leading publishing families.

World premiere of climate disaster play at Phoenix Theatre

by | Sep 9, 2024 | Alumni, climate, donor, Faculty, Research, Theatre, Writing

People across Canada came together to help one another during recent climate disasters, and now Neworld Theatre and the Climate Disaster Project are bringing those true-life stories to the stage. Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories is the first full-length documentary theatre production based upon on-the-ground climate disaster reporting and will have its world premiere at the Phoenix Theatre from September 16-21.

“British Columbians have experienced so much loss because of the heat, fire, smoke and floods that have afflicted us,” says Alen Dominguez, Neworld managing director.

“But what stood out to our playwrights was how people supported one another through those disasters—and the need for more support from people in power.”

“Climate change is happening in the here and now,” says Climate Disaster Project founder Sean Holman, also the Wayne Crookes Professor in Environmental & Climate Journalism with the Department of Writing.

“People know that, regardless of what they think is the cause — and they want to talk about the impacts it’s having on their day-to-day lives, and what can be done about them. This is an opportunity to bring those conversations into the community.” 

 

Lytton residents Patsy Gessey & Owen survey the townsite, which was devastated during the 2021 Lytton Creek Fire. Gessey’s testimony, co-created by Climate Disaster Project co-founder Francesca Fionda, is one of more than 30 featured in Eyes of the Beast. (CDP Photo/Jen Osborne)

Audience reflections & leadership solidarity

Every performance is followed by a facilitated talkback, giving audiences a chance to reflect on the stories they’ve heard and share their own experiences of climate disaster. A Vancouver Island political leader will also be present to listen to the performance, as well as the audience, and reflect on how we can help communities impacted by those disasters. Those voices are:

  • former BC Liberal cabinet minister George Abbott (Sept. 16)
  • Minister of Tourism Arts, Culture Lana Popham (Sept. 17)
  • BC Conservative Nanaimo-Lantzville candidate and former NDP MLA Gwen O’Mahony (Sept. 18)
  • BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau (Sept. 20)
  • BC Conservative Oak Bay-Gordon Head candidate and former Victoria city councillor Stephen Andrew (Sept. 21, matinee)
  • Mayor Saanich Dean Murdock (Sept. 21)
 Alumni created, student inspired, media engaged

Working with interview transcripts from hundreds of British Columbians on the frontlines of climate change, Vancouver’s internationally renowned Neworld Theatre has painted a portrait of 30 ordinary people living in extraordinary times — and a province under pressure from the impacts of climate change.

 

Featuring survivor testimonies taken by over a dozen UVic Writing students, the show’s creative team also features the talents of UVic Theatre alumni, including director Chelsea Haberlin and co-writer Sebastien Archibald. 

Listen to this Sept 10 interview with Holman and director Chelsea Haberlin with CBC Radio’s On The Island host Gregor Craigie, who will be one of the media facilitators during the show.

Read this Sept 13 interview from The Tyee with Neworld Theatre’s Haberlin and Alen Dominguez.  

Read this Sept 15 article from Victoria’s Times Colonist newspaper. 

A fishing guide who took his boat into flooded farmland to rescue an alligator. An actor rushed to the hospital for heat stroke after performing in front of the legislature. A mother figuring out how to prepare her child for the future after fire flattened their town.

Climate disaster is not far away, not happening to someone else. It is here now, happening to us. Eyes of the Beast shows how we still have each other during those disasters, creating community amidst catastrophe.

 

About the Climate Disaster Project

Founded in 2021, the Climate Disaster Project has trained hundreds of students at 13 post-secondary institutions to work on the frontlines of this ongoing humanitarian crisis by creating an extensive archive of eyewitness accounts. Nearly 300 testimonies have been collected from disaster survivors and shared in local, national and international publications, as well as national radio and television broadcasts.

Tickets range from $18-$34 and are available now via the Phoenix Theatre box office at 250-721-8000 for 7:30pm Monday-Saturday performances running September 16-21, plus a 2pm matinee on Saturday, September 21.  

 

Professional fishing guide Jordi Williams shows one of the photos he took while rescuing animals trapped on the Sumas Prairie during the 2021 Southern British Columbia floods. Williams’s testimony, co-created by UVic writing student Paul Voll, was included in Eyes of the Beast by Neworld Theatre’s playwrights. (CDP Photo/Phil McLachlan)

The cast of Eyes of the Beast: (from left) Jessica Wong, Danica Charlie, Sarah Conway, Vuk Prodanovic