by John Threlfall | Jul 15, 2025 | Alumni, climate, Events, Faculty, indigenous, Research, Visual Arts
First it was taking an orchestra onto the surface of a glacier, then it was putting a glittering digital projection into the background of a Metallica video. Now, two University of Victoria art professors are using their unique creative talents to join over 100 people working to present an extraordinary day of art on the land — but they are not seeking an audience.
On July 24, Department of Visual Arts professors Paul Walde and Kelly Richardson will join Ma’amtagila artist Makwala-Rande Cook to present Ax’nakwala (Part 1) at the unpopulated traditional village site of Hiladi on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Translating as “growing endlessly in relation with the living planet,” Ax’nakwala will offer open-air performances and media installations to draw attention to the urgent need to save precious old-growth forest and return unceded lands to Indigenous stewardship.
If a tree sings in the forest
The day begins with Paul Walde’s Forestorium, a new full-length, site-specific operatic performance addressing the primary forests of Vancouver Island and the challenges they face. Featuring 17 vocalists, 18 instrumentalists and a crew of 20 (including 5 camera operators and 3 audio recorders), Forestorium echoes Walde’s 2013 Requiem For A Glacier in both its creative audacity and environmental concerns.
“Forestorium will help raise awareness of the complexity of these old-growth forest ecosystems, which continue to be clearcut at an alarming rate,” says Walde. “From my work on Requiem I believe that art, because of its non-oppositional and experiential nature, can reach audiences and engage the media in different ways than science and traditional activism.”
After sunset, Kelly Richardson will project her large-scale video installation Origin Stories — famously used in the 2023 Metallica video 72 Seasons and at galleries worldwide, but never before in BC — which uses a cosmic field of shimmering crystalline forms to visualize our sixth mass-extinction crisis, partially fueled by ongoing resource extraction in Ma’amtagila territory.
“For many years I’ve used art to encourage the public to ask urgent, crucial questions about what it is that we truly value as a species,” says Richardson. “Through this work, I try to speak with everyone, not just those who understand contemporary art or frequent galleries. Art can be a powerful tool to reach the whole of who we are as a species, connecting the head with the heart and inspire much-needed action.”
Makwala-Rande Cook, Land Claim
Former Audain Professor & event co-organizer dances
The day will also feature two performances by artist, hereditary chief and former UVic Audain Professor Makwala-Rande Cook. In the world premiere of Dance of the Fungi Kingdom: A Mycelial Odyssey in Ma’amtagila Territory, Cook will introduce a Kwakwaka’wakw dance for these fungal beings. He and dancers will then perform the Maʻamtagilaʻs origin story, the Dance of the Seagull, while covered with the sparkling imagery of Richardson’s Origin Stories. This cross-cultural collaboration calls for united work to protect all species — including humans — and their homes.
All this will be filmed and recorded for future gallery and theatrical exhibitions, including a possible Fall 2025 presentation in Victoria.
Ax’nakwala is presented by Hase’ — a collective comprised of Cook, Richardson and Walde along with artist and current UVic Audain Professor Lindsay Delaronde and curator Stephanie Smith — in partnership with the Awi’nakola Foundation and at the invitation of Ma’amtagila leaders. Ax’nakwala (Part 1) supports Ma’amtagila efforts to regain sovereignty of their territories under Crown law, stop ecologically harmful practices on their lands, and enact a conservation vision to care for both land and people.
The performances are part of the fifth annual Tree of Life Gathering, facilitated by the Awi’nakola Foundation in partnership with Indigenous Nations. At the invitation of the Ma’amtagila, the 2025 Tree of Life gathering will take place at their traditional village site of Hiladi, and will see Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge keepers, artists, scientists, students, NGO representatives, policy makers and other community members gather to build relationships, share knowledge, and seek paths to larger-scale action.
by John Threlfall | Jul 14, 2025 | Award, climate, donor, Faculty, indigenous, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing
Fires rage, floods devastate, storms surge: every day we hear about the impacts of climate change, with ever-increasing casualty counts and infrastructure damage tipping into the billions. But all too often, climate politics and media reporting favour the voices of experts over victims, resulting in a lost opportunity to act on the first-person experiences of climate-change survivors.
Now, a new initiative led by the University of Victoria will close that critical gap in narrative and knowledge, thanks to a six-year, $2.5-million Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant announced last week.
From Catastrophe to Community: A People’s History of Climate Change will train 500 post-secondary students and professional journalists to document the experience of 1,000 survivors around the world and share their wisdom.
“Climate change isn’t a threat tomorrow. It’s a trauma today,” says UVic Department of Writing professor Sean Holman, who is director of From Catastrophe to Community. “And when someone lives through that kind of trauma, they need a different climate story where they feel seen in their experiences and know the harm caused to them will be repaired — both now and in the future.”
Listen to this interview with Sean Holman on CBC Radio’s All Points West about his new $2.5 million grant. and how the power of storytelling can help and heal communities.
Supporting community recovery
The project will result in the creation of documentaries with APTN Investigates, news features, an anthology and a travelling museum exhibition that will launch at Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the Museum of Vancouver. In the process, the From Catastrophe to Community team will develop new trauma-informed, human-rights-based storytelling practices to support the recovery of communities impacted by climate change and other humanitarian crises.
“This partnership grant is an example of the UVic’s broad leadership in climate action,” says Alexandra D’Arcy, UVic associate vice-president of research. “Across campus, our researchers are working to tackle the global problem of climate change, which is also a profoundly local problem, as extreme weather events impact our loved ones and our ecosystems.”
Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters, such as the 2021 Lytton Creek fire that destroyed 90 percent of the buildings in Lytton, Canada. (Photo: Phil McLachlan)
From Catastrophe to Community was awarded to Holman and a team of researchers, curators, journalists and artists, including co-directors at the Museum of Vancouver, Simon Fraser University, Trent University, the University of Denver Colorado, the University of Stirling, the Université du Québec à Montréal, and York University. On-campus partners include Fine Arts professors David Leach (Writing); Joel Ong, Kelly Richardson and Paul Walde (Visual Arts); Patrick DuWors (Theatre); plus Sarah Marie Wiebe (UVic Public Administration).
“Each part of our society needs to work together to confront the traumatic impacts of our warming world,” says Holman. “And that’s exactly what From Catastrophe to Community is doing: bringing museums, news outlets, theatre companies, post-secondary institutions, research agencies and survivors together to help us to realize a more just and equitable future that honours the human dignity of disaster communities.”
From Catastrophe to Community will document the experiences of climate disaster survivors such as retiree Sônia Ferreira, whose home in Atafona, Brazil, is slowly being destroyed by coastal erosion. (Photo: Aeson Baldevia)
$4 million in partner contributions
Organizations from Brazil, Malawi, Africa, the UK, the US and other countries to be selected by project partners at Covering Climate Now and Journalists for Human Rights are part of From Catastrophe to Community. Collectively, these 27 partners have committed more than $4 million in matching contributions to the project. From Catastrophe to Community builds on the success of the award-winning Climate Disaster Project — a teaching newsroom founded at UVic by Holman in 2021 in their role as the Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism, funded by visionary Vancouver business leader, humanitarian, and philanthropist Wayne Crookes.
To date, the Climate Disaster Project has trained more than 250 students in trauma-informed journalism techniques and — with the assistance of post-secondary partners in Canada and around the world — co-created more than 320 verbatim narrative packages of climate survivors worldwide.
Highlights in the past year alone include a series of survivor narratives published in The Guardian during 2024’s COP29 UN Climate Change Summit, the creation of the award-winning verbatim play Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories with Neworld Theatre (which ran inVictoria and Vancouver), and the presentation of survivor narratives at cultural institutions including UCLA’s Sci Art Gallery, the Royal BC Museum and the Kamloops Art Gallery.
Here’s a full list of partners in From Catastrophe to Community:
- Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
- Alberta Council for Environmental Education
- Art and Global Health Africa
- British Columbia Centre for Disease Control
- Canadian Museum for Human Rights
- climateXchange
- Covering Climate Now
- Humber Polytechnic
- Journalists for Human Rights
- Kwantlen Polytechnic University
- MacEwan University
- Methodist University of São Paulo
- Mount Royal University
- Museum of Vancouver
- Room Up Front
- Royal BC Museum
- Simon Fraser University
- Thompson Rivers University
- Trent University
- The Reach Gallery Museum
- University of British Columbia Press
- University of Denver Colorado
- University of Northern British Columbia
- L’Université du Québec à Montréal
- University of Stirling
- University of the Fraser Valley
- York University
by John Threlfall | Jul 3, 2025 | Alumni, Award, climate, donor, Writing
Congratulations go out to UVic Writing professor & Climate Disaster Project founder Sean Holman on being named the 2025 recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation’s Bill Good Award.
Presented annually by Western Canada’s preeminent journalism foundation, the Bill Good Award goes to a BC individual or organization that makes a significant contribution to journalism in the province, or addresses a community’s needs and benefits via journalism — which describes Holman’s work to a tee.
“I’m honoured and humbled the Jack Webster Foundation has, to my surprise, named me as this year’s Bill Good Award winner,” says Holman, who is both UVic’s Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental & Climate Journalism and a UVic alumni himself. “I’ve devoted my life to journalism because of the harms it can repair . . . . As the founder of the Climate Disaster Project, I’m working with my colleagues and students to support the recovery of climate-impacted communities around the world by documenting and investigating their stories.”
Recognizing community & cooperation
Described by the Webster Foundation as a “tenacious journalist and journalism educator”, Holman’s win comes on the heals of the Climate Disaster Project’s own 2023 award from the National Newspapers Association and the CDP’s 2024 documentary theatre project Eyes of the Beast winning silver in the “Environmental & Climate Change” category at the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards.
“When the Climate Disaster Project won a National Newspapers Award in 2023, judges applauded the trauma-informed approach to journalism, as well as the structure of the project and its many partnerships,” noted the Webster Foundation in Holman’s award citation. “They said it was a model of cooperation that can be replicated in other newsrooms as they shrink.”
Holman admits that his devotion to journalism “has come at both professional and personal cost. But that cost has been worth it because I know these past 27 years of public service have made a manifest difference in the lives of the sources and survivors who have placed their trust in me.”
A remarkable year
The 24/25 academic year has seen a remarkable amount of high-profile activity for the Climate Disaster Project, including:
- presenting the world premiere of Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories, a creative collaboration with Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre, debuting at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre in September before being remounted for a Vancouver run in June 2025
- collaborating with influential UK media outlet The Guardian to publish a series of internationally focused climate-survivor testimonies timed to COP29, the UN climate change summit
- creating a partnership with Brazil’s O Globo newspaper
- appearing at UCLA’s Sci Art Gallery in an installation by Canadian media artist Joel Ong (who joins our Visual Arts department in 2025)
- releasing a set of survivor testimonies by Thompson Rivers University students, part of an exhibit at Kamloops Art Gallery
- presenting a two-day workshop as part of the UVic Legacy Gallery exhibit, Fire Season
- seeing Holman selected as one of just 20 speakers at the international My Climate Story 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
- applying for a $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant for “From Catastrophe to Community: A People’s History of Climate Change”.
“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.
The Webster Award was announced on July 2, and will be presented at a gala dinner and evening on November 3. Along with Holman, journalism industry icon Keith Baldrey was named the 2025 Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and broadcaster/podcaster Laura Palmer earned the 2025 Shelley Fralic Award.
A scene from 2024’s Eyes of the Beast (photo: Hélène Cyr)
by John Threlfall | Jun 4, 2025 | Alumni, Award, climate, donor, Faculty, Theatre, Writing
Congratulations go out to the Climate Disaster Project on winning Silver in the “Environmental and Climate Change” category at the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards on June 1 for Eyes of the Beast:Climate Disaster Survivor Stories, a documentary play about the experiences of British Columbians during the extreme fires, heat and flooding of 2021. This co-production with Neworld Theatre marks the first time a play has ever been recognized for reporting excellence at these prestigious annual journalism awards.
The timing is perfect too, as Eyes of the Beast will be remounted June 18-22 at Simon Fraser University’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in downtown Vancouver — but they won the CAJ award for the show’s world premiere at UVic’s own Phoenix Theatre back in September 2024.
“This award comes just as we approach the four-year anniversary of the extreme heat, fires, and floods in Western Canada the play portrays,” says Climate Disater Project founding director Sean Holman, UVic’s Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism.
“It’s also a testament to the 117 people who worked to bring it to the stage, including our partners at Neworld Theatre, our students at the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Mount Royal University, MacEwan University, and First Nations University of Canada, and — most importantly — the survivors who worked with them.”
Eyes of the Beast creative team (@helenecyrfotos)
About the play
Adapted from the award-winning journalism of the Climate Disaster Project — an international newsroom based out of UVic’s Writing department but now with over 35 educational, media and cultural partners worldwide — Eyes of the Beast is a verbatim production pulling from hundreds of testimonies of people across Canada who have lived through climate change together. It was created through the efforts of a number of UVic alumni, including Beast director and Neworld artistic director Chelsea Haberlin plus co-creator Sebastien Archibald.
As with when it debuted at UVic, each performance of the Vancouver run of the play will be followed by a facilitated talkback, featuring a BC or Vancouver political leader, who will engage with the audience and reflect on ways to support impacted communities.
The Vancouver premiere of Eyes of the Beast is co-created by Sebastien Archibald, Gavan Cheema, and Kelsey Kanatan Wavey.
Performance Details
Eyes of the Beast runs 90 minutes (including intermission and facilitated talkback) at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. General admission $10. Performances run 7:30pm June 18-21, plus 2pm matinees on June 21-22.
Neworld managing director Alen Dominguez (right) with artistic director Chelsea Haberlin (left) plus CDP managing editor & Writing alum Aldyn Chwelos + Sean Holman (Kimberly Ho)
by John Threlfall | May 22, 2025 | Award, climate, Graduate, Research, Visual Arts
From the human body’s neural connections to unseen water channels sustaining life in arid landscapes, the mysterious nature of invisible systems has always fascinated artist Parvin Hasani. “Hidden networks have always sparked my imagination and fueled my exploration of the intersections between art and science,” she says.
A Master’s student in UVic’s Visual Arts department, Parvin will soon be exploring deep-sea hydrothermal vents as the sixth Fine Arts graduate student selected for the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship. “My artistic practice began with exploring the idea of hidden networks,” she says.
After exploring the connection between neural networks and human memory for her Bachelor’s degree in Iran, Parvin then came to UVic to develop sculptural interpretations of ecological networks during her grad studies. “I was inspired by the idea of hidden water-management systems in Iran — where we have a thousand wells dating back more than 3,000 years that are all connected to each other beneath the earth — so focusing on water is part of my practice as well,” she says.
Exploring metaphoric parallels
All of that will come together this summer as Parvin explores the creative connections between memory, body and the environment through her conceptual sculptural practices. Specifically, she intends to use ONC’s oceanographic research on the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vent Field — an active, mineral-rich environment on the deep-sea Juan de Fuca Ridge — to draw metaphoric parallels between the rhythms of the ocean and the processes of the human body.
“It was interesting when I found out the hydrothermal vents looked like clustered chimneys, because visually they were similar to the wells in Iran,” she says. “I’m looking forward to learning about their surface texture and colour palette, because material exploration is a big part of my work. Researching the vent field data will also help me create my installation . . . scientific research has always informed my creative process—for example, during my undergrad, I created sculptures inspired by the structures of neurons, exploring how form carries meaning.”
By drawing on ONC’s research, Parvin’s sculptural installations will explore how unseen forces sustain both marine life and human experience, linking oceanic and bodily systems that shape identity and memory.
“Just as superheated, mineral-rich water rises from the seafloor, memory often lies beneath consciousness, waiting to surface,” she explains about the concept behind her residency. “This extreme ecosystem will be mirrored in sculptures embodying the rhythms of both the ocean and the body.”
September exhibition planned
With her ONC residency running May through August 2025, Parvin expects to have an exhibit and public presentation ready for early September. As a newcomer to Vancouver Island, Parvin is also excited to learn more about our coastal environments.
“The ocean has always been mysterious to me,” she says. “It’s kind of an unknown place that plays with the duality between surface and depths . . . I really wanted to explore how much the vastness of the of the water can inspire me to explore and push the boundaries of my work.”
Read about our previous Fine Arts graduate student ONC artistic residencies: Megan Harton, Neil Griffin, Colin Malloy, Dennis Gupa and Colton Hash,
by John Threlfall | Apr 29, 2025 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, climate, Events, Faculty, indigenous, Undergraduate, Visual Arts
The Qiaqsutuq installation will be on view at Across Lands and Waters
Victoria may not immediately come to mind as the obvious location for an international gathering of 60 circumpolar and Pacific artists and curators, but that’s one of the advantages that comes with Dr Heather Igloliorte now calling UVic home.
As the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Decolonial & Transformational Indigenous Art Practices, Igloliorte has held this prestigious eight-year, $8-million position in UVic’s Department of Visual Arts since November 2023 — and, out of 45 current CERC chair holders, remains the only artist/curator in a field dominated by hard sciences.
Running April 29-May 1, Across Lands and Waters will be the first major gathering of Igloliorte’s CERC network of mostly Indigenous artists, scholars, museum/gallery directors, curators, students and community members. Over three days, participants will gather for lively discussions, gallery visits, land-based activities and performances, sharing current research and projects while making plans for future collaborations. They’ll also engage with the public via Igloliorte’s new Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab.
Noting that her attendees are coming from nearly every time zone in the world, Igloliorte feels Across Lands and Waters offers an unprecedented opportunity to connect in-person. Representing a wide variety of nations and cultures — including Inuk, Kanaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian), Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw, Sami, Sāmoan/Persian/Cantonese, Sugpiaq, Ts’msyen and Zuni Pueblo — participants will be coming from as far afield as Norway, Greenland, Rankin Inlet, New Mexico and Honolulu.
“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,” says Igloliorte. “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.”
While attending, Across Lands and Waters invited guests will engage in Pecha Kucha-style research presentations; an “On The Land” session focusing on the removal of invasive species and replanting of native plants; a site visit to the studio of UVic Impact Chair Carey Newman; a visit to Island Timber salvage operation, which provides timber to Indigenous artists; a tour of new Legacy Gallery exhibit, GEORGE CLUTESI: ḥašaḥʔap / ʔaapḥii / ʕc̓ik / ḥaaʔaksuqƛ / ʔiiḥmisʔap; plus performances and storytelling by Indigenous artists, with an opening from Chief David Knox at Mungo Martin House.
Public participation
Across Lands and Waters culminates in a free public event on Thursday, May 1, featuring panel sessions from 1-5pm (Phillip T Young Recital Hall, MacLaurin B-Wing) and a reception with art installations and interactive projects from 5-7pm (Visual Arts building). During this time, the public is invited to:
- engage with Carey Newman’s new Witness Blanket VR project
- explore 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
- watch 3D Sami films via VR headsets
- participate in a group stop-motion short film project
- hear panels on “Sovereignty & the Arts”, “Institutional Practices”, “Resistance & Transformation” and “These Lands & Waters” (see UVic Calendar link for details)
- view the exhibition Continuum, showcasing work by past, present and future Indigenous students from UVic’s Visual Arts program (co-curated by Alexandra Nordstrom and Jasmine Sihra, Concordia University PhD students)
- enjoy a reception with live music and light refreshments.
Carey Newman’s Witness Blanket VR
About Heather Igloliorte
Canada’s first Inuk art historian to hold a doctoral degree, Igloliorte has developed a well-deserved reputation as an internationally renowned curator whose work has positioned circumpolar Indigenous arts and knowledge at the centre of global exhibition practices. In addition to her teaching duties, her other current projects include curating Newfoundland’s international Bonavista Biennale (August-Sept) and being on the jury for both the upcoming Salt Spring National Art Prize (Sept-Oct) and Yukon Art Prize (Oct).
As UVic’s only CERC, Igloliorte is focused on advancing reconciliation through the transformative power of art and innovative exhibition practices. “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,” she says. She is supporting a new generation of students, researchers, educators, curators and artists to drive change through artistic practice.
As such, her Taqsiqtuut Research Creation lab is focused on not only sharing 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.
