Writing students mark fatal heat dome anniversary

by | Jun 29, 2026 | climate, donor, Faculty, health, Undergraduate, Writing

To mark the fifth anniversary of BC’s fatal heat dome in 2021, a group of UVic Writing students trained to take climate-survivor testimonials are now seeing their work run in the online news outlet The Tyee in a new five-part series with created in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project. 
“Some of what they share can be difficult to read. But the survivors want you to know what happened to them for a reason,” says CDP founder and Writing professor Sean Holman. “So we can be closer together. So we can feel less alone. So you know what to do when one of the worst days of your life happens, without warning.”

The human cost of BC’s heat dome was catastrophic: over 600 people died between June 25 and July 1 2021, making it the deadliest weather disaster in Canadian history. Over 100 all-time heat records were shattered as temperatures across the province soared 20° above typical summertime averages in a brutal reminder of how warm our world is becoming.

The Tyee series offers the stories of five heat-dome survivors, as told in their own words:

  • a Surrey mother whose newborn was struggling, and so was her ailing cat
  • a Vancouver homeowner who had to find a new home when her condo turned into a greenhouse
  • a Lower Mainland firefighter who answered emergency calls as extreme heat buckled the province’s health-care system
  • a retired school principal who was forced to evacuate when that heat turned to flame in Lytton
  • and a Kamloops councillor who could do little but watch as fire scorched one of the city’s outer neighbourhoods.
“These stories aren’t just an account of the harm caused by an environment we have harmed and are still harming,” says Holman, explaining how the CDP’s climate-survivor testimonies differ from traditional news stories. “They are early warning systems and emergency preparedness plans. Because the survivors of past climate disasters carry with them knowledge and wisdom needed to help us confront the extreme events that have now become seasonal. Reading their testimonies now isn’t just about memorialization. It’s about preparation. An opportunity to change what will happen today and tomorrow.”
The Climate Disaster Project was established in 2022 by Sean Holman — UVic’s donor-funded Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental & Climate Journalism — and has since grown into an award-winning international teaching newsroom with partners in multiple countries around the world, tackling projects ranging from journalism and documentaries to a theatrical play, museum exhibit and a pending literary anthology. It also gives our students the chance to see their work appear in professional media like The Guardian UK & The Tyee, among many others.

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

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).

Paul Walde on how art can shape our relationship with the environment

by | Mar 18, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, climate, Events, Faculty, Visual Arts

Weather is one of the forces that shape our daily lives, yet we rarely think of it in terms of art. But for award-winning intermedia artist, composer, curator and University of Victoria Department of Visual Arts professor Paul Walde, weather is so much more than just the title of his latest exhibit, Paul Walde: Weather Conditions. 

Walde’s body of work has long explored unexpected interconnections between landscape, identity and technology, most notably by his 2013 site-specific sound performance Requiem for a Glacier, which featured a 55-piece choir and orchestra filmed live on the Farnham Glacier in BC’s Purcell Mountains. Running until April 11 at UVic’s downtown Legacy Gallery, Weather Conditions — curated by Carolyn Butler Palmer, the Williams Legacy Chair in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies — offers a double exhibit of site-specific video installations, both reflecting weather and art history in unique ways. Paul offers his insights with this Expert Q&A. 

Q. Weather is one aspect of the human experience that everyone shares: we predict it, discuss it, try to avoid it and arrange our lives around it. Why bring it into a gallery space?

A. Another aspect of the human experience is that we’re altering our climate through our actions, and this is altering the weather. Extreme weather events are on the rise and there is new concern that, if we continue on the path we’re on, the low-lying clouds that do a lot to reflect sunlight and keep the Earth cool could disappear, leaving only the higher altitude clouds which will accelerate climate change exponentially by allowing more sunlight in and trapping that heat. As an artist, I’m interested in how cultural attitudes shape our relationship with the environment. 

Q. Your creative practice has been engaged with environmental issues for the past 30 years. How can art bring awareness to issues like climate change in ways that science or politics can’t?

A. The great thing about art is that it can present information to people in experiential ways, including emotional and spiritual dimensions. This is a very different experience than being told something. Science and politics tend to tell people things but, as a professor, I’ve found folks really don’t like to be told anything. It’s more effective to create experiences that allow people to draw their own conclusions. This way, the information is internalized and becomes a part of their own thought processes, so the level of engagement and uptake is greater. The duration of my work is also important in this, as these longer works provide opportunities for people to think for themselves—which is in direct opposition to the “attention economy” and how content is consumed on social-media platforms. 

Q. You often stage your performances in challenging locations highlighting the natural environment — glaciers, lakes and, most recently, old-growth forests — then pair them with meditative music that you compose. What’s your intention with these interdisciplinary juxtapositions?

A. I believe that culture comes from the land, where one is in the world that shapes who they are. This attitude has been affirmed and informed by the work that I’ve been doing with the Awi’nakola Foundation over the past six years. By bringing obvious cultural activities like opera, classical music and art handling into the natural environment, I’m essentially saying that these sites are cultural. The fact that contemporary urban societies don’t seem to recognize this is part of my point. I’d add that cultural values that don’t make this connection are the main reason we’re facing impending environmental catastrophe. What could be more valuable than clean water, clean air and abundant biodiverse ecosystems? Yet here we are feeding water to data centres that are also using vast amounts of energy, making it harder to transition to clean energy.

Q. Both pieces in this exhibit — “Of Weather (For Geoff Hendricks)” and “Tom Thomson Centennial Swim” — reference the work of other artists. How important is it to acknowledge the history of art, and the role of the individual artist, in your work? 

A. Art history is happening all around us all the time.Acknowledging this history is another way of acknowledging where aspects of cultural thought come from, good or bad. For me, art history is sometimes a scaffolding of ideas to build upon and other times it’s something to push back upon. For example, the work of the Group of Seven was very dominant when I was growing up in northern Ontario, where the Group made their first trips. As a young artist, however, their approach didn’t connect with me. Since then, I’ve attempted to make alternative landscape art that deals with the complex issues that frame our relationship with the environment.

Q. Tell us about the “image ballet” that will be performed on March 28. What’s the intention of having pictures of clouds move around an indoor environment, and how does that reflect the original staging of this piece?  

A. For the past 25 years the artworld has become more globalized and mobile. There are now dozens of international biennials and art fairs. Behind the scenes in these events are armies of art-handlers who are moving, setting upand taking down these shows. There is, of course, also a massive carbon footprint connected with these activities. By moving images of clouds around, I’m referring to how we as humans are changing the weather and are therefore responsible for it. And, on another level, because the “image ballet” involves large canvases being moved by art handlers, I’m referring to the art world’s culpability in all of this. 

Weather Conditions runs until April 11 with two live musical performances on Saturday, March 28, at Legacy Gallery (630 Yates). Registration is required for the live musical performances.

A media kit containing high-resolution photos of Paul Walde and his exhibit Paul Walde: Weather Conditions is available on Dropbox. 

2025: Year in Review

by | Dec 29, 2025 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Award, climate, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

It’s hard to believe 2025 is already over: some years crawl like watching paint dry on a canvas, while others speed by at the rate of a can’t-put-it-down bestseller. Given that the 2000s will likely come to be known as the century when attention spans reduced faster than polar icecaps, we’re pleased to offer this quick recap of the year that just was.

New faculty

We’re always excited to welcome fresh talent to our faculty . . . especially in times of fiscal restraint. This year saw Lauren McCall join our School of Music as a professor in composition and music technology in January, while artist-researcher and Tier II Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Emergent Digital Art Practices Joel Ong joined our Visual Arts department in July. And just on the horizon but already announced is the news that Sarah Belle Reid will join Music as a professor in technology starting in January 2026.

While not new faculty, two professors taking on new roles this year were Writing’s Danielle Geller, who is our new Associate Dean Indigenous, and Music’s Kirk McNally, who steps up to the role of Associate Dean Creative Activity, Research and Administration.

Lauren McCall

Student activity

Whether it’s grad student activity like the annual Audain Foundation Travel Awards or the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship, or undergrad achievements in the annual Community Impact Awards, we’re always proud of our student achievements.

Visual Arts MFA candidate Edith Skeard was named one of just five BC graduate students to receive a $7,500 Travel Award from the Audain Foundation in September, which she’ll use for a month-long Sound Lab residency in Struer / Copenhagen for an exploration of sound art within a sculptural context. Meanwhile, another Visual Arts MFA — Parvin Hasani — spent her summer as the ONC ArtScience Fellow researching the extreme ecosystems of deep-sea hydrothermal vents in order to create her own conceptual sculptural pieces, which she debuted in the September exhibit Tides of Memory.

Parvin engaging with visitor at her ONC exhibit

July saw UVic Chamber Singers director Adam Con and 21 singers  head to the acclaimed Sicily Music Festival & Competition, where School of Music professors Benjamin Butterfield and Anne Grimm were both part of the festival’s international teaching faculty; other Music students also attended as solo artists, offering good student representation.

Also in Music, this year’s Concerto Competition celebrated exceptional student musicians whose talents span genres, generations, and geographies. The competition finals were held in April 2025 and performances by winners Tamsyn Klazek-Schryer, Olivia Pryce-Digby and Ethan Page are rolling out during our 2025-26 concert season.

This year’s juried Community Impact Awards saw Music’s Sophie Hillstrom and Theatre’s Sage Easton-Levy each win $1,000 for their work with the Early Music Society of the Islands and Sooke Youth Theatre, respectively. Since 2021, we’ve awarded over $15,000 to 13 students from across Fine Arts for projects ranging from murals, theatre productions, music performances, art shows, curatorial projects and more, all within Greater Victoria’s regional boundaries.

November saw three Writing students — Raamin Hamid, Fernanda Solorza and Ashley Ciambrelli — run a series of climate survivor testimonials in the UK’s Guardian media outlet as part of a Climate Disaster Project partnership, hooked to the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Brazil. That same month also saw 95 students collaborate on the presentation of 18 commissioned five-minute plays performed as part of the International Climate Change Theatre Action project.

And it was exciting to see AHVS PhD candidate Amy Anderson’s recent Rocky Horror Picture Show story on The Conversation Canada — one of the top-three most-read stories by UVic authors this fall!

New research lab

February saw the launch of the new Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab in our Visual Arts department. Led by Visual Arts professor Heather Igloliorte — who is also UVic’s only Canada Excellence Research Chair — Taqsiqtuut has had a busy year of programming, bringing artists, researchers, curators and creators from around the international circumpolar region in to connect with faculty and students alike.

“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,” says Igloliorte.

It was a full house at the Taqsiqtuut opening

New artistic residency

This year we welcomed Candian artist Siobhan Humston as the inaugural UVic Rubinoff artist-in-residence. Selected from a field of 50+ applicants, Humston spent six weeks developing new work at the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island as part of this paid residency; she also mounted a public exhibition here at UVic in October.

“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.”

Visitors at Siobhan Humston’s UVic opening

Visiting artists

There’s been no shortage of high-profile visits this year, ranging from Canada Council for the Arts CEO Michelle Chawla to visiting professors like Andreas Linsbauer, Philippe Pasquier and  representatives from the Chilean Embassy. “We’re not doing this alone: we’re part of a dynamic arts ecosystem . . . and universities are an important part of this world,” said Chawla. “We need to tell the story of what the arts bring to our communities and why that matters.”

Our long-running Orion series and Living Artists, Living Art visiting artist program welcomed the likes of artists Deanna Bowen, Don Kwan, Meryl McMaster, Lan “Florence” Yee, poet Karen Solie, author Saeed Teebi, conservator Helene Tulo, scholar Mary Storm, artist Jerry Ropson, our own Visual Arts professor Beth Stuart, artist Marlene Yuen, celebrated theatre alumni Sara Topham and Pablo Felices-Luna and many others. Meanwhile, d’bi.young anitafrika was the third presenter in our annual donor-funded Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Series in February, and veteran journalist Stephen Maher was our latest Harvey Southam lecturer in October. Click on the links above to watch their public talks.

Michelle Chawla (right) in conversation with Visual Arts chair Megan Dickie

We were also pleased to honour noted local artist, art historian, author and arts writer Robert Amos as the recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts during our Fall Convocation ceremony. Amos has dedicated most of the past four decades to documenting — both journalistically and visually — Victoria’s visual arts scene. As Dr. Cedric Littlewood, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, noted in his introduction, “By bringing people, buildings and neighbourhoods to life, Robert’s contributions to BC’s art history is the very fabric of Victoria’s history.”

Faculty research & creative activity

Faculty research and creative practice is always in the spotlight, and this year was no exception. Music professor Steven Capaldo’s brand-new piece specially composed the closing ceremonies of the Invictus Games in February. Performed live by the Royal Canadian Navy’s Naden Band and broadcast to viewers around the world, his “Invictus Fanfare” had its world premiere as the accompaniment to the sight of over 550 wounded warriors walking and wheeling into Vancouver’s Rogers Arena.

Speaking of Vancouver, Theatre professor Carmen Alatorre picked up her latest Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Costume Design for her work on Two Gentleman of Verona for Bard on the Beach.

After months of planning, rehearsals and preparation, September saw the launch of the Indigenous theatre festival Staging Our Voices. Presented by Theatre professor Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, the SSHRC-funded and artist-led festival supported the efforts of artists working to invigorate Indigenous languages through the medium of theatre. “We realized that a lot of Indigenous Artists feel isolated, specifically artists that are working with the language, and they would love to find ways to gather, to share food, to share stories and be in one space together,” says Sadeghi-Yekta.

Also in Theatre, professor Sasha Kovacs received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for her Performance in the Pacific Northwest project, co-led by the University of Lethbridge’s Heather Davis-Fisch with contributions from project researchers Matthew Tomkinson, Laurel Green and Lee Cookson. This is in addition to her role as co-director of Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance, a seven-year, $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant she was awarded last year.

Music professor Kirk McNally, Visual Arts professor Kelly Richardson and Writing professor David Leach were all recipients of UVic’s annual REACH Awards, recognizing outstanding achievement by UVic teachers and researchers who are leading the way in dynamic learning and making a vital impact on campus, in the classroom and beyond.

Sean Holman — the Wayne Crookes Professor in Environmental & Climate Journalism with the Department of Writing — was announced in July as the leader of a new six-year, $2.5-million SSHRC partnership grant. From Catastrophe to Community: A People’s History of Climate Changewill train 500 post-secondary students and professional journalists to document the experience of 1,000 survivors around the world and share their wisdom. Holman was also honoured not only with the 2025 Bill Good Award at the annual Webster Awards for BC journalism in November, but his 2024 Climate Disaster Project verbatim theatre production Eyes of the Beast also just earned a Silver Award in the “Sustainability, Environment & Climate” Special Projects Awareness category of the Anthem Awards (presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences) in November.

Alumni acclaim

UVic’s 2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards were announced in March, and Fine Arts was thrilled to see four of our outstanding graduates being honoured across the categories: Presidents’ Alumni Award winners Cassandra Miller (School of Music) and Tania Willard (Visual Arts), Emerging Alumni Award winner Chari Arespacochaga (Theatre), and Indigenous Community Alumni Award winner Crystal Clark (Visual Arts).

It was a double-win for Tania Willard, however, when she was also announced as the recipient of the $100,000 Sobey Art Award in November. And our very recent Orion Lecturer — poet and UVic alumna Karen Solie — won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for her latest collection Wellwater just days after her visit to campus. Kudos also go out to just-graduated Writing MFA Adrienne Wong, who was shortlisted for the $100,000 Siminovitch Prize in theatre.

Tania Willard

Locally, two Writing MFA alumni were in the headlines this fall: Kyeren Regher was named the latest City of Victoria Poet Laureate — the third Writing alum to hold that position — and Melanie Siebert won the inaugural DC Reid Poetry Prize at the City of Victoria book awards.