Roy Henry Vickers awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts

by | Jun 9, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, indigenous, Visual Arts

Roy Henry Vickers is a celebrated Indigenous artist, author, printmaker and storyteller of Tsimshian, Haida, Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv and English descent. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, the Order of BC and a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2019, he was even nominated for a Grammy Award for his design work on a Grateful Dead CD box set.

Now, he is the recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, presented as part of the Fine Arts convocation ceremony on June 10, Vickers studied at UVic before joining the Saanich Fire Department, he then left to study and graduate from the Gitanmaax School of Northwest Coast Indian Art. As noted in this Sooke News Mirror story, his former Oak Bay High teacher — and early UVic Theatre department designer — Bill West encouraged him to “paint what you see”. Vickers remembers the teacher saying, “Your colour blindness is an advantage because you simplify all the colours out there and paint what you see.”

Clearly, West was on to something, as Vickers’ internationally acclaimed artwork reflects the landscapes, wildlife and people of British Columbia. Characterized by clean lines and vivid colours, his distinctive artistic style blends his Indigenous heritage with a contemporary design, creating timeless and evocative pieces. Vickers’ influence is felt throughout the province — from founding his Eagle Aerie Gallery in Tofino to designing the Salmon Totem Pole for the 1994 Commonwealth Games. He also played a pivotal role in shaping the artistic direction of Vancouver International Airport’s new terminal, where his work remains prominently displayed.

With a career spanning more than 50 years, Vickers continues to leave a lasting legacy through his art and storytelling — sharing powerful messages of Indigenous self-determination, resilience and healing.

Conference marks Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s 50th anniversary

by | May 29, 2026 | Alumni, Events, Faculty, indigenous, Research, Theatre

Keynote speaker Nininsky Lee Aquino

Our Department of Theatre was proud to support the 50th annual Canadian Association for Theatre Research conference, which took place at UVic from May 26-29 and welcomed an exciting mix of theatre artists, scholars and researchers from across Canada plus Phoenix students, faculty & alumni.

Co-chaired by Theatre professor Sasha Kovacs & University of Toronto’s Sarah Robbins, CATR50 brought together over 200 people to investigate questions of inheritance, transition, transformation and change. The conference was highlighted by passionate conversations — kicked off by keynote speaker Nininsky Lee Aquino — and performances by Git Hayetsk dancers, Theatre SKAM’s Aster Brae plus drag performances at The Vicious Poodle. Other highlights included the conference exhibition, panel, roundtable, praxis workshop, seminar and working group contributions.

The Canadian Association for Theatre Research was originally created in 1976 under the name “The Association for Canadian Theatre History.” Since its inception it has been the principal catalyst for expansion of theatre research in Canada, as evidenced by the change in name in 1990. It aims to shape Canada’s theatrical present and future by preserving and interpreting our theatrical past and investigating areas of contemporary theory and performance. Specifically, the Association works to promote research and publication of the results of this research into Canadian theatre and drama, to encourage the collection and analysis of Canadian theatre materials, and to maintain a communications network for the exchange of information and research in progress.

Sasha Kovacs & Sarah Robbins

This event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Connections grant program, the Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories Partnership, Canada’s Theatre Museum, Playwright’s Guild of Canada, Playwright’s Canada Press, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Talon Books, Belfry Theatre, the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre plus numerous other departmental and community sponsors.

Special appreciation to Kurt Archer and previous co-chair Kara Flanagan for facilitating community artist engagement in this year’s event, Jenn Boulay for supporting accessibility plus all members of the incredible programming and local arrangements team for contributing to this memorable gathering!

Act 2 continues online June 11-12. See the CATR website for more info to join the digital act of the event.

Students & volunteers participating in Git Hayetsk performance

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).

Visual Art MFAs exhibit featured at downtown gallery

by | Apr 20, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, Visual Arts

Art by Visual Arts MFA Moozhan Ahmadzadegan at the Hourglass (photo: Shay Ball)

Back in February, we announced that Visual Arts is now a partner with the new Hourglass studio developed by Vancouver Island Visual Arts Society, who also run downtown’s ambitious 80-artist Rockslide Studio & Gallery.

Now, we’re hosting an exclusive exhibition of work by 11 current and graduating Visual Arts MFA students at the Hourglass. The MFA exhibit Passage will run April 18  through May 16 and features diverse work across multiple mediums including sound, painting, sculpture, installation and fibre.

Created with support from the City of Victoria’s Storefront Activation Program, Hourglass is an 8,500-square-foot space housed in the former Volvo dealership at Yates and Cook. Repurposed to house 18 art studios plus exhibition space, Visual Arts professors Heather Igloliorte and Joel Ong, plus three graduate students, now have dedicated studios in the Hourglass.

“Having studio and presentation space at the Hourglass studios gives us a place to create and a place to connect,” says Visual Arts chair Megan Dickie. “We’re excited to build stronger ties with the Victoria arts community and to see MFA students working alongside our new faculty.”

Just as directors need a stage and scientists need a lab, professional artists need a dedicated studio to support their work. “Access to studio space is essential to a successful artistic practice, whether you’re an established artist-researcher or an emerging one,” says Dickie. “That’s true for new faculty members like Heather and Joel, and it’s just as true for our MFA cohort.”

Like so many arts spaces in Victoria — including the bustling Rockslide itself — the Hourglass location is destined to be short-lived, as the property is slated for redevelopment into a 21-storey mixed-use tower over the next few years. But until then, it will serve as the city’s latest innovative arts space.

Work by Kylie Fineday on view in Passage  (photo: Shay Ball)

Annual BFA exhibit showcases student success

by | Apr 13, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Faculty, indigenous, Visual Arts

While the spring semester is ending, graduating art students are busy transforming the Visual Arts building into a gallery for their annual BFA exhibition, this year called Say When — a title chosen by the BFA class themselves.

Sarah Massey, a student on the exhibit’s communications committee, perfectly describes the show: “Say When. We offer you this invitation to experience our exhibition with us — at your own capacity. Art making is a way of claiming time and space in a world that wants to steal both. It’s complexity when we’re being sold simplicity. It’s collaboration when everything around us is designed to isolate. Come in. Stay as long as you want. Decide what it means. Say when.”

Say When opens with a gala reception from 7 – 10pm Thursday, April 16, then the Visual Arts building will be open between 10am-6pm daily through April 24. (If something catches your eye, take a closer look: many art pieces will be available for purchase and taken home once the exhibition closes.) See exhibition details here.

33 unique talents

Liya Tensae, one of the graduating students and chair of communications for the exhibit, emphasizes the range of talented students. “There’s a little bit of everything in this show,” she says about the numerous art styles and mediums used, including — but not limited to — painting, sculpture, installations and digital media, but all contemporary works.

Amelia Beauregard is one of the class’s media artists who turns videos into installation pieces. “She is really phenomenal with video,” Tensae says. “She’ll be using one of the rooms for a fully immersive video, sculptural and sound installation.” Other artists, Tensae explains, have created dual channel or single channel installations, using screens or projections.

The exhibition is also a class — formally titled Art 401: BFA Exhibition & Professional Practices — has a handful of conceptual artists, and among them is Ash Wilson, who works with installations that focus on landscapes. But her focus is not on a pictorial sense, it’s on a more personal level where she explores how we interact with the land—specifically, how we may perceive or disturb a landscape. “All those really cool aspects,” Tensae explains, “there’s a lot of research that goes into her work, and then it’s presented in these installations.”

Another conceptual artist is Marissa Parsons, who is particularly interesting due to her dual program in visual arts and computer science. Parsons combines these programs in her pieces, using math and formulas to make her art. Tensae describes a piece Parsons made where she uses pins and string to create a spider by layering the string: “she made that not just from imagery, but she plotted all the data points, then made it into a physical sculpture.: Using math is essential to Parson’s work, so she works hard to bring the science forward in her artistic practice.

An extra-large show

Beauregard, Wilson, and Parson are only three of the incredible 33 artists who make up this show. “Everyone brings their own unique perspectives, work, hands, soul, body, and mind into everything!” Tensae says. “An interesting thing about a show this large is . . . the way that we all come together. That we’re able to use this entire fabulous building to make a cohesive show.”

With this large, unique group, the 2026 class is hoping to use more of the Visual Arts building than previous classes. Usually, the BFA show uses the first floor of the building, taking up every wall, room, empty space, nook and cranny to fill it with art, but this year, they’re hoping to take advantage of the upstairs space. Tensae explains that the curatorial team has been working hard to ensure that every artist and art piece will stand out and be highlighted on its own.

Having a huge class can seem intimidating, with so much art in a limited space, but Tensae finds it opens possibilities, rather than closing them. “There’s so many more voices, so many more visions, and there’s many more artworks to pull together,” she says. “Another benefit of a big show is more perspectives. When we have more ideas in the room, there’s just a lot more to work from,” she explains.

Liya Tensae being interviewed by CHEK TV

A show for both the artsty and the non-artsy

After a long year of working endless hours in the art studio, the BFA graduating class is thrilled to put on a fabulous show that is worth checking out. “If you consider yourself an art person, if you don’t consider yourself an art person, I think there’ll be something here for you,” says Tensae. “And I think you’ll have a great time nonetheless.”

We were fortunate to have local CHEK TV come do a two-hour sneak-peak live broadcast of the exhibit, which you can watch here — just choose either the 5 or 6pm news broadcast and then scroll through to see five students talking about their work.
 
We’re also excited to be working with UVic’s Alumni Relations to host a special alumni-only reception from 7-9pm Friday, April 17 — for which you can still register here. It’s free to attend and you even get free parking if you register in advance. Please join us in supporting local emerging artists and this year’s graduating Visual Arts students!
 
—Claudia Phillips