Stories from the Creative Edge
Research
New Legacy exhibit explores life stories through art
Technology and history may change across cultures and generations, but the human journey remains the same: we’re born, we age, we have relationships, we die. Yet along the way, we are all shaped by the objects which help us navigate life’s stages, passages and...
$1.875M gift supports environmental and climate journalism
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...
Orion Series presents filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal
The Orion Lecture Series in Fine ArtsThrough the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:Jennifer Baichwal Canadian Filmmaker Public webinar: "Representing the Anthropocene: Challenges...
New project explores global food sovereignty
How can vulnerable communities build local and regional governance of food systems in the context of the climate crisis? That’s the question behind a new interdisciplinary film project co-directed by Department of Writing chair Maureen Bradley and Department of...
A new & different academic year
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...
Expanding our campus community
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...
Woven, embroidered and stitched
If you’re looking for cultural casualties of the spring pandemic, Fine Arts has plenty of examples: from cancelled concerts in the School of Music to the Visual Arts BFA grad exhibit and the final Phoenix Theatre production of the year, there was no shortage of...
Graduation celebration
Graduation celebration Welcome to issue 11 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...
Physically distanced, culturally connected
Physically distanced, culturally connected 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...
Theatre researcher named top SSHRC Storyteller
Department of Theatre PhD candidate Lara Aysal has been named one of the top 25 “Storytellers” in an annual competition announced on May 5 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. SSHRC’s 2020 Storytellers competition celebrates the best in research...
Grad student call for Ocean Networks Canada Artist-in-Residence program
The Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) at the University of Victoria are sponsoring an Artist-in-Residence program. The concept strengthens connections between art and science to broaden and cross-fertilize perspectives and critical discourse on...
New agreement with Italy’s Morra Foundation
As a celebration of global contemporary art, the opening of the Venice Biennale in May 2019 provided the ideal backdrop for the formal signing of a three-year research agreement between UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts and La Fondazione Morra, a major art centre in Naples....
UVic surpasses fundraising goal by $3 million
As the last act wrapped, Department of Theatre undergraduate student Fiona Donnelly-Rheaume looked around the great hall of UVic’s First Peoples House with tears in her eyes. “I still get choked up thinking about it,” she says. “Elder Vic Underwood, a residential...
Acoustic ecologist Kaitie Sly explores unheard world of ambient sound
We’ve all heard the old proverb: “What we don’t know can’t hurt us.” But, as the research of emerging acoustic ecologist Kaitie Sly shows, what we can’t hear might indeed be hurting us. Graduating in June with a master’s in music and a specialization in music...
Visual Arts student Laura Gildner wins Victoria Medal
No question, Department of Visual Arts undergraduate student Laura Gildner has been having a great year: not only was she shortlisted for the 2018 Lind Photography Prize—for the second year in a row—but she also had a solo exhibit of recent work at Vancouver’s Polygon...
Audain professor makes history again with Witness Blanket
Indigenous concepts and Western legal principles have been united in a historically unique agreement signed by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) and Carey Newman, Audain Professor in the Department of Visual Arts. The agreement covers the protection and use...
Explore the world of Ideafest 2019
It’s neither a surprise nor an exaggeration when UVic describes Ideafest as being about “ideas that can change everything.” This eighth-annual, week-long festival of research, art and innovation runs March 4-9, both on- and off-campus, and offers more than 40 public events designed to inform and engage with thought-provoking and culturally engaging events. And Fine Arts is participating in eight different events this year.
Top 10 Fine Arts stories of 2018
There was certainly no shortage of Fine Arts news in 2018, given that we tracked nearly 300 local, national and international media stories about the creative activities of our faculty, alumni, students and staff . . . and those are just the stories we know about....
Leader in Art Song performance receives honourary degree
One of the world’s great interpreters of the German art song tradition known as Lieder and one of the most frequently recorded lieder singers of modern times, Mitsuko Shirai is acclaimed worldwide for her extraordinary performances and recordings of songs by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and others.
New artist residency strengthens connections between art & science
Victoria-based artist Colton Hash is the inaugural recipient of an Artist-in-Residence program announced today by the Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), a UVic initiative. The new ONC residency will strengthen connections between art and science, and broaden perspectives on major issues ranging from technology and the environment to biodiversity and healthy communities.
Bill Gaston wins Victoria Book Prize
Department of Writing professor Bill Gaston has won the 2018 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize for his short-story collection The Mariner’s Guide to Self Sabotage (Douglas & McIntyre). Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and co-sponsor Brian Butler presented Gaston with...
Flute concert offers rare & daring program
Prize-winning flutist Suzanne Snizek has a dedicated practice of bringing lesser-known and previously suppressed music to the concert stage. In a noon-hour Faculty Concert on Tuesday, October 9, Dr. Snizek will present a rare selection of music by Czech, Korean, Jewish and Soviet composers.
Theatre historian Sasha Kovacs joins Phoenix
While the Department of Theatre crossed the half-century mark with their 50th anniversary in 2016, they’ve already started planning for the future by welcoming a number of new professors to their teaching faculty. Due to a round of recent retirements that saw the likes of design professor Allan Stichbury, director Linda Hardy and theatre historian Jennifer Wise step down, they had the opportunity to bring in fresh talent in the guise of acclaimed designer Patrick DuWors, voice and speech expert Michael Elliott and theatre historian Sasha Kovacs.
Vanier Scholar Dennis Gupa on his Paddling Visions
What are the interconnections between climate change, sea rituals and traditional ecological knowledge and practices, and how those be explored through applied theatre practices? That’s the focus of the research currently being conducted by Theatre PhD candidate and Vanier Scholar Dennis Gupa.
Concert debuts results of Guggenheim Fellowship
It was big news last year when internationally acclaimed School of Music professor Dániel Péter Biró was named the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship — one of North America’s most prestigious awards. Biró’s intention was to use the one-year award (worth $50,000 US)...
When Art Meets Science
Ever wanted to have an intimate, interactive moment with a baby orca? A new student-created sculpture allows viewers to have just that, while also learning something about the threats currently facing our local killer whale population.
Call for Artist-in-Residence Ocean Program
The Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, are sponsoring an Artist in Residence program. The concept strengthens connections between Art and Science to broaden and cross-fertilize perspectives and critical...
Exhibition reframes Innocence of 1960s artists
In 1963, National Film Board director Léonard Forest travelled from Montreal to the west coast to direct a documentary about artists and poets working in Vancouver and Victoria. Forest said he came here with “zero idea” of what he would find and made the resulting 27-minute film, In Search of Innocence, with what he called an “innocent eye.” Now, the latest Legacy Gallery exhibit pairs the original NFB documentary with work by artists featured in the film.
New Visual Arts professor creates Avatar Grove film project for IMAX screens
Internationally acclaimed artist and new Visual Arts professor Kelly Richardson will be one of five digital media artists featured in the upcoming XL-Outer Worlds large-format film project, which will be shooting at Port Renfrew’s Avatar Grove / T’l’oqwxwat in summer...
Sandra Meigs joins Canada’s academic elite
Contemporary artist and newly retired Visual Arts professor Sandra Meigs has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC)—Canada’s highest academic honour.
The title has been bestowed on only 2,000 Canadians in the 134-year history of the RSC, and has just one criterion: excellence. The peer-elected fellows of the society are chosen for making “remarkable contributions” in the arts, humanities and sciences, and Canadian public life.
Swimming into the past
Despite unseasonably cold winds and unusually choppy waves, intermedia artist Paul Walde dove into the waters of Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake on July 8 and, after months of preparation, completed the first stage of The Tom Thomson Centennial Swim.
Graduating Visual Arts project a bold step forward
It sounds like a riddle: what has six legs, was built for camping and can walk on its own? The answer, however, is no joke — it’s actually the incredibly complex final project of Visual Arts BFA graduate Xiao Xue. Aptly titled “Something to Ponder On: A Walking...