Stories from the Creative Edge
Undergrad
Black History Month in Fine Arts
From left: Shane Book, Junie Desil, Wayde ComptonFebruary is Black History Month. It provides an important opportunity to explore and celebrate the historical and current contributions of Black people in Canada. At UVic, we recognize the many achievements of Black...
Small data Gen-AI workshop
Training the Muse: A workshop on small data Gen-AI for artistic practices Generative AI tools have become increasingly visible in artistic practice, however, most artists encounter AI through large-scale corporate platforms trained on massive, opaque datasets. These...
Join us for student wellness day Feb 9
Feeling stressed or overwhelmed? Need a break between classes? Don't miss Fine Arts Student Wellness Day, running 8:30am-4:30pm Mon, Feb 9. Everything's free! Activities and events will be happening around the Fine Arts complex, so drop in for whatever best works for...
2025: Year in Review
It’s hard to believe 2025 is already over: some years crawl like watching paint dry on a canvas, while others speed by at the rate of a can’t-put-it-down bestseller. Given that the 2000s will likely come to be known as the century when attention spans reduced faster...
Two students win 2025’s Community Impact Awards
Sophie Hillstrom (left) with Dean Allana Lindgren and Sage Easton-LevyCongratulations go out to the recipients of our fifth annual Faculty of Fine Arts Student Community Impact Awards: just-graduated School of Music student Sophie Hillstrom and current Theatre student...
Writing students engage with COP30 climate summit
The COP30 UN Climate Change Conference may be convening in Brazil this month but that doesn’t stop our students from getting involved. A series of climate survivor testimonials taken by Department of Writing students Ashley Ciambrelli, Raamin Hamid and Fernanda...
Meet Music’s 2025 Concerto Competition student winners
This year’s UVic Concerto Competition celebrates exceptional musicians whose talents span genres, generations, and geographies. The competition finals were held in April 2025 and we can’t wait to hear them perform their winning concertos with the UVic Symphony...
New play by Writing student explores trans joy & resilience
It's always exciting to see student work spring off the campus and into the community. Local playwright and fresh Writing alum Jasper Mallette — who just graduated in June 2025 — is now debuting Expiry Date, a brand new piece of transgender theatre, which runs at...
Music student releases debut album
Mixing his studies with his passions, Music & Computer Science student Maxwell Sorensen wrote, produced & just released the ambitious chamber-rock album Bad Luck Pearl — which he recorded in the School of Music’s own CReaTe Lab studio. "The recording happened...
UVic theatre grad headed to London for MFA
El Newell receives the Spirit of the Phoenix Award from professor Peter McGuire (photo: Sadie Kupery)With over 200 students graduating from Fine Arts on June 12, we're not able to profile everyone but Theatre student El Newell is an outstanding representative of her...
Across Lands & Waters CERC gathering
The Qiaqsutuq installation will be on view at Across Lands and WatersVictoria may not immediately come to mind as the obvious location for an international gathering of 60 circumpolar and Pacific artists and curators, but that’s one of the advantages that comes with...
New Phoenix season announced
While the 2024/25 academic season is coming to a close, it's the ideal time to pick up a subscription to the 2025/26 mainstage season at UVic's Phoenix Theatre. This year, we saw a remarkable season highlighted by productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling...
Submission call for $1K Student Impact Awards!
Are you a current or graduating Fine Arts student who’s been involved with some community-engaged creative activity between January 1 2024 & May 31 2025? If so, you could qualify for $1,000 via our annual juried, donor-funded Community Impact Awards. Since 2021,...
Phoenix Theatre is seeing double with Twelfth Night
Running March 13-22, the final mainstage production of Phoenix's 24/25 season is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Shipwrecked and separated from her twin brother Sebastian, Viola disguises herself as a young man to serve Duke Orsino. What follows is a whirlwind of...
The Killing Game at the Phoenix
The latest mainstage production at our Phoenix Theatre is Eugène Ionesco's absurdist comedy The Killing Game. Directed by Theatre professor Conrad Alexandrowicz, from a translation by Helen Gary Bishop, The Killing Game transcends the ordinary by offering a surreal,...
Sounds for Soldiers: Emily Armour’s Music for Veterans Project connects young musicians with military vets
Music alum Emily Armour with Pipe Major Roger McGuire of the Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary's) at 2024's 80th anniversary of D-Day event at Victoria's Bay Street Armoury When it comes to honouring veterans, many people wear a poppy on November 11 and then...
Top 10 Fine Arts stories of 2024
There’s no better time than the start of a new year for a moment of reflection on the previous year’s accomplishments. With that in mind, we're happy to present the Fine Arts Top 10 of 2024: an inspiring series of story highlights about our students, faculty and...
Pacific Opera Victoria Presents Barbara Hannigan & Bertrand Chamayou
Do not miss this one-night-only event! 7:30pm December 02 at McPherson Playhouse. An evening of music with renown artists soprano Barbara Hannigan & pianist Bertrand Chamayou, with special guest appearances by Terrence Tam (Principal Violin of Victoria Symphony)...
Explore UVic on Nov 30
Considering a future as a student in UVic's Faculty of Fine Arts? Join us on Saturday, Nov 30, as we open our doors as part of Explore UVic—UVic's free, all-day open house. We’ve created a fun-filled day of student panels, sample lectures, presentations, tours and...
UVic Symphony Orchestra: From Darkness to Light
When the UVic Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Giuseppe Pietraroia, presents the captivating evening of music From Darkness to Light on November 29, they'll not only be blending drama, passion and rhythmic vitality, but will also feature a...
2024 Student Impact Award winners
Since 2021, the Fine Arts Student Community Impact Awards have recognized individual achievements or outstanding efforts made by full-time Fine Arts undergraduate students beyond their traditional studies. Open to submissions from across the faculty, these juried...
Estate gift highlights All-Steinway anniversary
Minsoo Sohn giving a masterclass at the School of Music (Beth Bingham photo) Fifteen years ago, the School of Music was named Canada’s first All-Steinway School and, while there are now over 200 All-Steinway schools globally, UVic is still the only one in Canada — a...
Co-op brings learning to life
When it comes to mixing the theoretical with the practical, Fine Arts students have been participating in UVic’s vibrant Co-op program since 1986. In the past five years alone, we’ve had more than 300 students earn both academic credit and a monthly wage while getting...
“This funding is an absolute lifesaver“
100 Years of Broadway (Jaeden Walton photo)Carson SchmidtRoad vs Wade (Megan Farrell photo)While Theatre student Carson Schmidt never knew the late Fine Arts donor Jack Henshaw, his success as an undergraduate is exactly what Jack had in mind with his JTS Scholarship,...
Students & seniors work towards wellness
Over the past several decades, Applied Theatre artists have been developing activities that help communities access joy and connection with others. This spring, a group of third-year Applied Theatre students learned how to facilitate interactive, creative workshops...
Congratulation to the 2024 grad class!
Jude Wolff Ackroyd, BFA Honours 2024Congratulations to our 2024 grad class! Whether you're graduating from our department of Art History & Visual Studies, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing or the School of Music, you're now part of an extended community of nearly...
“There’s always more to learn” says graduating professional musician Philip Manning
When it comes to career paths, most music students aspire to professional positions after graduation—playing with an orchestra, say, or becoming a chamber musician or band teacher. Not so with Philip Manning, who took a different approach to his own musical career:...
A passion for art history fuels Aashna Kulshreshtha’s international experience
Taking online classes during COVID at 3 a.m. India-time may not have been the ideal first-year experience, but it didn’t deter Aashna Kulshreshtha from enthusiastically pursuing her undergraduate degree in art history. Born and raised in New Dehli, Aashna finished...
Submission call for Student Impact Awards!
Are you a current (or graduating) Fine Arts undergraduate student who’s been involved with a community-engaged creative project in Greater Victoria between Jan 1/23 & May 31/24? If so, you could qualify for $1,000 via our annual Fine Arts Student Community Impact...
Annual BFA grad exhibit opens April 19
Our final public event of the 23/24 academic season is the annual Department of Visual Arts BFA graduation exhibition, this year titled Silver Bullets. After the public opening night gala on April 19, the free exhibit runs 10am-6pm daily through April 28. With pieces...
Portland student balances art & athletics
When it comes to making goals, Harry Ritter West is scoring two-for-two. A varsity athlete with UVic's men’s soccer team, West knows how to keep his eye on the ball—but as a fourth-year Visual Arts student, he also has the creative vision to shoot as a photographer....
$1500 student mural call
All current UVic Visual Arts students are invited to submit a proposal by March 26 for a new $1,500 mural project in the lobby of UVic’s Island Medical Program. This uplifting & welcoming mural should reflect any of the following themes: health & wellness,...