Orion Lectures: Jerry Ropson Artist, Writer, Educator, Community Organizer

by | Mar 10, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Visual Arts

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

Jerry Ropson


Artist, Writer, Educator, Community Organizer

7:30 pm Wednesday , March 26
Room A162, UVic’s Visual Arts Building

Free & open to all
Presented by UVic’s Visual Arts Department.
For more information, please email visualarts@uvic.ca

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is pleased to present Jerry Ropson, Visiting Artist. All are welcome to attend this free event.

 

“Preface for a Liturgy (Blood Ledger)”, 2021
Site-specific video installation with hand-sewn textiles, carpenter pencils & brass plumb bobs. Photo by Brian Ricks

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 Jerry Ropson is an artist, writer, educator and community organizer raised in the Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) outport re-settlement of Pollards Point. In acknowledging the settler and indigenous history of his community, he combines images, objects, text and narrative to focus an artistic practice within site-specific installation and performative storytelling. Having exhibited throughout Canada and abroad, he makes class-conscious work often seeking non-traditional sites and outcomes. 

Ropson holds a BFA (2001) from Memorial University: Grenfell Campus, and an MFA (2009) in Studio Arts: Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University. Ropson was listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2016 and 2018. He has been awarded grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, The New Brunswick Art Board, The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council. He has participated in artist residencies at The Banff Centre, The Atlantic Centre for the Arts, St. Michael’s Printshop, Fogo Island Arts, NSCAD University, and Union House Arts. Ropson divides his time between rural communities in Ktaqmkuk, and Mi’kma’ki (Sackville, New Brunswick), where he teaches in the Department of Fine Arts at Mount Allison University.

Free and open to the public | Find more at www.events.uvic.ca

For more information on this lecture, please email visualarts@uvic.ca

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca

Orion Lectures: Michelle Chawla

by | Feb 24, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Graduate, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

Photo: Christian Lalonde

Michelle Chawla 

Director & CEO, Canada Council for the Arts

A Facilitated Conversation

4:00 pm Thursday, March 13
Philip T Young Recital Hall, MacLaurin B-Wing 
 
Free & open to all

Presented by UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts

For more information, please email fineasst@uvic.ca

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is pleased to present Michelle Chawla, Director and CEO of Canada Council for the Arts. All are welcome to attend this free event.

ABOUT THE TALK

We are excited to present this special facilitated conversation with Michelle Chawla, current Director and CEO of Canada Council for the Arts, hosted by Visual Arts chair Megan Dickie and organized by Dr. Allana Lindgren, Dean of Fine Arts.

As the political landscape continues to fragment, Michelle Chawla feels it’s time to stop talking about an “arts crisis” and tell its impact story instead: $60 billion in GDP contributions, 850,000 cultural jobs nation-wide and an enviable legacy as cultural ambassadors worldwide. Given the current economic and political context, both here at home and south of the border, there’s never been a more important time to highlight the impact and relevance of the diverse and vibrant Canadian arts scene.

While at UVic, Michelle Chawla will also be speaking with local arts leaders, faculty members, university colleagues and attending performances in both Theatre and the School of Music.  

You can watch a recording of the talk here: 

 

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Michelle Chawla has led the Canada Council for the Arts as Director and CEO since June 2023. Under Michelle’s leadership, the organization ensures that almost 90% of its annual government funding goes directly to the arts sector. This includes support to over 3,500 artists and over 1,900 arts organizations in 2,171 communities across the country, whose work strengthens the economy, fosters unity and a sense of belonging, and inspires new perspectives. 

With nearly 30 years in the field of public arts and culture funding, Michelle has extensive leadership expertise in public policy, inter-governmental relations, governance, corporate communications, and major transformation initiatives. Prior to her appointment, she was the Director General of Strategy, Public Affairs and Arts Engagement, responsible for the executive leadership and direction of a wide range of functions, including communications, strategic planning, research, international coordination, and cultural diplomacy. She was also previously Secretary-General for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. 

Michelle is fluently bilingual and comes from a Québécois and Punjabi background. 

She is deeply committed to making sure the arts are a vibrant part of Canadians’ lives in communities big and small, rural and remote, urban and suburban, from coast to coast to coast. 

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca

Orion Lectures: Don Kwan

by | Feb 18, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Graduate, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Visual Arts

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

photo: William Luk

Don Kwan 

Visiting Artist 

“(Un)covering the Art of Don Kwan”

7:30 pm Wednesday, February 26
Room A162, UVic’s Visual Arts Building
 
Free & open to all

Presented by UVic’s Department of Visual Arts.

For more information, please email visualarts@uvic.ca

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is pleased to present Don Kwan, Visiting Artist. All are welcome to attend this free event.

ABOUT THE TALK

Explore how Don Kwan’s art connects historical and contemporary experiences by reflecting on Chinese Canadian history. Through his creative process, Kwan weaves together cultural heritage and personal identity, offering new perspectives and enriching conversations about the Chinese diasporic experience in Canada.

A third-generation Chinese Canadian, Don Kwan 关日安 turns to his own experiences and challenges of being a gay, East Asian artist as a way to ground in broader conversations about identity, representations, and intergenerational memory-making in the diaspora. Kwan regularly draws from common and powerfully symbolic found objects and forms. He redeploys them in provocative, and playful ways; delivering complex, and nuanced concepts in an open framework for interpretation that evokes both familiarity and wonder. 

Free and open to the public | Find more at www.events.uvic.ca

For more information on this lecture, please email visualarts@uvic.ca

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca

Orion Lectures: Luis Jacob Assistant Professor University of Toronto “Activating the Museum”

by | Feb 10, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Visual Arts

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

Luis Jacob 


Assistant Professor, University of Toronto

“Activating the Museum”

12:30 pm Wednesday, February 26
Room 103, UVic’s Fine Arts Building

Free & open to all 

Presented by UVic’s Department of Art History and Visual Studies.

For more information, please email arthistory@uvic.ca

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is pleased to present Luis Jacob, Visiting Artist. All are welcome to attend this free event.

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 Luis Jacob is a Peruvian-born, Toronto-based artist and curator whose work destabilizes conventions of viewing and invites a collision of meanings. Since his participation as an exhibiting artist in Documenta12 in 2007, he has achieved an international reputation, with shows at the Taipei Biennial, Rotterdam’s Witte de With, the Limerick City Gallery of Art, Spain’s Centro Párraga, Vienna’s Generali Foundation and New York City’s Guggenheim Museum, as well as numerous private galleries. 

In 2009 Luis Jacob exhibited a series of large scale canvases — They Sleep with One Eye Open, nos. 1-7 — that appear to watch gallery visitors with an intense gaze. “7 Pictures of Nothing Repeated Four Times, in Gratitude” was staged at the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, in Mönchengladbach, Germany and addressed abstract expressionist Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) presence/absence in the history of the museum. 

Rothko is a widely celebrated modernist, but what is less well known is his pedagogical activism, and the fact that, politically, he aligned himself with anarchism. They Sleep… attempts to reanimate the spirit of Rothko’s canonical paintings, which are now so ‘familiar’ that many are almost unable to see these artworks with fresh eyes. Join Jacob as he discusses how his paintings represent an opportunity to reconnect with Rothko and dialog once again with his radicality. 

Free and open to the public | Find more at www.events.uvic.ca

For more information on this lecture, please email visualarts@uvic.ca

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca

Orion Lectures: Anosh Irani Author, playwright “Building Character in Fiction”

by | Feb 1, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Visual Arts, Writing

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

Anosh Irani 

Author, Playwright

“Building Character in Fiction”

2:30 pm Friday , February 7
Room 103, UVic’s Fine Arts Building

Free & open to all 

Presented by UVic’s Department of Writing.

For more information, please email writing@uvic.ca

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is pleased to present Anosh Irani, Visiting Artist. All are welcome to attend this free event.

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

 Anosh Irani was born and brought up in Bombay before moving to Vancouver in 1998, where he teaches creative writing at SFU’s World Literature Program. He has published four critically acclaimed and bestselling novels: The Cripple and His Talismans (2004), The Song of Kahunsha (2006), Dahanu Road (2010) and The Parcel (2016). The Parcel was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by the Globe and Mail, National Post, CBC, The Walrus and Quill & Quire. His work has been translated into 11 languages, his short stories have appeared in Granta and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and his nonfiction has been published in the New York Times. 

His 2006 play Bombay Black won five Dora Awards (including for Outstanding New Play) and his anthology The Bombay Plays: The Matka King & Bombay Black was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama. The Matka King received a Jessie Award nomination (Outstanding Original Script), as did his 2018 play, The Men in White — which was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama. 

His latest play, Behind the Moon, is running at Victoria’s Belfry Theatre from Feb 4 to March 2. 

Free and open to the public | Find more at www.events.uvic.ca

For more information on this lecture, please email visualarts@uvic.ca

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca

Orion Lectures: “Thriving in the Arts” & “Connecting Audiences”

by | Jan 20, 2025 | Alumni, Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, Theatre

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

“Thriving in the Arts” & “Connecting Audiences” 


Sara Topham & Pablo Felices-Luna,
Visiting Theatre alumni artists

12:30-1:45 pm Wednesday , February 5

Theatre for Young Audiences playreading 

12:30- 1:45pm Friday, February 7
Both in Chief Dan George Theatre, UVic’s Phoenix building

Free & open to all 

Presented by UVic’s Theatre Department.

For more information, please email theatre@uvic.ca

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts is pleased to present Sara Topham & Pablo Felices-Luna, Visiting Theatre Artists. All are welcome to attend this free event.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Sara Topham, a graduate of UVic’s Theatre Program, has performed on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, including Broadway, where she starred in revivals of The Importance of Being Earnest and Travesties and originated the role of Sally in Leopoldstadt. With 15 seasons at the Stratford Festival, plus work with the Shaw Festival, her roles have ranged from Shakespearean heroines like Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) and Rosalind (As You Like It) to dramatic leads like Hedda Gabler. Sara has performed internationally, from London to Washington, D.C., and San Diego, while contributing as a teacher and collaborator at theatres across North America. Sara works frequently with Manitoba Theatre for Young People as a co-director and choreographer.

 

Pablo Felices-Luna, a fellow UVic Theatre Program graduate and Artistic Director of Manitoba Theatre for Young People, has dedicated 25 years to Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). Born in Peru and arriving in Canada more than 30 years ago, Pablo’s career has championed the artistic value of TYA, directing 15 productions and premiering seven new plays during his eight years as Artistic Director of Carousel Players. At MTYP, he continues to inspire with new works and international collaborations. Pablo is a passionate advocate for integrating TYA into professional artist training, drawing on his extensive experience to redefine the relationship between theatre and young audiences.

Free and open to the public | Find more at www.events.uvic.ca

For more information on this lecture, please email theatre@uvic.ca

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca