Orion Series presents author Lisa Robertson

by | Sep 29, 2026 | Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Writing

The Orion Series in Fine Arts, in partnership with the Department of Writing, is proud to present a free public talk with Canadian poet, essayist and novelist Lisa Robertson. She will be in conversation with poet Rae Armantrout about her new novel Riverwork (Coach House Books, 2026).

All are welcome at 7:30pm Tuesday, October 13, in room 103 of UVic’s Fine Arts Building. Books will be available for sale and signing. More info here.

Lisa Robertson now lives in France, but she began to publish in the early ’90s in Vancouver, where she was a long-time collective member at The Kootenay School of Writing, and a participant in artist-run culture in the city, writing texts for artists, editing, organizing and collaborating.

She has since been a visiting poet and professor at Princeton University, U Chicago, University of Cambridge, American University of Paris, U East Anglia, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, SFU and California College of the Arts. In 2017 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Letters by Emily Carr University, and in 2018, she received the CD Wright Award in Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts in New York. She has published nine books of poetry, most recently Boat (2022), two books of essays (Nilling, 2012), and Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture (2003), plus a novel, The Baudelaire Fractal (2020), a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction.

Her second novel, Riverwork, explores women’s labour and textile politics on the now-disappeared Bièvre River in Paris.

Orion Series presents media designer Candelario Andrade

by | Sep 25, 2026 | Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Theatre

Anyone working with projections in live theatre will be interested in our upcoming free public talk with Vancouver-based video and projection designer Candelario Andrade: he’ll be discussing his creative work for theatre and film, including collaborating with the likes of the National Arts Centre, The Globe, Electric Company, Neworld, Belfry, The Grand, Arts Club, Bard on The Beach and more.

Candelario Andrade on “Video & Projection Design for the Theatre” runs 12:30-1:50pm Wed, Oct 7, in the Chief Dan George Theatre at UVic’s
Phoenix Building. This talk is free and open to all.

While at UVic, Andrade will also run a special workshop for students only on October 5, which is limited to just 40 participants. (The sign-up sheet is in the Department of Theatre.)

Candelario Andrade is a video editor & theatre designer born in Mexico & based in Vancouver. For over 15 years, Cande has worked on numerous professional productions as a projection & sound designer. Recent projection design credits include Eyes of the Beast (Neworld/UVic), Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer (Globe Theatre/Savage Society), Tomson Highway’s Rose (NAC Indigenous Theatre), Mejiro! Mejiro! Mejiro! (Cindy Mochizuki/Vancouver Art Gallery), Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project (Electric Company), Women of the Fur Trade (NAC, Native Earth, GCTC),  You Used To Call Me Marie (NAC, Savage Society), Everyday She Rose (Ze Ze Theatre), Chochito Rey (Rumble Theatre), The Secret to Good Tea (NAC, Grand Theatre), Empty Handed (The Biting School) and Julius Caesar (Bard on the Beach).

As a video editor, Cande has worked on several animations and short films for Cindy Mochizuki, as well as other projects such as Goggles (Tara Cheyenne Performance), LOOPING (Company 605), Done/Undone (Bard on the Beach) plus shorts such as HAM, Common Law & a film about a uterus. When not in the theatre or editing video, Cande teaches projection design at Langara College’s Studio 58 as part of the Theatre Production Program.

 

Andrade’s projection design for Eyes of the Beast (photo: Hélène Cyr), created by Neworld Theatre in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project, which had its world premiere at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre in 2024

Orion Fund marks 30 years of donor impact

by | Aug 18, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, donor, Faculty, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

Saeed Teebi

Phillipe Pasquier

Rachel Podger

When it comes to ongoing donor impact, it’s hard to imagine anything more lasting than the Orion Fund
in Fine Arts. Named for the constellation whose visibility across most of the globe makes it a universal symbol of human connection to the cosmos, the Orion Fund is appropriately used to bring the world to UVic by making the talents and achievements of visiting artists available to both students and Victoria’s wider community, who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

Originally established with an $80,000 investment from donor Josephine Berthier in 1996, the Orion Fund was then endowed by a further million-dollar bequest when she passed away in 2000. Today, it serves a variety of functions: the Orion Fund can finance short-term visits by distinguished guests from other parts of Canada and around the world, while the Orion Program for Visiting Artists & Scholars in the Arts is used for arranging longer visits, lasting up to a term.

The Orion Fund also makes it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions, establishing relationships that encourage and foster future exchanges. “I’ve witnessed first‑hand how the Orion Fund enriches not only our faculty and the wider community, but also how time spent on our campus with colleagues and students, meaningfully shapes the visiting artists’ and scholars’ own creative and scholarly work,” says Kirk McNally, Associate Dean Creative Activity, Research and 
Administration. “The fund allows us to build lasting relationships with a global community of thinkers and makers which is a remarkable gift and an enduring legacy of its generous donor.”

Paul Wong

Meryl McMaster

Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie

Building for the future

We have also recently seen the creation of the Orion Incentivization Program, which annually provides extra Orion funds to our units if they invite scholars/artists who have lived experience regarding disability, racialization, gender and sexuality, and/or can help us to advance our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion action. “It has been incredibly valuable for our students to interact and learn from visiting artists and scholars from a wide range of demographics and lived experiences,” notes Dean Allana Lindgren.

Thanks to the Orion Fund, this past year saw over 15 international artists and scholars visit our classrooms and studios, including poets and authors Karen Solie, Saeed Teebi, Doretta Suk-Chong Lau and Kaie Kellough; AI scholars Phillipe Pasquier and Mike Ananny; conservator Helene Tello; musician Rachel Podger; Theatre artists Will Kilroy and Christie Maturo; and visual artists Allison Glenn, Meryl McMaster, Kristiina Lahde, Paul Wong, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie and Lan Yee.

And, over the past five years, we’ve brought in more than 70 guests solely as a result of the Orion Fund: that’s a remarkable return of creative expertise and international experience resulting from a direct investment by a donor in student support. Considering that most of today’s students had yet to be born when Josephine Bertheir made her initial donation in 1996, it really speaks to the lasting, long-term impact of her gift.

Orion guest artist Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie

by | Feb 25, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Visual Arts

All are welcome to hear visiting Orion Series visiting artist Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, a professor at the University of California, speak on “The Concreteness of Imagination”: 6:30pm Thursday, March 12 in room A162 of the Visual Arts Building. Free & open to all. This talk is presented by our Art History & Visual Studies department.

She’ll also be leading the 2-day workshop Printing Resistance on March 10 & 11 (10am–5pm) at the Taqsiqtuut Indigenous Research-Creation Lab (room A134) in our Visual Arts building.

For the workshop, you’ll get to design an image for printing based on social issues based on protest, activism & Indigenous resistance + learn a grassroots technique used in protest movements. You’ll keep their printing press after the workshop. Register here. 

Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie is a Professor in the Native American Studies Department, and Faculty Director of the Gorman Museum of Native American Art at University of California Davis, known for photography, social commentary and video. Her presentation will include recent photo projects and portraits.

Tsinhnahjinnie’s work is held in several collections including National Museum of the American Indian (New York and Washington DC), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis), Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art (Norman), Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden, Netherlands), International Centre of Bethlehem, Dar Annadwa Addawliya (Bethlehem, Palestine) and the National Museums of Scotland (Edinburgh).

Tsinhnahjinnie was born into the Bear clan of the Taskigi Nation, born for Tsi’naajinii of the Dine’ Nation, adopted into the Eagle House of Metlakatla, adopted into the Killer Whale Fin House of Klukwan.Hunka to Muriel Antoine of Mission South Dakota. For the past 22 years, Tsinhnahjinnie has been living and working on Wintun land, located in Northern California.

Makareta & Moana: mentor & mentee,
Tūranganui-a-Kiwa (2026), Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie photo

Orion Guest: poet Kaie Kellough  

by | Feb 25, 2026 | Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

All are welcome to hear visiting Orion Series poet, sound artist and writer Kaie Kellough when he speaks on “Self Inside Sound”: 7pm, Wednesday March 4, in the New Student Lounge, main floor of The Mearns Centre – McPherson Library. Free & open to all. 

Kaie Kellough is a poet, sound performer and fiction writer whose work crosses genres and disciplines. He is concerned with language, migration, inequality and the intersections of social engagement and form. Kaie’s long poem, Magnetic Equator (McClelland & Stewart, 2019) was awarded the 2020 Griffin Poetry prize. His collection of short stories, Dominoes at the Crossroads (Véhicule, 2020), was nominated for multiple national awards, and won the AM Klein prize for fiction. His latest long poem, Interposition, will be published in 2026 with McClelland & Stewart.

Since 2011, Kaie has collaborated on audio compositions with saxophonist and synthesist Jason Sharp. Their performances have been broadcast by jazz festivals across Europe and Canada. Their first group album, FYEAR, featured a 9-piece ensemble and was released in 2024 on Constellation Records. Kaie is currently pursuing graduate work at Queen’s University. He studies post-colonial literatures, with a focus on Caribbean and Black British writing. Kaie continues to craft new passages.

Presented by the Department of Writing, the University of Victoria Libraries & Art Collections and the Orion Series in Fine Arts.

Visiting professor Mike Ananny reckons with Generative AI

by | Feb 25, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

Faster than many predicted (or wanted), Generative Artificial Intelligence is upon us. It brings a mix of emotions, a shared sense of uncertainty and a persistent question of what we can and should do — individually and collectively — about technological change that feels powerful, inevitable and beyond our control. Visiting guest professor Mike Ananny will offer ways to define and reckon with Generative AI that might help navigate controversies, intervene with integrity at different scales, and debate the perils and promises of “good enough” technologies.
Presented by the Orion Series in Fine Arts, during his six weeks on campus Ananny will speak to students in various classes as well as host a pair of small, focused workshops on March 11 & 25 and a March 19 public talk, the latter of which is being presented in partnership with UVic’s Kula: Library Futures Academy. 

About Mike Ananny

Mike Ananny is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism (and, by courtesy, Cinematic Arts) at the University of Southern California (USC). He studies how people build digital infrastructures, algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence that create public life — and he tries to intervene to make cultures of production, regulatory initiatives and system designs better serve public interests.

At USC he co-directs the interdisciplinary collective Media as SocioTechnical Systems (MASTS) and the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) initiative of the Center on Generative AI and Society, and is an Affiliated Faculty of Science, Technology, and Public Life.

He is the author of Networked Press Freedom (MIT Press), co-editor (with Laura Forlano and Molly Wright Steenson) of Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press), and publishes in various interdisciplinary academic communities including Journalism Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Critical Internet Studies. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Microsoft Research, holds a PhD from Stanford University (Communication) and a Masters from the MIT Media Laboratory (Media Arts & Sciences), and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Helsinki, a Berggruen Foundation Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, and an expert advisor to the Minister of Canadian Heritage on the future of CBC/Radio-Canada. He has written for popular press outlets including The Atlantic, WIRED, Harvard’s Nieman Lab, the Columbia Journalism Review, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

 
Read Mike’s recent Globe and Mail story about the Stephen Colbert censoring by the US government, and how that impacts Canadian viewing — and values — as well.
 

About the workshops

Workshop 1: “Journalism & Generative AI: Exploring histories, power & synthetic futures of news language”
2:30-4:30pm Wed, March 11 • Fine Arts room 108 • Free
  
In this small workshop, students will explore a domain (journalism) and see how GenAI works (or doesn’t work) for that domain. Open to all, but may be of most interest to people studying and practising journalism or writing longform nonfiction.
  
Workshop 2: “Crafting your Own Perspective on Generative AI: Drafting first-person statements of synthetic media principles & practices”
2:30-4:30pm Wed, March 25 • Fine Arts room 108 • Free
 
In this small workshop, students will learn how to create first-person statements of practice by understanding, using/refusing Generative AI in your practice, and how to describe yourself and your work in relation to synthetic media. Open to all, but it may be of most interest to creative practitioners and artists of all backgrounds, methods and media (not only writers).
About the public talk

“Reckoning with Generative Artificial Intelligence”

5 – 6pm Thursday, March 19 in the Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, School of Music (MacLaurin A-wing) 

Free & open to all • Find out more here