In Memoriam: Dr. Anthony Welch

by John Threlfall | Feb 25, 2021 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Faculty, News

It is with great sadness we mark the passing of Dr. Anthony Welch, noted art historian, scholar and academic leader. Dr. Welch had a long and distinguished career at the University of Victoria, beginning in 1971 as a lecturer with the Department of History in Art (now Art History & Visual Studies) and progressing to full professor in 1980. Dr. Welch also served as Associate Dean (1982-1985) before becoming the longest-serving Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts for a remarkable 13 years (1985-1998).

Accomplished dean

As author Ian MacPherson noted in his history of UVic, Reaching Outward and Upward, “Under the leadership of the Dean of Fine Arts, Anthony Welch, the faculty enjoyed remarkable success. Each of its schools — Visual Arts, Theatre, Music, Writing and History in Art — flourished; each possessed faculty members with international accomplishments and excellent reputations as teachers.”

Indeed, a number of professors who came to be synonymous with UVic were added under Dr. Welch’s leadership, including Canadian arts icon Mavor Moore, conductor János Sándor, poet Lorna Crozier and the Lafayette String Quartet.

“Tony’s contribution to the university, the faculty and the department was a major one,” recalls professor emeritus Martin Segger, a longtime colleague and close friend who first met Dr. Welch in 1971 when they were both young academics. “Tony was a serious and dedicated scholar but he loved teaching. His passion for the arts of Islam was infectious.”

Remarkable scholar

Among his many accomplishments as Dean, Dr. Welch established the Orion Artists-in-Residence in Asia program, pioneered the establishment of what would become the Studios for Integrated Media as well as interdisciplinary programs in film studies and cultural resource management, and helmed the expansion of the Fine Arts complex with the construction of both the Visual Arts and Fine Arts buildings. He later worked as the first executive director of the Office of International Affairs, was on the board of directors for UVic’s Innovation and Development Corporation, and was Vice President of the board of the McPherson Foundation.

Dr. Welch was a remarkable scholar, who was equally at home studying architecture, epigraphy and the arts of the Islamic book. His areas of specialism encompassed Iranian painting, Mughal painting in India, Islamic calligraphy and Sultanate architecture in medieval India. He was the author of several books, including Shah ‘Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan, Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran and, with Stuart Carey Welch, Arts of the Islamic Book: The Collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. He was also a visiting professor at the universities of Minnesota, Washington and Chicago.

Committed to teaching

Throughout his career he remained committed to teaching, particularly enjoying the supervision of graduate students—many of whom went on to have successful careers as teachers or curators of Islamic art in North America, Europe, and Asia.

“Tony took his student papers very seriously and spent hours reviewing them and in the individual conversations that resulted,” recalls Segger. “He earned the admiration and respect of several generations of students whom he mentored through both undergraduate and graduate studies.”

Dr. Welch’s generosity, kindness and gentle humour will be deeply missed by all of those who worked with him during his long and illustrious career.

Tony Welch with AHVS graduate student Fahime Ghorbani in 2015

$1.875M gift supports environmental and climate journalism

by John Threlfall | Jan 26, 2021 | Faculty, News, Research, Writing

The threat of climate change is the most perilous of our time—especially at the beginning of this new decade, which has been frequently identified as the most crucial for preventing catastrophic consequences. Now, one concerned individual is personally addressing that threat with an inspiring gift of $1.875 million to the University of Victoria in support of the Wayne Crookes Professorship in Environmental and Climate Journalism.

The donation from Vancouver business leader and political activist Wayne Crookes includes both the $1.5 million professorship and a separate $375,000 fund to focus on environmental and climate journalism research and outreach. The new professor—to be appointed later this year within UVic’s Department of Writing—will help mentor the next generation of climate correspondents and writers.

“Wayne Crookes’ support of environmental and climate journalism echoes UVic’s deep conviction to help address the challenges posed by climate change,” says UVic President Kevin Hall. “Extreme weather, melting ice sheets, incessant flooding and other alarming events serve to remind us that we are not only together in this crisis, but also of the urgent need to effectively counter misinformation through the rigour of credible journalism. Actions like Wayne’s will carry us into a better future.”

Wayne Crookes (photo: Martin Roland)

A former federal Green Party campaign manager and political campaigner, Crookes is the owner and founder of West Coast Title Search Ltd. and the founder of Integrity British Columbia. He sees this donation as a way of increasing the quantity, quality, depth and prominence of science-based environmental journalism and media coverage to address the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Action needed now

“This is a very important priority for me,” says Crookes. “We need to communicate more effectively with journalists—especially editors—about the risks of climate change and the threats to biodiversity that humanity as a whole is facing. I believe climate change is an existential threat that the world is not doing enough to meet.”

Crookes’ gift will increase media literacy and coverage by connecting students, journalists, citizens and policymakers through a public database of environmental scientists and climatologists, as well as strengthen UVic’s journalism and publishing program. It will support research and outreach to enable the professorship to catalyze a variety of community-based research projects, advocacy initiatives and educational activities for maximum impact.

“People recognizing the problem is the most important step in it being dealt with and being solved,” Crookes adds. “To do that, public opinion needs to change, and that can most efficiently be changed by increasing—and having a higher quality of—media coverage.”

A commitment to sustainability

“We share Mr. Crookes’ profound commitment to sustainability and believe that training journalists and artists who can communicate in ways that inform, persuade and inspire the public and political leaders is an urgent priority,” says Allana Lindgren, acting dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts. “Environmental journalism is a growing emphasis in UVic’s Department of Writing, and many of our graduates pursue careers investigating and advocating for solutions to global environmental issues.”

As one of Canada’s leading research universities, UVic produces internationally acclaimed research on climate modelling, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable energy systems and the human dimensions of climate change.

Applications for the new five-year professorship are now open. Information can be found on the Writing department’s website.

A living legacy of jazz & blues

by John Threlfall | Jan 13, 2021 | Award, News, School of Music

Throughout 2019, music fans enjoyed a series of monthly concerts featuring local musicians all with one purpose: raising funds for a scholarship for future School of Music jazz students.

Organized by local jazz writer Joe Blake, the “Blues for Eric” concert series honoured the memory of Eric LeBlanc, UVic’s iconic CFUV disc jockey whose Let The Good Times Roll radio and online blues show ran for 33 years prior to his passing in 2015. His collection of thousands of blues, gospel, R&B and jazz recordings was donated to CFUV and his library of over 300 music-related books was donated to UVic’s Library.

Blake then established the $25,000 Eric LeBlanc Memorial Scholarship endowment fund and financed it with a series of 10 concerts, culminating in a sold-out public performance by Music professor Patrick Boyle the UVic Jazz Ensemble—including students (from left) Devin Owpaluk, Ethan Slogotski & Brendan Wong (photo: Leon Fei).

“Eric’s love of the blues began during his boyhood in Montreal: he and his brother would travel to New York City to buy obscure recordings to play at their Montreal dance club and later on his first radio show at McGill,” says Blake, seen here with Boyle at the final concert (photo: Leon Fei).

“He would have loved Boyle and his students’ smart, soulful jazz performances. And the students who will benefit from the scholarship played at the last Blues for Eric celebration. Now that’s cool!”

A new & different academic year

by mhuston | Sep 22, 2020 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Award, Events, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, News, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

A new (and different) school year

Welcome to issue 13 of the Fine Arts Connector and the start of a new academic year—one that we can definitely say will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

With only about 3,500 students on campus and the majority of classes being held online, there’s no question UVic looks and feels different right now. But here in Fine Arts, we are still offering a number of face-to-face courses—primarily in Theatre, Visual Arts and the School of Music—and the changes to our campus spaces mirror the changes in our teaching curriculum.

If you’re curious about what life will be like on campus this fall, check out this short UVic video.

Normally, Fine Arts offers well over 200 public events a year, but while we have a few events confirmed (see below), we’re still figuring out exactly what our fall events will look like. More on that in the weeks ahead, but be sure to keep an eye on our social media feeds in the meantime.

As always, please enjoy—and circulate—this collection of material featuring our faculty, students, alumni, staff and guests as a way of both sharing what our creative community is up to and keeping us all connected. You can also help by keeping us in the loop if you’re working on a live-streaming project, have online material to share or are involved in something you’d like people to know about: just email either fineartsevents@uvic.ca or johnt@uvic.ca.

Finally, you can sign up here to receive automatic notice of The Connector each issue.

New faculty members

The new academic year also sees three new full-time faculty members joining Fine Arts: Beth Stuart as an assistant professor in Visual Arts, Kathryn Mockler as an assistant professor in Writing and Dr. Anthony Tan as the School of Music’s new assistant professor of composition.

Beth Stuart works in an expanding range of media including writing, painting, ceramic, performance, textiles and sculptural installation, and has taught at OCAD University, the University of Guelph and the University of Toronto Mississauga. Recent material research has convened bizarre Victorian bathing customs, the politics of stretch, time travel, melting rock with her bare hands, pizza and contemporary art as a site of ritual sublimation.

An award-winning teacher who comes to us from Western University, Kathryn Mockler is the author of four poetry books and six short films. A TIFF Talent Lab Alumnus, Praxis Screenwriting Fellow and San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Fellowship winner, she specializes in film/TV writing, poetry, short fiction and climate/ecological writing, among other areas. Her latest short film, Tornado, appears as part of the Arizona Underground Film Festival this month.

Anthony Tan is an award-winning composer, pianist and electronic musician who draws artistic influence from conceptual metaphors, an attention to the psychophysical experiences of sound and a reflection on music’s cultural context. A fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, he comes to us from the University of Colorado (Colorado Springs). He has presented his music at major festivals in North America and Europe, and has been commissioned by numerous international ensembles.

Welcome to all!

Beth Stuart, Kathryn Mockler, Anthony Tan

Media roundup

Carey Newman on colonial statues

Visual Arts Audain Professor Carey Newman was recently quoted in The Tyee article “Tearing Down Our Monumental Mistakes” about the push to remove problematic historical monuments across Canada, and the need to focus on how to transform the spaces these colonial statues held.

“They’re anti-reconciliation,” said Newman in the article. “They are not history. They are an illustration of a version of history . . . . They don’t serve the same kind of purpose as art.”

“For me, art is about expression of ideas about challenging people to think differently, about bringing beauty or commemoration for things that we never want to forget. Those things don’t exist in statues that are really about remembering a particular person for a particular purpose and, very often, a person who was an architect of something that was inherently oppressive.”

A new position

In August, very busy Theatre PhD alumnus Taiwo Afolabi appeared on the OMNI TV program New Canadians as part of a panel discussion on how his experience as a UVic Crossing Borders Scholar provided opportunities to find connections in the community. And while Afolabi had been the Manager of Artistic and Community Engagement with the Belfry Theatre (a position for which they are now hiring), he recently accepted a position as assistant professor Socially Engaged Creative Practices with the University of Regina’s Faculty of Media, Art and Performance.

As part of his farewell to Victoria, Afolabi speaks with Belfry artistic director Michael Shamata about his time at the Belfry in this short video, and in August he also held this artist conversation for the Creative Mornings series titled “Stress: To Peel or Not to Peel?” We congratulate Taiwo on his new position!

Music student explore reconciliation

As reported in this September 20 Times Colonist article, first-year School of Music student Lucas Hung has created a series of video interviews with four WSANEC members to explore what reconciliation means in Canada. Hung hopes his project—titled Taking Reconcili-Action—will inspire others to seek out their own first-hand learning about Indigenous cultures.

Hung has interviewed SENĆOŦEN language revitalization advocates John Elliott and Pena Elliott, as well as Tsartlip master carver Charles Elliott and Salish artist Chris Paul. The project, funded in part by the Heritage B.C. Heritage Legacy Fund, includes a guide for teachers to lead students through their own Reconcili-Action projects.

“We wanted to show teachers, if you want to do something like this, here’s all the things that you can learn from just having a single conversation,” Hung said.

Student involved in social justice mural

Back in August, a group of 17 artists united to paint a mural in Bastion Square, with the intention of raising awareness around injustices suffered by Black and Indigenous people and people of colour. One of the artists is current Visual Arts undergrad Laveen Gammie.

The finished mural reads “More Justice More Peace”, with each artist changing large white block letters into individual pieces of artistic expressions. “It is perhaps a fitting metaphor for the project,” said Gammie in this Times Colonist article. “The letter starts out as white in the beginning and becomes filled with colour as the day wears on.”

Theatre student Zooms over Shakespeare

As the arts community continues to adapt to the new restrictions, our students continue to find new ways of staying involved. In this recent BC Local News article, current Theatre student Ryan Kniel discusses teaching and producing virtual stage plays using video conferencing platforms.

“Learning how to film on Zoom, how to collaborate as an ensemble in an online environment and how to communicate with scene members that you don’t see in a physical rehearsal are all important skills in this new world of theatre,” says Kneil.

Kniel was among 12 young actors from across Canada selected for funding from the RBC Emerging Artists Project, which included a spot in the Riotous Youth program—a paid internship with Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach festival, whose 2020 season was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Alumni guitarist

As noted in this recent article in The Province, School of Music alumnus and Vancouver-based guitarist Adrian Verdejo has put his COVID time to work developing new music initiatives.

Now an instructor at both Vancouver Community College and Douglas College, Verdejo has made a name for himself as a new music guitarist over the past decade, but with COVID cancelling planned travel activities, he’s been busy developing videos, podcasts and new online performance opportunities for other musicians. “Fortunately, projects started to come in,” Verdejo says in the article.

Improving diversity

Vancouver’s CityNews recently spoke with Theatre alumni Cecilly Day and Rahat Saini, who shared their perspectives and experiences facing race-based barriers in the program. Acting Dean of Fine Arts Allana Lindgren is quoted about the department’s commitment to improved diversity, inclusion and anti-racism efforts.

“While we have actively sought ways in recent years to expand our awareness and build skills in equity, diversity and inclusion, including ant-racism, we realize that there is more to do,” says Lindgren.

Festival voices

Writing professor Deborah Campbell kicked off the 2020 author season for the Sunshine Coast Literary Reading Series—which has been running for more than 40 years—by offering the first public reading in their pivot to Zoom. The event was mentioned in the Coast Reporter newspaper.

Carey Newman

Taiwo Afolabi

Upcoming events

Orange Shirt Day is September 30

UVic is committed to reconciliation. We’re working to foster respect and mutual understanding with all Indigenous peoples and communities. You can partner in the work of reconciliation by listening, learning and sharing on Orange Shirt Day.

Orange Shirt Day at UVic goes virtual this year, featuring a conversation between UVic Chancellor Shelagh Rogers and Phyllis Webstad, whose story sparked the drive to recognize Orange Shirt Day. Join the virtual event at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to wear an orange shirt (available at the UVic Bookstore) on Sept. 30 as a visual symbol of our awareness of the need for ongoing reconciliation. The UVic shirt was designed by Visual Arts Audain Professor Carey Newman.

You can show your support by uploading a photo of yourself wearing an orange shirt (or email your photo to socialmedia@uvic.ca) and be part of UVic’s social media campaign (use the #OrangeShirtDayUVic).

Proceeds from t-shirt sales support the Elders Engagement Fund and the Witness Blanket Project. If you already have an orange shirt, please consider making a $20 donation directly to the Elders Engagement Fund this year.

Read more about the history of Orange Shirt Day here.

The Art of Living in the Time of COVID

Given this year’s topic, it’s appropriate that the 15th annual Lafayette Health Awareness Series will take place as a webinar at 7pm on Thursday, October 1.

Hosted by Chancellor Shelagh Rogers and featuring a performance by the School of Music’s Lafayette String Quartet, guest speakers include BC Chief Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry, UVic Medical Sciences instructor Terence Tam (of the Victoria Symphony) and Steven Taylor (author of The Psychology of Pandemics).

“We’ve long believed that what affects one of us truly affects all of us—and we’ve never had a topic been more true to that idea than this,” says the LSQ’s Pamela Highbaugh-Aloni. “Let’s just keep living and figuring out what we need to do.”

The Art of Living in the Time of COVID is presented in partnership with UVic’ Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health. Donations will help establish a Lafayette Music and Health Legacy Fund.

Shelagh Rogers, Bonnie Henry, Terence Tam, Steven Taylor & the Lafayette String Quartet

Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards

Formerly known as the ProArt Alliance Awards but now dubbed the Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards, watching for a livestream broadcast of the 2020 program from 5-6pm Saturday, October 3.

Fine Arts will be participating this year, with Acting Dean Allana Lindgren making an announcement, as well as Audain Professor Carey Newman once again presenting his award for the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art. Last year’s awards saw Fine Arts alumni Matthew Payne, Lindsay Delaronde and Colton Hash win all three categories; this year, there will be more awards presented in more categories.

The 2020 awards will be expanded to include a number of new categories and broaden the accolades to a wider number of local arts practitioners. Find out more here.

Resources

Free UVic masks for all

Even with limited numbers of people on campus, common areas can be congested, making it difficult to consistently maintain a safe physical distance. If you’re working on campus this fall, UVic recommends that you wear a mask in public indoor spaces like hallways, stairways, building entryways and other high-traffic areas, especially where it’s more difficult to keep distance.

With that in mind, UVic-branded reusable face masks are now available for each on-campus student, faculty and staff member. Just show your ONECard at the University Centre ONECard office to receive your mask throughout September and October.

AGGV FASP program

Our colleagues at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria would like to remind all faculty and students about their Fine Arts Student Pass program.

Whether students are visiting solo for artistic inspiration or as part of a class assignment, the FASP program offers unlimited admission to the AGGV for the entire academic year—for just $12. (That’s only $1 more than a single admission ticket!) The FASP Membership is valid from September 1, 2020 (or date of purchase) to August 31, 2021.

Simply forward this link to your students and they can register online, then present their e-ticket at the front desk along with student ID. In addition to unlimited free entrances to the AGGV, Fine Arts students also receive email invitations to gallery events, their e-magazine and a 10% discount in the gallery shop.

While possibly of most interest to Visual Arts and Art History & Visual Studies students, this offer is open to any student currently registered in the Faculty of Fine Arts.

Students may also want to get involved with the AGGV’s volunteer program. With more than 300 volunteers working together with staff as assistants, docents and special event hosts in a variety of departments (education, curatorial, collections, advancement), it can be a good opportunity to gain experience for students who love art.

A giant achievement

The work of Department of Theatre design professor Patrick DuWors was featured in the 2020 edition of the Critical Costume Conference and Exhibition, hosted by the Costume Agency Artistic Research Project.

Originally intended to be a live event in August, the international exhibition was moved online due to COVID. With a focus on the agency of costume in performance and how costume can generate or be a centre of gravitation in performance, Critical Costume 2020 is supported by the Norwegian Artistic Research Program, Oslo National Academy of the Arts and Norwegian Arts Council.

DuWors, an alumnus of the Theatre department himself, was featured for his costume designs—alongside Robert Leveroos’ puppet designs—for Ghost River Theatre’s award-winning production of GIANT. As part of the exhibition, DuWors moderated two of the conference’s working group sessions.

GIANT tells the story of wrestler Andre the Giant. As a way of exploring the hyper-masculine, yet incredibly flamboyant, world of professional wrestling, five female actors played all parts—including Andre.

The Critical Costume Exhibition presents artworks that treat costume as their main medium—often as a starting point for a performance, and always as a crucial aspect of a performance. This exhibition aims to emphasize the immediacy and intrinsic nature of costumes to everyday human life and a person’s sense of self: connection to body, movement, identity, expression, sensuality, emotionality. The costume is a bridge between the body and the world.

Built on two main strands of costume performances—communication and exploration—eight further categories then unfold under these two central ideas, including “Identity Agency”, in which DuWors’ work is featured.

“The puppet design explored the dramaturgical role of scale, while the idea of masculinity-as-character was expressed through the costume design,” notes DuWors in the Critical Costume description of the production.

“Skins and shells formed the foundation of our approach. Shapes and textures meant to augment and distort the bodies of the five women inhabiting a very masculine profession were inspired by action figure versions of Andre once sold as toys. In each scene, the performers would attempt to put a different piece of Andre ‘on’ – to wear him as a way to understand him.”

Be sure to explore the remarkable range of work on display at Critical Costume 2020.

Patrick DuWors

Robert Leveroos’ puppet designs for GIANT (Photo, and above: Tim Ngyuen)

Singing for life

When graduating School of Music soprano Chelsea Kutyn decided to film a rehearsal for her graduation recital this spring, she had no idea that it would soon lead to national press coverage as a result of a life-threatening health risk.

When the campus started to shut down in March, Kutyn thought it would be a good safety measure to film herself singing.

“When we heard that countries were going into lockdown, my accompanist and I decided to film something just in case—we thought the building might be closed, but we never expected one of us to get sick,” she says.

Yet shortly thereafter, Kutyn fell ill. “They weren’t testing for COVID yet, but the doctors and nurses all said it was ‘suspected COVID’ due to my symptoms and the timeline of how it progressed.”

And while the School of Music did indeed close, Kutyn suddenly found herself unable to perform her grad recital due to illness—yet her performance video not only saved the day (“Luckily I passed with flying colours!”) but also helped her win the Victoria Medal, awarded annually to the Fine Arts student with the highest GPA in the faculty.

But the story of the young singer who contracted COVID but still graduated top of her class caught the attention of the media, with interviews appearing in the Times Colonist, CHEK TV, CBC News, Global TV, CBC Radio and even Newsweek magazine.

While she’s wary of being branded a cautionary tale, Kutyn does see the value in sharing her story. “I just hope it brings awareness to others who feel it’s not as much of an issue as it really is,” she says.

“If you don’t personally know someone who has been affected, people seem to assume it can’t happen to them. I would never wish that situation on anyone; it was a really terrifying situation.”

Read the full version of this story here.

Chelsea Kutyn

Art on view locally

As the weather turns, it’s a good time to head indoors and see some of the art on view by faculty, students and alumni of the Department of Visual Arts. The first Visiting Artist on the 2020 academic year, being offered online by the Visual Arts department, features Toronto-based artist Kim Dorland.

Dorland pushes the boundaries of painted representation through an exploration of memory, material, nostalgia, identity and place. Drawing heavily from the Canadian landscape and his huge appetite for the history and language of painting, the loose yet identifiable scenes are interjected with areas of heavy abstract impasto. His refusal to remain faithful to one medium or approach plays into the symbiotic nature of his work.

You can watch & engage with Dorland’s Visiting Artist lecture starting at 7pm Wednesday, September 23 at this Zoom link.

Culturally Modified, a solo installation by MFA candidate and former Audain Professor Rande Cook, runs through to October 10 at Empty Gallery (833 Fisgard, 12-5pm Thursday-Saturday), a local gallery run by MFA alumnus Matt Trahan.

A Kwakwaka’wakw multimedia artist, Cook says this installation represents Umetl, The Raven, who had the ability to transform and carry messages between the spirit world and the life we live today.

“This installation is about Umetl rising up again, restoring the balance that has been broken by governments who are signing agreements over resource extraction with corporations, contaminating the waters, the inequality being forced upon the minority races and sexes, the lack of support and protection for women and children, the LGBTQ community, BLM, ILM, and the many more who are suffering due to capitalistic power and gain.”

Three alumni at Legacy

The work of three Visual Arts alumni are part of a pair of exhibits current open at UVic’s downtown Legacy Gallery (630 Yates).

TUKTUUYAQTUUQ (Caribou Crossing) features work by Maureen Gruben. Tuktuuyaqtuuq is the Inuvialuktun name of Gruben’s home on the Arctic coast (known in English as “Tuktoyaktuk”) and means “looks like a caribou.”

In TUKTUUYAQTUUQ (continuing to November 14), Gruben works with multiple facets of the animal to show how integral they are to Inuvialuit life, providing food, clothes, tools and stories.

Also on view is To Fish As Formerly: A Story of Straits Salish Resurgence (to November 21) a group exhibit curated by UVic alumni XEMŦOLTW̱ Dr. Nicholas Claxton (School of Child and Youth Care) and Katie Hughes, and featuring work by Visual Arts alumni Sarah Jim and Colton Hash alongside the likes of TEMOSEN Charles Elliott, J,SIṈTEN John Elliott, Chris Paul, Dylan Thomas, Temoseng, aka Chasz Elliott.

Art on view distantly

Out of town, professor Paul Walde’s Weeks Feel Like Days, Months Feel Like Years is on view at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska until October 31. A generative sound artwork in which performers are invited to interpret a series of five text-based scores responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Weeks Feel Like Days is available as both an audio/video installation at the museum and an audio gallery on the website.

The scores were composed to be performed by individuals or groups in isolation, and welcomes performers to reflect on their own experiences during the pandemic.

Walde’s Tom Thomson Centennial Swim video installation recently closed at Touchstones Museum of Art and History in Nelson, after a run interrupted by the COVID outbreak, and three works from his Alaska Variations album were recently featured on the UK radio show, Signal to Noise.

Professor Richard Leong is showing as part of the group exhibit RELATIONS: Diaspora and Painting at Montreal’s PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art until November 29. This group show explores the complex and multiple meanings of diaspora, its condition and its experiences as expressed through painting.

“The questions and concepts of diaspora are of deep, personal interest to me as a person of colour born in Canada of mixed Asian heritage,” says curator and managing director Cheryl Sim.

RELATIONS presents a selection of work by artists who address questions of diaspora from diverse perspectives, methodologies and aesthetic languages. The medium of painting, with its deep and complex history, becomes a particularly provocative lens through which to explore the complications and diversities that are analogous to the richness of diasporic experiences. This collective body of work also aims for an intergenerational dialogue and presents artists whose work has pushed the boundaries of what painting is and can be.

Finally, Professor Kelly Richardson‘s future-focused Mariner 9 is running at the Attenborough Art Centre in the UK until December 18.

Created with software used by the film and gaming industries, and using data from NASA’s missions to Mars, Richardson has created a realistic representation of the Mars landscape covered by the debris of centuries of exploration. Despite the apparent abandoned state of the planet, some of the spacecraft continue to work, looking for signs of life.

Works by Kim Dorland

Rande Cook’s Culturally Modified

Work by Gruben, Hash and Jim on view at the Legacy Gallery

Two of Paul Walde’s prompts from Weeks Feel Like Days, Months Feel Like Years

Rick Leong’s “Goldstream” and “Wild Willows” on view in Montreal

Kelly Richardson’s Mariner 9. Photos by Ruth Clark (left) & PaolaBernardelli.

New book for chair

The latest book by Art History & Visual Studies chair Marcus Milwright is now out: Middle Eastern Encounters: Collected Essays on Visual, Material, and Textual Interactions between the Eighth and the Twenty-first Centuries was recently released by Georgia Press.

A wide-ranging volume, Middle Eastern Encounters focuses on interactions between the Islamic world and other regions. Topics explored are as varied as relief-moulded pottery production in Raqqa, the construction of palaces in Samarra, portraiture in Arabic manuscript painting, images of Muslim rulers in early Modern printed books and the broadcast of the medical examination of Saddam Hussein.

Milwright, a professor of Islamic art and archaeology, also focuses on the challenges involved in the study of cultural interactions between Islamic and non-Islamic regions. The volume also includes a previously unpublished study of recently discovered photographs, drawings and writings relating to the Middle East made by soldiers during and after World War I.

You can keep up on Milwright’s varied interests and influences via his frequent (and fascinating) posts on the Fine Arts Gateway to Art website.

Award noms for alumni & instructors

Along with the start of classes, September also sees the start of the annual book awards season—and so far, we’re looking at a bumper crop of nominations for Fine Arts alumni and instructors.

Kicking off the awards season is the $10,000 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, which annually celebrates the top short stories by Canada’s brightest emerging talents.

Among the 13 finalists for the 2020 awards are three Department of Writing alumni—Susan Sanford Blades, Cara Marks and Rachael Lesosky—all of whom will also see their work appear in the annual anthology, The Journey Prize Stories 32. (Winners announced October 21.)

Of the eight new books nominated for the annual $10,000 Victoria Book Prizes, only one wasn’t created by a member of our Fine Arts community. Nominees for the $5,000 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize include Writing alumni Carla Funk (Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood) and Steven Price (Lampedusa), former Writing faculty Lorna Crozier (The House The Spirit Builds) and Christin Geall (Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style), and Audain Professor Carey Newman and former Writing instructor Kirstie Hudson (Picking Up The Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of The Witness Blanket). Nominees for the $5,000 City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize include Writing/Theatre alumnus and current Writing instructor Mark Leiren-Young (Orcas Everywhere: The Mystery and History of Killer Whales) and Writing alumna Sara Cassidy (Nevers). (Winners announced October 4.)

Newman and Hudson’s Picking Up the Pieces is also a finalist in the $10,000 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, part of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards.

Victoria Festival of Authors

Writing alumni are well-represented at the upcoming Victoria Festival of Authors—Vancouver Island’s largest literary festival, which this year is being held online for free from September 30 to October 4.

Featured alumni writers include current City of Victoria Poet Laureate John Barton (Lost Family), Carla Funk (Every Little Scrap and Wonder), Kyeren Regehr (Cult Life), Mallory Tater (Pushcart Prize nominee), Amanda Leduc (The Miracles of Ordinary Men), Serena Lukas Bandhar (Pushcart Prize nominee), Arleen Paré (Earle Street ), Yvonne Blomer (Sugar Ride) and former student K.P. Dennis (former Victoria Youth Poet Laureate), plus Lorna Crozier (Through the Garden), and Carey Newman in conversation with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.

You’ll find the full schedule and find registration info here.

Alumni film debut

Finally, acclaimed novelist and Writing alumna Eden Robinson is having a great fall, thanks to a feature film adaptation of her debut novel, Monkey Beach (screening Sept 24 at UVic’s Cinecenta—with will also hopefully include an afterword conversation piece between Robinson and director Loretta Todd). Robinson is also seeing her recent novel, Son of a Trickster, transformed into the new CBC TV series Trickster.

Chelsea Kutyn sings for life

by mhuston | Sep 20, 2020 | Alumni, Award, News, School of Music, Undergraduate

As the campus started to shut down in March, Kutyn thought it would be a good safety measure to film herself singing.

Surviving COVID-19

“I had no idea I had won it until they phoned me,” she admits. “I knew I had good grades, but I really wasn’t expecting to finish at the top of the class. It was a really nice surprise after having gone through such a chaotic end to the semester, and being so sick.”

Describing her as “a committed student who was a delight to teach,” School of Music professor Benjamin Butterfield has high praise for Kutyn—beyond her grades.

“She was always bringing new, challenging repertoire to the table, working diligently in the practice room, always stepping up for master classes and being a friend to all,” he says.

“We were so lucky to have such a bright light for the past four years. She was a model student who exhibited determination, flexibility and a genuine love for singing and learning. “

Media attention

Indeed, the story of the young singer who contracted COVID but still graduated top of her class caught the attention of the media, with interviews appearing in the Times Colonist, CHEK TV, CBC News, Global TV, CBC Radio and even Newsweek magazine (“College Student Who Battled Coronavirus for 29 Days Graduates Top of Class”).

“It was all a bit strange,” she says in retrospect. “I didn’t expect it would gain that much traction. I guess it’s a story people wanted to tell because it has a positive outcome and I’m in the younger age bracket.”

Kutyn had previously appeared as part of the chorus in a number of Pacific Opera Victoria productions, including Il trittico, La traviata, La bohème, Jenůfa and Countess Maritza, and was scheduled to be in Carmen this spring before it was postponed due to the COVID shutdown.

“Chelsea has grown up in the Victoria arts scene through dance and singing,” says Butterfield. “She held a job for some years as an usher at the Royal Theatre before becoming a mainstay in the POV chorus and taking on small parts as she grew in the company.”

Moving ahead

Now based in Winnipeg to pursue her Masters in Music Performance (Voice) at the University of Manitoba—where she is studying with POV regular Monica Huisman—Kutyn continues to deal with the after-effects.

“I haven’t been sick since April, but my lung capacity has been really impacted,” she explains. “I find any kind of cardio activity hard—even just stairs.”

And, as a singer, her illness has been particularly problematic.

“Even after four months, I’m still trying to relearn how to breathe and build back my lung capacity for singing, as well as doing some speech-therapy exercises with my new teacher. We’re just trying to get things working properly again.”

While she’s wary of being branded a cautionary tale, Kutyn does see the value in sharing her story.

“I just hope it brings awareness to others who feel it’s not as much of an issue as it really is,” she says.

“If you don’t personally know someone who has been affected, people seem to assume it can’t happen to them. I would never wish that situation on anyone; it was a really terrifying situation.”

Chelsea Kutyn

Expanding our campus community

by mhuston | Aug 12, 2020 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, News, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

Expanding our campus community

Welcome to issue 10 of the Fine Arts Connector, your regular listing of news, resources, activities and other shareable content from UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts. It’s a handy way of keeping up with student, faculty and alumni activity while we’ve shifted gears to working, creating and teaching off-campus.

With the start of the fall semester just around the corner, we’ve now launched UVic’s Pre-Arrival Program, a way to support the transition of new incoming undergraduate students. The program, hosted in Brightspace, will help students to learn what to expect, explore strategies for success, and feel ready and confident to begin the term through a series of engaging videos, student profiles and tips, interactive activities and more. Best of all, incoming students don’t have to wait till the start of the semester to start engaging with the campus community. Be sure to share this link with any incoming students.

Finally, you can sign up here to receive automatic notice of The Connector each issue.

News

Top in the faculty, despite illness

Each year, the Victoria Medal is awarded to the top student in all of Fine Arts, and this year’s award-winner is exceptional on two levels. Not only did School of Music student Chelsea Kutyn receive the top GPA in the entire faculty, but—according to this July 25 Times Colonist story—she spent 29 days in isolation this spring, battling a suspected case of COVID-19 . . . at some points too weak to even speak.

“It felt like there was constantly a ton of bricks on my chest,” Kutyn said in an interview. “There was constant pressure, like one of those blood-pressure bands that you put around your arms when you inflate it, that’s kind of what it felt like around my whole chest cavity.”

Kutyn also recounted her story in this July 28 interview with CBC Radio’s All Points West. She will next be pursuing a Master’s degree in Vocal Performance at the University of Manitoba.

“Chelsea started off in Business at UVic before she came to Music,” notes acting Fine Arts Dean Allana Lindgren in this congratulatory video. “She has become a singer of great beauty, strength and grace.”

Chelsea Kutyn (centre) with her parents, Cindy & Greg

More news

In other recent media coverage, Theatre professor and $50,000 Molson Prize winner Mary Kerr was interviewed on CBC Radio’s North By Northwest on July 26. She spoke with host Sheryl McKay about her life and career in theatre, which you can hear by skipping to the 2:08 mark in this link.

And, coincidentally, that same episode of NXNW also featured an interview with recent Visual Arts graduate Rudra Manani, who spoke about her work and her views as an emerging Indo-Canadian artist. Skip to the 58:39 mark in this link to hear that interview.

School of Music alumna Chloe Kim was also named to the 2020 edition of CBC’s”30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30” list, which was released on August 5. Kim also received a fair bit of media coverage recently by organizing the summertime Music for the Pause series at Christ Church Cathedral.

Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu

It’s story time

If you have kids and don’t feel like reading them yet another story—or maybe just feel like a bit of comfort storytelling yourself—you can relax: the local podcast Dads Read Princess Stories has you covered.

Now in its second season, the podcast was created by local actor Rod Peter Jr. as a COVID-era creative activity and features a range of west coast theatre talent reading their favourite stories out loud . . . complete with a moral at the end. In the first season, director of The Farquhar at UVic and Phoenix alum Ian Case reads the Brothers Grimm classic Snow White, while the second season—an all-Cinderella season—featuresTheatre professor Brian Richmond reading Charles Perrault’s The Little Glass Slipper, as well as communications officer John Threlfall reading Olly Pike’s very modern Jamie: A Transgender Cinderella Story.

The first season features 13 episodes while the second season is still unfolding; each story runs between 10 and 30 minutes, some feature fascinating backstories and many of the readers—including the likes of Dave Morris, Ryan Gladstone, Morgan Cranny, Cory Thibert and Evan Roberts—will be familiar to local theatre buffs.

Let Brian Richmond’s dulcet tones soothe your weary brain

The Apartment of Writing

Since its launch on March 22 as a creative response to the theatres closure, Writing instructor Janet Munsil’s The Canadian Play Thing has hosted 52 readings featuring 49 playwrights and 286 actors. Recently, Theatre student Justin Francis Lee was brought on board as the Play Thing’s new project coordinator and is coming up with some exciting ideas for their next season.

One of those project is The Apartment of Writing, a newly formed writer’s room composed of select emerging playwrights—all from Fine Arts. As well as Lee, the new team includes current Writing students Megan Adachi, Megan Hands and Brianna Bock.

The Apartment team met weekly on Zoom to develop a new audio-drama series, exploring collaboration and the sonic medium, with a live reading set for August.

“My parents would always listen to the nightly radio after they put me to bed as a kid,” says Lee, who earned strong reviews for his lead performance in Langham Court’s 2020 production of I and You.

“I remember the lo-fi buzz of the radio coming from the living room . . . . Despite this, I’ve only recently embraced the wonderful world of audio content. As a writing student, I took a workshop last semester focusing on audio plays and I was captivated by how intimate and accessible the medium was. With the rise of podcasting and more convenient technology, the sonic medium has been through a kind of renaissance.”

Clockwise from top left: Bock, Adachi, Hands, Lee

Resources

BC Access Grant

Building on the elimination of interest on BC student loans, the provincial government has introduced a new student funding stream.

The needs-based, up-front BC Access Grant will remove barriers to post-secondary education and training and provide non-repayable financial support for students at B.C. public post-secondary institutions.

Beginning in September 2020, the Access Grant will help more than 40,000 low- and middle-income students access, afford and complete public post-secondary education and training each year. It will be available to low- and middle-income students enrolled in full- and part-time undergraduate degree, diploma and certificate programs, and will offer between $1,000 and $4,000 a year depending on program.

Find out more here.

Resources

Digital Fringe

The recent announcement of the cancellation of the 2020 Victoria Fringe Festival is not only sad news for the Victoria arts scene, but it also means that a number of our Theatre students and alumni will lose out a valuable opportunity to showcase their work both locally and internationally, as part of the annual Fringe tour. Beyond those on stage, however, the Fringe cancellation also impacts writers, directors, technicians and venue managers, all of whom gain valuable professional experience via the Fringe festivals each year.

But if we can’t get to a Fringe venue this year, you can still get a taste of it with this Digital Fringe Festival. While a number of shows are on view, we suggest catching celebrated Phoenix alum TJ Dawe in Operatic Panic Attack or, to get a taste of his talent behind the scenes, check out Didn’t Hurt, directed by Dawe and starring Rodney DeCroo.

Inside an art historian’s sketchbook

What inspires people to follow the path they’ve chosen? If you’re Art History & Visual Studies chair Marcus Milwright, you fuse a passion for Islamic art and archaeology with an artistic frame of mind. Milwright recently cracked open some of his old sketchbooks on the AHVS Instagram channel to offer a visual example of how his professional interest developed. His sketches, dating back to 1994, captures and records the events and everyday experiences of people and places he has visited.

Explaining that he first got interested in Islamic art via an “inspirational teacher” at the University of Edinburgh, Milwright feels it’s being able to visit the actual locations that makes a difference.

“I’ve been very lucky to have traveled very extensively in those areas . . . but for many people, it’s the chance to visit places that really stimulates those interests that will last a lifetime,” he says. “One thing I try to do is make drawings while I travel as a way of trying to remember not just the things I’ve seen but the way I felt about them at the time. I feel these things are better captured in drawings than in photographs.”

Given that his research ranges from the archaeology of the Islamic period and the art and architecture of the Islamic Middle East to traditional craft practices, the architecture and civil engineering of southern Greece during the Ottoman sultanate and cross-cultural interaction in the Medieval and early Modern Mediterranean, Milwright’s early sketches of his journey to Jordan and Syria bring those interests to vivid life.

“It’s about recording events and experiences,” he explains of his drawings of Amman, the capital of Jordan. “It’s mostly a modern city, so I tried to capture some of the everyday scenes of modern architecture.”

Consider his sketches of the historic Souq marketplace in Aleppo, which capture some of the architecture that has been sadly since destroyed during Syria’s civil war.

“It’s not just the individual bits of architecture but also the idea of the city itself I’m trying to capture through research and the drawings as well.”

More than just a visual record, Milwright sees in these sketches and paintings the roots of his current profession.

“I was doing doctoral research there and the drawings were trying to get across my everyday experiences—a teahouse where people play backgammon with a mosque in the background—but during that trip, I made another journey by taxi to the old city of Damascus, which has captured my attention ever since,” he explains. “It’s somewhere I’ve continued to work throughout my entire career.”

Marcus Milwright

Nighttime in Amman

Night in Amman

Auto shop in Jordan

Jordan;s Khirbat Faris region

A house in Zagora

Cafe view in Pratolino

Near Petra, Jordan

A footpath in Zagora

Syria’s Tartus Habour

The streets of Aleppo in Syria

Architectural ruins in Amman

Street scene in Amman, Jordan

Architectural detail of a fountain

An everyday scene

Doorway to a citadel in Aleppo

The Haramayn Hotel in Damascus

A stone wall in Khirbat Faris

Camping near Petra, Jordan

Street scene in Amman

A bus trip to Amman, in Jordan

Inside the Souq marketplace in Aleppo

The 12th century Ajloun castle in Amman

Singing into the silence

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, 3.5 million Canadians were singing in over 28,000 choirs nation-wide—including more than 50 professional, community, church & school choirs in Greater Victoria alone. But with choral singing officially considered a no-no for the near future, choirs across Canada and around the world have been left with the sound of silence.

No one knows this better than School of Music choral professor Adam Con. As the leader of the 150-member UVic Chorus, a respected teacher of choral conducting and a national leader in the advocacy for music education, he’s also partnering with the BC Choral Federation to provide guidance on safe singing and is part of Choral Canada (representing university and colleges), which is creating a series of webinars with medical experts developing ways to move forward with group singing in the face of COVID-19.

“No matter how much the rest of society is coming back together, it’s not going to be the same for many choirs,” says Con. “But can it exist in other ways? Absolutely. Most choir leaders are currently discussing, exploring and innovating new options for their groups.”

For now, performances by all of UVic’s vocal groups are on hold, so until things get back to a sense of normalcy, we offer this January 2020 concert of the UVic Voice Ensemble performing Monteverdi Madrigals for your enjoyment. Featuring program direction and musical preparation by Music’s Benjamin Butterfield and Kinza Tyrrell, with guest artist Marco Vitale directing and on harpsichord.

If you’d like a taste of a performance by Butterfield and Tyrrell themselves, be sure to listen to their recent “Lunchbox Opera” performance with Pacific Opera Victoria.

And be sure to read this Martlet article about how our Music students and recent alumni are participating in POV’s new pop-up opera showcases in public spaces around Victoria

UVic Voice Ensemble

Claudio Monteverdi, “Al lume delle stelle,” from Settimo libro dei madrigali

by Abby Schuliger, Olivia Jackson, Anton Sokalski, Rowan McWilliams

“O come sei gentile,” from Settimo libro dei madrigali

by Natasha Gosling, Laura Giffen

“Vorrei baciarti,” from Settimo libro dei madrigali

by Alana Hayes, Anton Sokalski

“Cruda Amarilli,” from Quinto libro dei madrigali

by Lauren Steinmann, Sophia Friesen, Kieran Foss, Andrew Wolf, Rowan McWilliams

“Su su pastorelli vezzosi,” from Ottavo libro dei madrigali

by Liv Duffin, Katherine Allen, Carson Moore

“Pulchra es,” from Vespro della Beata Vergine

by Liv Duffin, Desiree Hall

“Dolcissimo uscignolo,” from Ottavo libro dei madrigali

by Abby Schuliger, Holly Melville, Cassidy Stahr, Taylor Fawcett, Ian Culling

“Ardo avvampo,” from Ottavo libro dei madrigali

by Gwen Jamieson, Jaime Kozak, Alana Hayes, Emily Morse, Spencer Van Dellen, Kieran Foss, Leif Bradshaw, Ian Culling

“Tu dormi,” from Settimo libro dei madrigali

by Chelsea Kutyn, Cassidy Stahr, Andrew Wolf, Kyron Basu

"Cingari simo venite a giocare"

by Kyla Fradette, Sophia Friesen, Grady Forsberg, Rowan McWilliams

“Vecchie letrose,” from Canzone Villanesche alla Napolitana (Venice, 1545)

by Gwen Jamieson, Kaylene Chan, Spencer Van Dellen, Kyron Basu

First-year flashback

While the start of the 20/21 academic year is set to be anything but normal, flash back to a slice of pre-COVID student life with the charming and award-winning web series Freshman’s Wharf.

Originally created as a class project in 2009, Freshman’s Wharf evolved into a for-credit directed studies Writing course with 10 episodes being created, performed and shot by a mix of UVic students and alumni. Written by Rachel Warden, and mentored by Writing associate professor Maureen Bradley and digital media staffer Daniel Hogg, Freshman’s Wharf offered a light-hearted look at first-year student life at UVic. It went on to win “Best Web Series” at the 2011 Leo Awards, the annual BC filmmaking event.

When an administrative error boots first-year Shame (that’s not a typo) Herbison from residence, he relocates to a boat. If his name wasn’t enough, he must survive the freshman traumas of weird parents, arch-nemeses and eccentric professors, while somehow winning the heart of the would-have-been girl next door.

Written by then-student Rachel Warden, the series was directed by the likes of Writing professor Maureen Bradley, instructor Daniel Hogg and alumni Jeremy Lutter, and stars Eliza Roberston—now one of Canada’s rising literary stars—plus Theatre professor Peter McGuire, alum and Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival artistic director Karen Lee Pickett, Phoenix alum Simon Basch and others.

“In some ways, producing Freshman’s Wharf was painstakingly challenging,” said co-producer Julia Dillon-Davis at the time. “We were a group of students trying to film a web series that required a sailboat, an airplane, a tandem bike and half-naked professors dancing around a bonfire. The success of the series is really just indicative of our collective desire to create art.”

Bradley felt it was the “perfect fusion of research and teaching” and, in many ways, it inspired the Writing 420 filmmaking class that continues to this day and has since produced a number of short films that have appeared at film festivals across North America. “Our goal is to create innovative new media that’s Vancouver Island-based, and to engage students in our research creation, so it really was perfect.”

Watch the complete series here.

Watch the complete series

Shooting Freshman’s Wharf on campus

Feeling nostalgic

Back in November 2019, the Phoenix Theatre mounted one of the most successful shows in their 50-plus year history: The Drowsy Chaperone.

Winner of five Tony Awards, this original Canadian play is a fun-loving send-up of the Jazz Age musical. It gently pokes fun at a myriad of musical theatre tropes—brought to us through the droll narration of a theatre fan who spends the evening alone, curled up in a chair in a one-bedroom apartment, playing the original cast recording of a fictional 1928 musical, The Drowsy Chaperone.

But before it was an award-winning Broadway musical, The Drowsy Chaperone was first performed at a stag party. Toronto theatre mainstays Don McKellar, Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison initially developed the script in 1998 as a wedding gift for their friends Janet Van De Graff and Bob Martin—something still reflected in the names of the soon-to-be-betrothed couple in the musical-within-the-play.

Martin enjoyed the performance so much that he joined the trio as a writer; after becoming a smash hit at the Toronto Fringe, it then garnered further acclaim at Theatre Passe Muraille before shifting to the Winter Garden Theatre. From there, The Drowsy Chaperone began the transition to Broadway, where it opened in 2006 and ran for 674 performances, earning two Tony Awards and four Drama Desk Awards.

The show’s spirit of success seems to have been passed to the Phoenix production where, under guest direction of Jacques Lemay, it was held over to meet audience demand.

Learn more about the role of Broadway nostalgia as parodied in The Drowsy Chaperone in this lively pre-show discussion with Broadway theatre historian and Theatre chair Dr. Anthony Vickery.

All photos by Dean Kalyan.

Dr Anthony Vickery

The Drowsy Chaperone and Broadway Nostalgia

by Dr Anthony Vickery

Ted Angelo Ngkaion and Justin Francis Lee

Douglas Peerless

Aaron Smail, Quinn Haberlin and David Cosbey

Rahat Saini and Alison Roberts

Nicholas Atkinson and Rahat Saini

Broadway nostalgia

Tony Vickery discusses “The Drowsy Chaperone”

Ted Angelo Ngkaion and Alison Roberts

DSC_9126-ToledoSurprise

Creatively rooted in our climate

Recent Visual Arts alum Colton Hash has to be one of the busiest emerging artist to have come out of the department in a number of years.

His creative—and challenging—environmentally themed work has caught the attention of both the on- and off-campus communities. Inspired by the wild and anthropogenic landscapes surrounding him, Hash’s artistic practice fuses his academic backgrounds in computer science, environmental studies and visual arts, all of which he studied at UVic. He integrates his multidisciplinary foundations to create multimedia artworks that foster engagement with contemporary environmental and political issues.

Hash was a finalist for the 2019 Emerging Digital Artist Award (EQ Bank) and was the inaugural artist-in-residence at Ocean Networks Canada. His politically oriented practice has received regional recognition with the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art (ProArt Alliance).

His work is currently on display at UVic’s Legacy Gallery downtown, as part of the current exhibit To Fish As Formerly: A Story of Straits Salish Resurgence.

Enjoy this recent talk about his practice that he presented as part of the Creative Mornings series in February 2020.