Writing grad Kyeren Regehr is Victoria’s newest Poet Laureate

by | May 5, 2025 | Alumni, Award, Graduate, Writing

Once again, the City of Victoria’s Poet Laureate position has gone to a Department of Writing alumni.

Writing grad Kyeren Regehr was recently appointed as the City of Victoria’s latest Poet Laureate. Regehr (MFA ’13, BFA ’11 + a Fine Arts Victoria Medal recipient) is an award-winning literary poet and the current artistic director of Planet Earth Poetry, one of Canada’s longest-running weekly reading series. She will serve her term beginning April 2025 and, in addition to curating community events, she will also be hosting The Poet Laureate Podcast.

“I’m honoured to serve as Victoria’s seventh Poet Laureate on lək̓ʷəŋən homelands and look forward to deepening our connection to poetry and one another,” she says.

Kyeren follows in the literary footsteps of previous Poet Laureates John Barton and Carla Funk (plus UVic grad Yvonne Blomer), making our grads three of the seven Poet Laureates since the position was created in 2006. Writing can also boast of having four previous Youth Poet Laureates among the 11 youth who have held the position: Eva Haas, Eli Mushumanski, K.P. Dennis and Aysia Law. (Shauntelle Dick-Charleson is the newest Youth Poet Laureate.)

Regehr is an award-winning poet, writer and the author of Cult Life, which was a finalist for the national ReLit Awards and Victoria’s own Butler Book Prize; her Disassembling A Dancer won the inaugural Raven Chapbooks contest. Her poetry has appeared in top literary journals and anthologies across Canada, Australia and the US, and she has won or been shortlisted for more than two dozen literary contests.

Beyond the page, Regehr’s background in professional dance and theatre gives her poetry an unmistakable rhythm. She once found herself in the finals of the Victoria Poetry Slam completely by accident after encouraging her students to perform. Now, as Artistic Director of Planet Earth Poetry, she continues to champion the literary arts

“We’re delighted to have the talents of Kyeren and Shauntelle representing the City as Poet Laureates,” says Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto. “I look forward to seeing their work inspire and connect residents of all ages through the power of poetry.”

New Phoenix season announced

by | Apr 14, 2025 | Events, Graduate, Theatre, Undergraduate

While the 2024/25 academic season is coming to a close, it’s the ideal time to pick up a subscription to the 2025/26 mainstage season at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre. This year, we saw a remarkable season highlighted by productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Killing Game and Twelfth Night, plus bonus shows like Eyes of the Beast and im:print 2024 — let’s see what’s coming up next year!

The season kicks off with The Salty Scent of Home (October 9-18). Directed and created by Theatre chair Yasmine Kandil, this powerful and celebratory theatre performance brings to life the stories of six newcomer immigrants and refugees, capturing their journeys as they navigate the challenges and embrace the rewards of immigration and settlement.

Interwoven with these personal stories are poignant and lyrical poems inspired by the migratory patterns of birds — symbolizing freedom, resilience and tenacity. This production is a moving tribute to the strength found in community and the universal desire to find a place to call home.*

Following that is the American classic Our Town (November 6-22). Led by guest director Soheil Parsa, this timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning classic by Thornton Wilder still captures the beauty and fragility of everyday life. Set in the small town of Grover’s Corners, the play follows the lives of its residents — ordinary people experiencing love, loss and the passage of time. Guided by the omniscient Stage Manager, audiences witness the joys and sorrows of the Gibbs and Webb families as they navigate childhood, marriage and mortality.

Despite being first performed in 1938, Our Town remains a poignant, heartwarming and deeply moving exploration of human awareness and the often-overlooked beauty of everyday moments.

 

Spring 2026 sees the staging of Sami Ibrahim’s A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain (February 12-21), directed by MFA candidate Sophia Treanor. In a land where myth and reality intertwine, we follow Elif, a young immigrant whose days are spent shearing sheep—each tuft of wool rising into the sky, forming clouds that bring rain to a distant, wealthy city. But when she becomes a mother, her priorities become clear.

Determined to secure citizenship for her child, she travels to the capital, only to encounter an unforgiving bureaucracy and an immigration system designed to keep her out. A hauntingly beautiful fable of perseverance and sacrifice.

Finally, the season rounds out with Rick Waines’ In My Day * (March 12-21), as directed by former Belfry Theatre artistic director Roy Surette. This  powerful and deeply moving play sheds light on a pivotal chapter in our history: set during the HIV/AIDS crisis, this poignant production celebrates the resilience of diverse communities who came together in extraordinary ways. Through vivid storytelling, richly drawn characters and moments of humour and joy, Victoria-based playwright Rick Waines honours the voices of those who lived, loved and endured during an era marked by loss, fear and stigma.

Actually inspired by a UVic community-based research project, In My Day brings to life the true stories of long-term survivors living with HIV and their caregivers from the first 15 years of the HIV pandemic in British Columbia. Highlighting the experiences of diverse communities — including women, people of colour, Indigenous peoples, trans individuals, and more — it gives voice to those whose perspectives have often been overlooked. “My aim with In My Day was to accurately, without losing meaning, tell the story of the first 15 years of the AIDS pandemic using the testimonies of the participants in a theatrically exciting way,” says Waines.

* The Salty Scent of Home is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded performance, while In My Day is partially supported by SSHRC funding. 

Subscriptions to the 2025-26 Phoenix Theatre season are now on sale for just $51-$68, which lets you choose 3 or 4 plays from our season and save up to 50% off single ticket prices. For more subscription benefits, please see the Phoenix Tickets site. 

Distinguished Alumni Awards: Tania Willard

by | Mar 31, 2025 | Alumni, Award, donor, Graduate, indigenous, News, Visual Arts

We congratulate 2025 Presidents’ Alumni Award recipient Tania Willard, a mixed Secwépemc and settler artist whose research intersects with land-based art practices. A graduate of the Department of Visual Arts (BFA, 1998), the work of Kamloops-born Willard activates connection to land, culture and family, centring art as an Indigenous resurgent act, though collaborative projects such as BUSH Gallery and support of language revitalization in Secwépemc communities. 

“I learned a lot about myself in [UVic’s] art program,” she says. “Four years is enough time to decide whether you are dedicated to art or you aren’t. I made it through that program, and knew it was still something I was passionate about. I also knew I wanted it to serve not only art for art’s sake but to widen it out to think about social engagement, think about activism, think about community—and that was through my Indigenous heritage as a Secwépemc person. In those days, there was a lot of activity on campus in music and art, in activism and in Indigenous rights, and I found my voice through those spaces.”

Currently based on the Neskonlith Indian Reserve, Willard’s artistic and curatorial work includes Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2012-2014) and Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe (ongoing). Her work is included in the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Forge Project NY, Kamloops Art Gallery, Belkin gallery and the Anchorage Museum, among others.

Her suggestion for current students and emerging artists? “Seek out Indigenous professors and students to support you,” she says. “I took Christine Welsh’s class—she was a Métis professor in Women’s Studies—and that was the first time in my life I had had an Indigenous teacher and that was a significant moment for me. And now it’s not as uncommon to have that experience. We have Indigenous faculty, I am Indigenous faculty, but at the time in my high school, my career and everything, I had never had that opportunity and that was important. I would encourage all students to seek out belonging and community and connection.”

An acclaimed career

In 2016, Willard received the Hnatyshyn Foundation’s Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art. In 2020, the Shadbolt Foundation awarded her their VIVA Award for outstanding achievement and commitment in her art practice, and in 2022 she was named a Forge Project Fellow for her land-based, community-engaged artistic practice. In 2023 BUSH Gallery was named as a Future Studies recipient from Ruth Foundation for the Arts. Willard is a 2024 fellow with the Doris and Jack Shadbolt fellowship at Simon Fraser University. She is also an assistant professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC Okanagan in syilx territories. 

“Art can reach people in a way that’s different—it speaks a language that tries to connect with us in our hearts,” she says. “That’s been important for me. I don’t think it’s the only effective means. I think it can work alongside many other methods and practices, but for me it’s been the way that I can commit to because it nourishes, it communicates and it’s relational and it can deal with difficult subjects… [Art] helps me vision different outcomes. It’s a universal problem-solving technique. People use it in the sciences, in the humanities. We need that creativity no matter who we are to help us solve problems and nourish ourselves and grow.”

Speed round!

What I’d do with an extra hour of free time: 

“I would continue to work on basketry, which is also something I do that is relaxing and balances everything out.”

One food I can’t resist: 

“Smoked salmon.”

My go-to karaoke song: 

“I don’t do karaoke very often. However, I recently did karaoke for my friend Peter Morin’s art project, Love Songs to End Colonization. And I did a version of the Violent Femmes’ ‘Blister in the Sun.’ In the past I’ve also done the Clash’s ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’.”

My secret talent: 

“I won some dance contests when I was much younger.”

Skill I wish I possessed: 

“I wish I could do more construction, build more things… like lovely library-style bookshelves.”

Something great I’ve read recently: 

Let’s Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts: Based on Conversations with Indigenous Wisdom Keepers, Artists, Curators, Feminists and Mycologists.

One cool thing about where I live: 

“I live on reserve, and I live near the forest edge. I love how the forest takes care of everything. Life, death, food, ecology. I have great respect and continue to learn every day of my life from how the forest takes care of things in a way that contrasts the ways we have to have systems for food, for garbage, for waste, and we build up these separate systems to take care of all that. But the forest innately does that.”

Read more about UVic’s 2025 Alumni Awards here

Distinguished Alumni Award winner: Chari Arespacochaga

by | Mar 27, 2025 | Alumni, Award, donor, Graduate, News, Theatre

Chari Arespacochaga is an acclaimed theatre director and educator at the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University (FSU) where she is the Director of the MFA Directing Program. Her theatrical direction credits include Rent, Kinky Boots (Short North Stage), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (University of California), Amadeus and Stupid Kids (Phoenix Theatre, Victoria), 9 Minutes (for PopUP Theatrics NYC), Rock of Ages, The Full Monty, Disney’s Tarzan, Spring Awakening, Legally Blonde, Altar Boyz and Into the Woods, among others. At FSU, she initiated and designed Performing Climate Change, a course that provides students from different colleges and departments critical and creative ways of approaching the climate crises; and recently directed an acclaimed production of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

The recipient of a 2025 Emerging Alumni Award, Chari graduated with an MFA from the Department of Theatre (2015), and her scholarship, artistic work and teaching is centred on theatre as necessary cultural work for social transformation and providing her audience and students new ways of engaging with theatre through the lens and lived experiences of an immigrant BIPOC artist-scholar. 

“My experiences at UVic solidified for me how making theatre coincides with making community,” she says. “It made me realize in concrete, palpable ways how we cultivate our life gets reflected in the work that I do as a theatre director and affects how I set up workplaces for people in making theatre. It also made me think about new ways we need to be creating stories and who else should we be inviting to the table to tell those stories.”

Born in the Philippines (Manila) but currently based in Tallahassee, Florida, Chari is in the process of adapting a series of stories about a culturally diverse group of princesses/superheroines called the Guardian Princesses into musicals for young audiences as part of her commitment to developing new works. Other developmental collaborations include a new musical called Missing and a feminist retelling of Macbeth entitled Em.

A scene from Amadeus, which Chari directed at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre in 2015

Unlearning process

Early influences include Sesame Street, Electric Company, movie musicals and Saturday morning cartoons. “I remember clearly those vignettes in Electric Company where Rita Moreno was running a film set and everything would be falling apart,” she recalls. “She was shooting something about a pirate on a ship and the mast would fall on them. And I thought that was great. Maybe, even then, I could recognize that’s probably stress I can deal with and thrive on.”

One of the key things she’s learned, however, is the ability to unlearn that there’s only one way of doing something. “That there’s only one way to rehearse, that there’s only one way to tell a story . . . I try to unlearn whatever I thought were those absolutes all the time. Some are easier to unlearn than others.”

“You’re teaching in a classroom, and you can prep and prep and you should have a plan, but it’s not about you. It needs to become about the students. I am running a rehearsal, but it’s not about me, it’s about the show. It’s about making the actors feel their best possible selves. It’s about making my creative collaborators, whether they’re designers or stage managers, feel like they have ownership of the show and the story that we’re telling.”

Power of story

Chari has long believed in the power of story to affect an audience. “I was always emotionally available to believing a story and letting it move me,” she says. “I remember crying the first time I watched Dumbo as a toddler. There was always a connection to how stories can move you and make you think about things… Story is a good way to change people’s minds. Even if you don’t change their mind in a moment, there’s enough power in the seed that it might plant so if even three or four people can ask a new question of themselves about how we deal with the world or how we live, I think that’s worth the telling of the story.”

Speed round!

Something that brings me joy: 

“A really good rehearsal. A moment when you recognize, ‘Oh, my students have grown up.’”

One food I can’t resist: 

“Some days it would be Japanese food, some days it would be something Spanish like Jamón or cheese. It’s very hard to resist cheese.”

A sport that I follow: 

“Does shopping count as a sport? Most recently, I was following women’s soccer because the MFA directing candidate I am mentoring was directing The Wolves, and that’s about a young female soccer team, so we were watching a lot of women’s soccer.”

My go-to karaoke song: 

“I’m Filipino and my absolute act of resistance is to not believe in karaoke. When we’re at a karaoke joint, I just say ‘It’s my day off, sorry.’”

Something great that I’ve watched or read recently: 

“I thought Wicked was pretty great. I am right now reading a lot about Sweeney Todd, which I think is a fantastic script and all the research accompanying it.”

Favourite place to travel: 

“New York City always feels like home to me. London is becoming a nice second home, and I have to say wherever the next show takes me becomes a favourite place to travel.”

 Read more about UVic’s 2025 Alumni Awards here

 

Distinguished Alumni Awards: Cassandra Miller

by | Mar 16, 2025 | Alumni, Award, donor, Graduate, News, Theatre, Visual Arts

We are thrilled that Cassandra Miller is the recipient of one of the 2025 Presidents’ Alumni Awards. Born in Victoria, Cassandra received her Bachelor of Music in Composition and Theory from UVic in 2005; her brother, the award-winning graphic designer Emrys Damon Miller, is also a Fine Arts alumni (Visual Arts). 

An acclaimed Canadian-British composer who has been living in London, England, since 2018, Cassandra’s composition methods incorporate a unique practice of meditation-based uncontrolled singing to learn about melody and repetition. She uses these vocal exercises together with creative transcription processes to transform pre-existing musical sources (from both within and outside the classical tradition) to magnify their expressive, personal, or fragile qualities.

“Music this uncalculatedly beautiful leaves you almost desperate with gratitude,” wrote Alex Ross of her work in The New Yorker, while The Guardian hailed her “Duet for Cello and Orchestra” as among the top 20 “Best Classical Music Works of the 21st Century.” Over the past year, her works have appeared internationally at the BBC Proms, GöteborgsOperans Danskompani and on tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She has twice received the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, Canada’s highest honour for composition, and in 2025 she will be a visiting scholar for three months as lecturer at Stanford University.

Endless possibility

“I originally went to UVic to study my instrument—the harp,” Cassandra recalls. “On the first day of classes I took a composition elective and then realized, ‘Oh gosh, this is what I do now.’ It was life changing.” 

She recalls the School of Music as the kind of place where, as far as creativity goes, “anything was possible… You were taught that to be an artist was to be a bit of a weirdo. It was so freeing and so important. I learned about myself… how to be that kind of creative, how to be free and playful by being myself… At the time I just thought that was good education, but afterwards I realized that it was also artistically incredibly unique and important. It was a very special place.”

Over the years, she has been invited as a visiting teacher and lecturer at many institutions including Stanford, Columbia, CalArts, London’s Royal Academy of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire, McGill University, the University of Manitoba and the Orkest de Ereprijs Young Composers Meeting. From 2010 to 2013, she held the post of Artistic and General Director of Innovations en concert, Montreal, and from 2018 to 2020, Miller was Associate Head of Composition at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, leading the undergraduate program.

Cassandra Miller with the BBC Philharmonic at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival (BPA/The Guardian)

Collaboration and listening

Cassandra says she finds the art and practice of composing “extremely collaborative. On the surface, it looks like I’m sitting at home staring at my computer, but because I’m writing music for other people to play, even the least collaborative project is extremely collaborative. And then there’s the idea of making space for another person, and it’s a skill that I’m continuously learning. Every opportunity to interact with somebody is an opportunity to learn how to listen better. And the other side of that is listening to oneself and making the space to listen to what’s going on inside and what needs to happen and how to make space.”

What I’ve learned

“I’ve learned how to gather around me the support that I need. This was something I learned late in life… I have pretty strong ADHD, and I need to hire an assistant. I need to hire a personal trainer. I need to have a therapist at all times. I also need to keep my family and friends close, and I always need to live with somebody. There’s a lot of things I need that I’m getting better at asking for and putting into place.”

“A friend of mine used the mantra ‘Try less hard,’ and I took it on… It’s about making that space for listening. Often when you’re trying too hard for something, you’re not making the space to listen to what’s really going on. Often the solution is to change a situation or try something a bit differently. But if you’re already trying hard, trying harder usually isn’t the thing that’s going to make it work.”

Speed round!

Something that brings me joy: 

“Bird song… London has parakeets, which are a huge part of the soundscape of the city. They’re an invasive species, but they have this wonderful chatter and they’re very loud at sunrise and sunset. It’s a way to mark the time in the city, and they fly around in these huge flocks and they’re bright green. They’re lovely.” 

One food I can’t resist: 

“My family makes these traditional Lebanese Christmas cookies.  We call them Sticky Fingers because they’re roughly the shape of a finger and they’re dipped in honey, filled with almonds and orange blossom water. And they have little bits of aniseed in the dough.”

Something great I’ve watched recently: 

“A movie called The Cassandra Cat. It’s this absurd, surreal movie from the Czech Republic in the early ’60s. I sort of recommend it, but you have to be in the right mood.”

A cool thing about where I live: 

“London has so many trees in it that it’s classified as a forest.”

Secret talent:

“I am incredibly patient, and I don’t mind waiting, and it’s very extreme. If a friend is three hours late to meet me, no problem. I just love waiting around.”

A talent I wish I possessed: 

“I wish I could dance better. I think it’s an important thing in life. I think life is probably about eating, sleeping, singing and dancing.”

 Read more about UVic’s 2025 Alumni Awards here

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)