Uplifting Indigenous voices on Giving Tuesday

by | Dec 1, 2025 | Alumni, Award, donor, indigenous, Writing

Giving Tuesday is coming up fast on December 2! We encourage you to join UVic’s campus community and grads from around the world by pitching in to support student success, health, well-being and the programs that help make UVic the special place it is.

This year, the Faculty of Fine Arts is raising funds to honour and celebrate Indigenous voices through the sxʷiʔe ̕m “To Tell A Story” Indigenous Writers & Storytellers Series.

About the series

Created by acclaimed Métis poet and Department of Writing professor Gregory Scofield in 2023, this annual series is an inspiring way of uplifting Indigenous literary achievements and engaging with our local community of writers and readers. To date, the sxʷiʔe ̕m series has featured a mix of Writing alumni (Syilx Okanagan multidisciplinary author Jeannette Armstrong, award-winning WSÁNEC poet Philip Kevin Paul) and guests (Icelandic/Red River Métis poet Jónína Kirton and Cree author Joseph Kakwinokansum).

“My goal is to honour the nations on whose territory we live, and to celebrate and honour the writers and storytellers in our communities,” says Scofield.

Join us in uplifting Indigenous voices with this important series on Giving Tuesday!

UVic actually has 25 causes to choose from, ranging from the food bank to experiential learning and emergency bursaries — but know that whichever fund you choose to support will have a lasting impact on campus and beyond. Every single dollar counts!

UVic double alumna Lyana Patrick practices the art of health in all she does

by | Oct 27, 2025 | Alumni, climate, indigenous, Writing

Writer-director Lyana Patrick. All images courtesy the National Film Board of Canada, Lantern Films & Experimental Forest Films

These days, UVic double alumna Lyana Patrick is a picture of success in multiple arenas. She’s a lauded professor at Simon Fraser University,  specializing in issues surrounding Indigenous health and justice. She’s also an award-winning filmmaker whose new documentary, Nechako: It Will Be A Big River Again, is lighting up screens across the country.

But once, Patrick was a young journalism student struggling to land a University of Victoria co-op position. “I couldn’t get a job to save my life,” she laughs. “I was very shy and nervous and interviewed terribly.”

Patrick is a member of  BC’s Stellat’en First Nation, near Fraser Lake, but mostly grew up in Vanderhoof. She was drawn to UVic because of the Writing department’s co-op program. “At the time, you could still get a job at a community newspaper, so my dream was to be a journalist.”

But, unable to secure that co-op position, she fell back on her writing skills and secured a co-op position with the Native Voice—an acclaimed Indigenous newspaper. During that time, she wrote about the Kenney Dam and the efforts of the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan) to divert the Nechako River for the benefit of its aluminum smelter… at the cost of both the Stellat’en and Saik’uz nations.

Patrick went on to earn a BA double-majoring in Creative Writing and History in 1997 and later an MA in Indigenous Governance in 2004. Now, 30 years after her article, she returned to the topic of the multi-generational legal struggle to create her feature-length documentary, Nechako.

“For me, the most important thing is hearing voices that haven’t been heard and telling stories that people want to tell,” she says. “Those are my motivating factors in everything I do, and that’s pretty much what Nechako was about—understanding what the community’s priorities were, talking about the court case, showing that we’re still here on these lands, living with love and strength.”

Resistance is far from futile

When Alcan built the Kenney Dam in the 1950s, 70 per cent of the Nechako River was diverted into an artificial reservoir, severely impacting the lives of local Stellat’en and Saik’uz nations and leading to decades of resistance, including legal actions against both the federal and provincial governments and Rio Tinto Alcan, a subsidiary of global mining conglomerate Rio Tinto.

The film is rooted in Patrick’s experiences of resilience and adaptation, with Patrick’s father, a former Stellat’en chief, also featured in the documentary. Nechako follows both the flow of the river and the community’s ongoing fight to restore their way of life amidst large-scale environmental destruction and corporate rule.

“There’s an expectation of understanding and engaging with this Western system, on top of knowing your own traditions and cultures and histories,” she says. “It’s really hard work and I just wanted to show that kind of love and care and attention that I was fortunate to witness as I made this film.”

The story of Nechako is grounded in the kind of Indigenous community health and justice work Patrick specializes in, but she honed her production skills during a co-op term she did land in the ’90s working on CBC’s North of 60.

Telling Indigenous stories

A long-running TV series set in the fictional Northwest Territories community of Lynx River, North of 60 offered breakout roles to Indigenous actors like Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Jackson, Michael Horse and Adam Beach, as well as behind-the-scenes opportunities for students like Patrick.

“I’ve always had a very strong curiosity about hearing people’s stories,” Patrick says. “While journalism is incredibly important, visual storytelling offers a combination of all the elements:  context, background, history, relationships. Being at North of 60 allowed me to witness the work done in the different departments—story, editing, directing—and I found a lot of power in bringing these elements together when thinking about a story and who was telling it.”

Working on North of 60 also marked the first time she’d ever seen Indigenous screenwriters telling stories from their own perspectives. “I realized I wanted to tell stories that were community-centred and community-driven, and when my path went in the more academic direction I knew I wanted to integrate storytelling into my work.”

The Kenney Dam

Building on that experience, her master’s work included information about community-based Indigenous filmmakers and the importance of place. “At that point, Indigenous people hadn’t had the opportunity to tell our own stories yet… now, there are incredible Indigenous filmmakers making major inroads into film and television.”

She then augmented her UVic degrees with a year of film studies at the University of Washington’s Native Voices documentary film program, which led to her first short film, Travels Across the Medicine Line, about how the Canada/US border bisected the Indigenous nations who lived along it. She continued to integrate film, video and visual approaches while pursuing her PhD in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

Her PhD cohort included a colleague and now good friend, Jessica Hallenbeck, who ended up starting the documentary film company Lantern Productions, with whom Patrick has spent a decade producing Indigenous-focused, client-driven videos as well as three short films for Knowledge Network. Combined, all that experience has led her back to Nechako. Creating the film was a five-year process to tell a story 70 years in the making—that she first explored as a UVic undergrad.

Fighting the notion of deficit

While the story of Nechako is personal to her, it’s also universal in the environmental and legal struggles it represents. “We’re doing this for everybody, because we all impact each other,” she says. “The whole idea is a holistic perspective of interconnectedness—that’s the message most First Nations are trying to convey—and I feel like we’re contributing to that.”

But Patrick also feels it’s about telling a familiar story in a different way. “This is the kind of health research I challenge in my day-to-day life, that deficit approach where it’s about community or individual dysfunction. Traditionally, it’s about showing negative health statistics and how sick everybody is compared to the rest of the population—but the fact is our community has a lot of strengths and there’s a reason we’re still here.”

Ultimately, she feels Nechako challenges negative ideas and stereotypes about Indigenous people that still endure in Canadian society. “I actually see a whole movement towards self-determination and self-governance,” she says. “There’s so much to learn from our history and from what we’re continuing to do… amplifying that message is how we can move forward. It’s how we’ll survive what’s coming.”

Nechako is currently playing at film festivals across Canada, including the opening night of Toronto’s Planet in Focus environmental film fest (where Nechako won the Mark Haslam Award), Vancouver’s DOXA fest and an in-person screening at UVic’s Cinecenta in November 2025. Patrick is heartened by audience reactions to Nechako.

“It’s had an excellent reception,” she says. “Especially from people who don’t know anything about this story. It’s been really affirming to discover that this is a story people want to know more about and are motivated to do something about.”

While she has ideas for other documentaries (including one possibly involving Metchosin’s William Head Institution), the experience of making Nechako has also offered Patrick the chance to reflect on her own personal journey.

“A few months back I found an article that had been written 30 years ago for UVic’s Ring [newspaper] about my co-op experience, and it said I wanted to be a film director,” she laughs. “It might have taken a while, but I did finally direct a feature-length film—so, you know, sometimes our dreams take a little bit longer to realize!”

The Nechako River as seen in the film

Danielle Geller named Associate Dean Indigenous for Fine Arts

by | Oct 9, 2025 | Faculty, indigenous, Writing

Danielle Geller in 2025 (photo: David Murphy)

Representation matters when it comes to enacting meaningful long-term change in both UVic’s teaching and administration arenas, which is why the Faculty of Fine Arts is particularly excited to announce the appointment of Danielle Geller as our first Associate Dean Indigenous.

“Creating the role of Associate Dean Indigenous was important for the Faculty of Fine Arts because it helps us to fulfill our commitment to equity and reconciliation,” notes Dean Allana Lindgren. “Professor Geller is an ideal choice because she is a natural leader with a clear vision for moving Fine Arts forward in a good way through Indigenization.”

Recognizing the importance of Indigenous academic leadership, Geller is one of seven Indigenous professors in the Faculty of Fine Arts and one of four new Associate Deans Indigenous across UVic. These senior academic roles are a significant step in advancing UVic’s Indigenous Plan—xʷkʷənəŋistəl | W̱ȻENEṈISTEL | Helping to move each other forward—and reflect our shared responsibility to uphold ʔetalnəwəl | ÁTOL,NEUEL | respecting the rights of one another and being in right relationship with all things. 

About Danielle Geller

A professor with our Department of Writing since 2019, Geller is also an acclaimed memoirist and writer of personal essays. Her first book, Dog Flowers (One World/Random House, 2021), was a finalist for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes’s Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.

Her essays have appeared in The New Yorker and The Paris Review Daily, among others, and have  been anthologized in Sharp Notions: Essays on the Stitching Life, The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins, This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home and The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature.

She received her MFA from the University of Arizona and, in addition to UVic, also teaches creative writing at the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is­­­ a daughter of the Navajo Nation: born to the Tsi’naajinii, born for the bilagaana.

What does it mean to you to step into the role of Associate Dean Indigenous?

Stepping into this role feels both humbling and deeply important. I come into this position as a visitor to these territories, and with that comes a responsibility—to the university, to our students and most importantly, to the local Nations whose lands we live, learn and create on. For me, this role is about listening first, about understanding the unique needs of Indigenous students, staff and faculty, and about supporting the work already being carried out in community. I see myself as a resource and a collaborator—someone who can help navigate systems and processes, while also recognizing that one process won’t fit every faculty. My hope is to use my strengths, especially in thinking about structures and processes, to create pathways that work for Fine Arts and that honour Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

How do you think this role will help shift or shape the university in a good way?

This role offers a chance to make reconciliation and Indigenization more than just words we use in policy. These are not new ideas, but they are often misunderstood or unevenly implemented. I want to help shift the conversation by making it easier for faculty, staff and students to engage with these concepts in ways that feel meaningful and practical. I don’t see myself as the authority on reconciliation, but I do hope to be a guide and a facilitator—someone who can help our community ask the right questions: What does this look like in practice? How can we ensure the work we do builds relationships and creates real change? The shift comes when we start to see reconciliation and Indigenization as shared responsibilities that belong to all of us.

What does meaningful Indigenous engagement look like in your faculty?

For me, meaningful engagement is never just about adding language to a policy document—it’s about action. In Fine Arts, that might mean creating space for Indigenous voices in the classroom, on the stage, in the gallery or in the stories we tell. It’s about supporting individual faculty and students to bring their own strengths and perspectives into their work and about building a culture where allyship and accountability are part of our daily practices. Engagement also happens on an individual level—each of us asking questions like, “What can I do to support Indigenous students and colleagues? How can I use my strengths to contribute?” When those actions accumulate across a faculty, they start to create a stronger, more supportive environment for Indigenous people in the arts.

Why is Indigenous leadership at this level important?

Representation matters. When Indigenous people are at the table, our voices and perspectives can’t be ignored. Too often, decisions that affect Indigenous students, staff and faculty are made without us present. Having Indigenous leadership at this level ensures advocacy happens in real time—at the policy level, in committee meetings and in conversations that shape the direction of the faculty and the university. It also means bringing our whole selves into the room: our experiences, our histories, our responsibilities to our communities. This isn’t just about structural change, though that’s important—it’s about relationship building, about helping others understand our goals and about aligning our work so that the university can better support Indigenous peoples and communities: “Nothing about us, without us.”

What are your priorities or hopes for the first year in this role?

My first priority is listening. I want to hear directly from students, staff and faculty about the work they are trying to do and the barriers they face. This will help lay the groundwork for setting collective priorities and understanding where change is most urgently needed. I don’t want to come in with a fixed agenda, but rather to co-create one that reflects the realities of our faculty. I also hope to build stronger connections between Fine Arts and the broader supports available on campus, and to begin identifying opportunities for collaboration that strengthen our relationships with Indigenous communities. For me, the first year is about planting seeds—building trust, identifying needs and creating the foundation for meaningful long-term change.

How do you see this role supporting Indigenous students, staff, and faculty?

There are already many excellent supports for Indigenous students, staff, and faculty on campus, but not everyone knows about them or feels connected to them. Part of my role will be to help bridge those gaps—making sure people know what resources exist and creating opportunities for stronger collaboration across units. In Fine Arts, I see this role as complementing and strengthening the work already being done by leaders like Karla Point, our Indigenous Resurgence Coordinator, Carey Newman, Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices and Heather lgloliorte, Canada Excellence Research Chair, Professor. Together, we can help expand networks of support, ensure Indigenous students feel seen and cared for, and work with faculty and staff to create a community where everyone has the tools and relationships they need to thrive. Ultimately, my goal is to strengthen community ties both on campus and beyond, so that Indigenous students, staff and faculty feel connected, supported and empowered in their work and learning.

historicizing the present through art

by | Aug 12, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Faculty, indigenous, Visual Arts

When Sm Łoodm ‘Nüüsm (Mique’l Dangeli) was hired in 2024 as a professor of Indigenous Arts in our Art History & Visual Studies department, the Ts’msyen scholar knew it would be a good fit.

“I liked the fact that it isn’t just about art history here, it’s also about visual studies — so all of my interests are supported in terms of what I can teach,” she says. “Being a dancer and choreographer, I teach everything through music and performance as well as visual arts, and I also love Indigenous filmmaking, so I bring that in too. My classes are very much passion projects — like my Indigenous tattoo course — so it’s really enhanced my teaching to be able to explore all these other areas.”

Prior to UVic, Dangeli taught at the University of Alaska Southeast, UFV and UNBC, as well as serving on various curatorial teams for Canadian, American and European museums — all of which offered the perfect background for this position.  

“The approach I take is historicizing the present, so all of the artists I talk about are producing now,” she explains. “As Northwest Coast First Nations People, we live our art history every day, so I look at not only the historical roots of a wide array of art practices but also distinct and important differences Indigenous artists are making for future generations.” 

Dangeli is also careful to avoid problematic terminology in her teaching. 

“I steer away from oppressive terms like ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary,” she says. “It’s a continuum: Indigenous artists are still doing the work of their ancestors who incorporated all the tools, materials and technologies that came through many trade routes before and after colonial invasion. If we’re going to talk about tradition, the most ancient tradition we have as Indigenous people is to use the tools, materials and technologies of the time period that we live in to express who we are today.” 

Over the past year, Dangeli has found a home in Fine Arts: not only through her teaching but also by leading panels, engaging with other units and  using the building lobby to rehearse her First Nations dance group, the Git Hayetsk Dancers. But her biggest highlight? The students. 

“The students at UVic are amazing: critical, intellectual, thoughtful and willing to create a safe space in my classroom to have challenging conversations about historical and ongoing colonization and about how Indigenous artists are engaging with today’s issues through their work,” she says. “There’s a gratitude here for the opportunity to learn that I haven’t encountered at any other university.”

Celebratory theatre empowers acceptance

by | Aug 5, 2025 | Award, Faculty, indigenous, Research, Theatre

Theatre students Simran Kang (left), Isabella Derilo & Alynne Sinnema in the 2024 production of Salty Scent of Home (Photo: Dean Kalyan)

It can be hard for people who never experienced immigration to understand the challenges faced by immigrants and refugees, but new research is showing the positive impact “celebratory theatre” practices can have on newcomers.  

Funded by a three-year, $200,000 Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council Partnership Development Grant, Department of Theatre professor Yasmine Kandil’s project — Celebratory Theatre for Building Inclusion, Resilience & Social Acceptance of Racialized Newcomer Immigrants & Refugees to Canada — is a partnership with the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria, the Vancouver Island Counseling Centre for Immigrants & Refugees and UVic’s Psychology department, with participation by professors Monica Prendergast (Curriculum & Instruction) and Fred Chou (Educational Psychology & Leadership Studies). “We’re invested in learning how theatre — particularly celebratory theatre, where the participants benefit and the audience learns — can support successful integration and thriving of newcomers,” says Kandil. 

A leading expert in applied theatre techniques, Kandil had previously partnered with ICA on 2022’s Homecoming: A Queer Journey — funded through a 2019 SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant — which focused on building empathy for LGBTQ2S+ immigrants and refugees. “People don’t want to be seen as pitiful or needing help,” she says. “They want others to see their rich culture, what they bring to the community — that they’re resilient, productive citizens, worthy of an equal share in society.”

Led by Kandil and Psychology professor Cathy Costigan, the 2024 Celebratory Theatre research project involved seven theatre students working with six ICA and VICCIR clients in a series of workshops in February and March, followed by a devised performance in May, which was then performed as The Salty Scent of Home to nearly 300 audience members in June — all aimed at testing how celebratory theatre techniques can impact the well-being, social cohesion and sense of self-worth of immigrants and refugees.   

Costigan developed evaluation tools to test various measures (i.e., confidence, belonging, acceptance) both before and after the workshops and performance, which were then applied to the participants, students and audience members during the workshops and performance. “The data has come back positive that celebratory theatre is making a difference and impacting people’s acceptance of immigrants and refugees, as well as making a significant impact in the way that newcomers perceive themselves and chances of success in Canada,” says Kandil.

The Salty Scent of Home is also being presented as part of UVic’s Phoenix Theatre MainStage season, running October 9-18, 2025.

One-day art action supports Indigenous sovereignty

by | 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.