What: Artist Panel
Who: Wanda Lock, Melany Nugent, Tania Willard, Victoria Moore
When: Monday, April 1, 2 to 3:30 p.m.
Where: UNC 106 Theatre, UBC Okanagan Campus

The Visual Arts Course  Union is hosting a panel discussion of professionals working in Kelowna’s visual arts and cultural community.

The panel will include Wanda Lock, curator at the Lake Country Art Gallery and practicing artist, Melany Nugent, assistant director of the Alternator Centre and practicing artist, Tania Willard, curator, MFA graduate and visual arts instructor in FCCS, and finally Victoria Moore, emerging artist and professional working at the Kelowna Art Gallery and Alternator Centre, a recent graduate from the BFA program. The panel will be moderated by Winnipeg based curator Jaimie Isaac.

The purpose of this panel is to shed light on possible careers in the arts, the panelists will discuss their experiences, education, residencies, etc. and their current positions in their field, to help educate our students on the possibilities upon completing their Fine Arts degree.

What: Student Okanagan Film Festival
Who: Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCSS)
When: Monday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
Where: Mary Irwin Theatre, Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Ave

We are excited to announce the 4th annual Student Okanagan Film Festival! SOFF continues a tradition of celebrating emerging student filmmakers of the Okanagan Valley.

The screening will take place at the Mary Irwin Theatre and will showcase short films from a wide range of genres including mini-documentary, experimental, music videos, animation, short narrative & more!

This event is open to the public. Admission is by donation.

Submission deadline: April 15th.

Visit soff.ok.ubc.ca to apply.

Undergraduate student Megan Butchart has been working in archival research on campus and in the community

Megan Butchart had the opportunity to work at the Kelowna Museums as a summer student two years in a row, working with physical artifacts and the archives. She found out about this opportunity from one of her History Professors, Dr. James Hull, and this has fueled her passion about the possibility of a career working in the archives.

In the first semester of her studies, Megan was excited about the intersections between History and English that she discovered in her classes, prompting her to pursue her Bachelor of Arts degree with an English and History double major. Finding many parallels between the two subjects and discovering how historical contexts complement and enhance the works studied in English literature, Megan sees this as the perfect lead in to further her studies and career in literary archives.

The tight knit community on this campus has been an important part of Megan’s time during her degree.

“Because of the small class sizes you really get to know others in your disciplines and create lasting friendships. I have also had the opportunity to work closely with some of my professors who have been wonderful mentors and who have helped me find out about amazing opportunities offered at UBCO.”

Now in the fourth year of her degree, Megan has been working closely with Dr. Karis Shearer in The AMP Lab at UBCO on the SSRHC-funded project, SpokenWeb. This project is working towards digitizing and making accessible a collection of literary audio recordings on magnetic tape and cassette which are deteriorating in their analogue formats and would otherwise not be available for us to learn from.

“In some cases we have the only known copies of specific readings, lectures, and interviews, and it is therefore important to preserve that history for people to listen to and learn from, so we do not lose what came before,” says Megan. “It is exciting to work with this collection of literary audio recordings from the 1960s to the 1980s as they really reflect the poetry community of UBC Vancouver at that time.”

She is working on assessing the collection, developing metadata, and cataloguing, as well as transcribing and researching specific tapes within the collection.

Megan credits Dr. Karis Shearer with fostering her interest in poetry and as being a great influence on her being able to work with the team in the lab, work that is directly related to working towards her future aspirations. With Megan’s interest in conservation and preservation, this project is perfect to set her up for a career in the heritage sector.

“It is exciting to work on something big, to work towards a larger goal within my studies. I’m fortunate to have had these opportunities to get involved in different aspects of academia on campus and in the community.’

Megan is planning on working towards a master’s degree in archival studies after completing her BA at UBC Okanagan. She notes that she has had some amazing experiences here during her degree that will lead her further working in an archival field.

The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and Okanagan College Arts & Foundational Programs are please to present this new film series, Welcome to the Anthropocene: Now What?

The Anthropocene is a term increasingly entering public and policy discourses, including those of the humanities and social sciences, and it is understood as a force now altering the planet’s biosphere and implicating human-kind in mass extinctions of plant and animal species, the pollution of the oceans, deforestation and the alteration of the atmosphere, among other serious and even irreversible impacts.

While there is already ubiquitous evidence/data available regarding the Anthropocene, including climate change, environmental degradation, unsustainable water usage, deforestation and hothouse conditions, pollution, etc., the aim of this film series is to bring us to the “Now what?” a question that is not merely rhetorical but one that has local and global import.

All films will be held in the Okanagan College Theatre, Kelowna Campus (1000 K.L.O Road), from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Discussion will follow each film.

Film Series Schedule:

October 25, 2018 – Anthropocene
November 29, 2018 – Before the Flood
January 30, 2019 – H.O.P.E. : What You Eat Matters
February 27, 2019 – The End of Meat
March 27, 2019 – Speciesism: The Movie 
April 25, 2019 – Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home

For information contact:Dr. Jodey Castricano – Jodey.Castricano@ubc.ca or Dr. Shona Harrison – SHarrison@okanagan.bc.ca

This film series is made possible through the generous support of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies,, Okanagan College Arts & Foundational Programs , and VegFund.

(photo credit: Farm Watch, https://www.flickr.com/photos/93911830@N06/25611230188/)

Laura Wyllie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from UBC Okanagan in 2012. Originally thinking of pursuing a degree in towards architecture, she realized that the science aspects were not for her, and switched to a major in Art History and Visual Culture.

After completing her undergraduate degree, Laura continued her studies at Carleton University, completing a Masters in Art History. While in Ottawa, she had the opportunity to complete a practicum in the Education, Public, and Community Programs department at the Ottawa Art Gallery. Laura moved back to the Okanagan in 2015, and began working at the Kelowna Art Gallery as a summer student, continuing on as the full-time as a public programming assistant that fall, while working towards her Masters in Education at UBCO.

Nearly 4 years later, her job title is the Curator of Learning and Engagement. As the leader of the education and public programs department, she advocates the role of art in lifelong learning for all members of the community.

“I strive to create programs with my team that offer meaningful art experiences for all ages and abilities.” Laura says, “While my studies focused on art education and theorizing what the role of a public art gallery should be, I was able to reflect on daily experiences at the gallery and the diversity of visitors we work with, teach, and learn from.”

Laura Wylie, leading a public tour at the Kelowna Art Gallery

The Faculty of Creative and  Critical Studies is committed to supporting and encouraging our students to reach their full potential while at UBC Okanagan. FCCS Research Awards provide funding for both undergraduate and graduate students.

The  Faculty is now accepting applications from undergraduate students to pursue innovative and original research as part of their learning experience. The awards supports the production and dissemination of graduate student research and knowledge creation (i.e. creative arts) activities as well as support for undergraduate students to engage in research and creation activities over the summer months.

Domestic and International students who are enrolled in a major in FCCS B.A. or B.F.A. programs (English, Cultural Studies, Art History and Visual Culture, French, Creative Writing, Visual Arts, or Combined Majors) are eligible to apply for these research awards, with a deadline of February 26, 2019.

Award Details

Domestic students: 2 awards, $2,500 each

International students: 1 award, $9,000

Deadline to apply: February 26, 4:00 p.m.

Full guidelines and application: fccs.ok.ubc.ca/students.html (under the Funding & Awards heading)

Past award recipients

Jessica Bonney, a Creative Writing Major used the Undergraduate Student Research Award fund for a research creation project exploring small press and fine press publishing through the creation of a poetry chapbook.

With the support from The Undergraduate Research Award, Art History and Visual Culture student Asia Li worked on a project to research and write an advisory report for the Armstrong Heritage Advisory Committee and the City of Armstrong on the topic of the city’s proposed Chinese memorial to the Chinese market gardeners of Armstrong and their legacy.

Brandon Taylor, and English major, worked on a research project that involved a critical investigation of how contemporary American commercial television programming creates empathetic routes toward sociopaths and what this relationship implies.