Fern Helfand with her photo piece installed in the airport gallery space.

FCCS Visual Arts professor, Fern Helfand recently installed her new work, Okanagan Log Pile, in the Kelowna Art Gallery satellite space at the Kelowna International Airport.

Fern retired from her teaching position at UBC Okanagan this past spring. Fern taught photography in the BFA program from 1998 until 2018.

Her photo-based work addressing environmental concerns and the medium of photography itself has been exhibited across Canada and internationally.

Artist statement:

Okanagan Log Pile embodies the duplicity of the wood industry in British Columbia. It represents the vast forests of the province, a renewable resource if handled properly, and the lumber industry, one of the major economic foundations of the region, a historical source of livelihood for many.  On the other side of the coin, it speaks to clear cutting, and loss of the forest, not only through widespread logging, but because of the devastation caused by the recent pine beetle infestation and the annual threat of wild fires. It also represents the transformation of our environment from forest valley and hills, traditional home to the Indigenous peoples of the region, to lands cleared of their natural habitat to make way for shopping malls and real estate developments with monster homes, which in turn have been partially constructed from the trees that once stood in their place.

Read more about the installation in the Kelowna Caplital News article on Fern Helfand.

Visitors leaving Kelowna can view the photo installation at the departure gate at the airport from now until February of 2019. Form more information, visit the Kelowna Art Gallery web site.

Gerry Garneau interview, Journal from OUC, November 2001

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Gerry Garneau, fine arts instructor in our BFA program from 1971 to 1997. Gerry was one of the first instructors to teach fine arts as a diploma program at Okanagan College, and was instrumental in creating the degree program that was offered when the institution became Okanagan University College.

“I first met Gerry in 1972. At that time there were only two instructors in the Fine Arts Department of Okanagan College, Gerry and Toru Fujibiashi.” says colleague and Emeritus Professor, Mary Smith McCulloch.

Gerry taught drawing and painting, and Toru sculpture and drawing. The following year, when the fine arts programme expanded to include second year studies, Mary was hired to teach printmaking.

“Gerry’s most important legacy was that he provided stability. He always insisted that keeping the core programme of the two foundation years in studio practice and art history intact was key to further development. As a result the two year programme gained an excellent reputation especially for those students who wished to transfer to other art schools and universities to further their studies in Fine Arts,” notes Mary.

Even though Gerry retired before we became UBC, the legacy of his creation of the fine arts program lives on in what we offer in our studio courses today. We are forever grateful for his dedication as a teacher of fine arts, and will miss him as part of our arts community.

Read the full article in the OUC Journal –  Gerry Garneau – Fine Arts success.

Dania Tomlinson, author

Dania Tomlinson completed her MFA in 2014 at UBC Okanagan and her book, Our Animal Hearts, was recently published by Penguin Random House Canada. We met with Dania to discuss her book and to get some insight on her writing process.

Tell us about your novel 

Our Animal Hearts book cover

DT: Our Animal Hearts is set in the early 1900s in a fictional orcharding community on the shore of Okanagan Lake. Essentially it’s about a girl growing up in the shadow of a mother who both mystifies and frightens her. As she attempts to understand her place in the world, the faery tales, myths, and cultural stories she inherits, and those she learns from others, begin to manifest, intersect, and blend seamlessly with one another. And figures from these stories materialize in her immediate surroundings, particularly in the forest and in the lake. Although historical fiction, this book is also in the realm of magic realism, meaning that it incorporates magical or mythic elements into an otherwise realistic narrative.

What was your process of researching for the book?

DT: What centred my research was representing the Okanagan in the early 1900s through the landscape, the characters, and the events. But as I delved into the research, the fictional town soon became a microcosm of British Columbian, or even Canadian, history. The short 38 years this book spans cover some really dark events: the theft of indigenous land, the ostracisation of non-white immigrant communities, the internment of Ukrainians during WWI and Japanese during WWII, the Spanish flu epidemic, and the beginning of the horrid residential school system. It was important to give these historic events a local context, and for them to have real consequence in the narrative.

What was your process in writing the book? How long did it take you? Was this your thesis project, and if so, how did it change since you graduated?

DT: It took nearly 10 years for me to complete this novel. Honestly, I am still rewriting it in my head. In many ways I grew up writing this book. I became a university student, an adult, a wife, a mother, an instructor, all while writing this book. But the first time I wrote this story I was in my 2nd year of university and I was in Anne Fleming’s fiction class at UBCO. I wrote a short story about two elderly women in a nursing home and decided I wanted to start at the beginning of their lives and explore how these two women came to be. What moments shaped them? What decisions had lasting impacts? From there the story became two braided narrative strands, one that took place in Chile in the 1940s and the other that took place in the Okanagan in the early 1900s. The childhoods of these women, and the climatic moment when their lives collided, was the gist of my thesis. Since then the story has changed dramatically. The Chilean narrative was stripped which meant the Okanagan narrative had to stand on its own.

Dania’s book launch at Kettle River Brewery in Kelowna

Tell us what it was like to work with an editor?

DT: Our Animal Hearts went through some very tough revisions. I edited it with both with my agent and then later with my editor. But I enjoy the editing process. It’s when you get to make your writing shine. My MFA prepared me for working with editors. It taught me to distance myself from the work enough so I could be craft-focused and less sentimental. It’s important to be open during the editing phase, but also firm on what you value in the story. This can be a difficult balance. In the end, having experts invest themselves in your work is a thrilling experience.

Dania at the Book Warehouse, Vancouver

What have you been doing to promote the book?

DT: Along with a book tour to Vancouver and Victoria, my publicist arranged for me to do several interviews and questionnaires for press such as the CBC Magic 8 Q&A and a feature in the Georgia Straight. I’ve also been on local radio and a podcast called Get Lit. Every new phrase is brand new to me, and the publicity part has been quite an adventure. I never know what to expect. Sometimes I know about things well in advance, other times I have two hours to make it down to the local CBC radio station. Although a little stressful, it has all been very exciting.

Dania with fellow Okanagan writers, Alix Hawley and Adam Schoerder

You have an event coming up at the OK Regional Library on July 19th with an MFA alumni from UBC Vancouver, Shilo Jones. Tell us how this came about, how did you meet Shilo?

DT: Shilo and I have never met, which is weird since we both live in Kelowna and the writing community here (although robust!) is quite intimate. Adding to that, it seems our writing careers run on parallels as our debuts came out within weeks of each other, and we share a literary agency, a publisher, and we both completed our MFAs at UBC campuses. The similarities are odd. I look forward to reading with him on Thursday, and finally getting to meet.

Dania Tomlinson and Shilo Jones will be giving a public reading from their new books on July 19 at the Okangan Regional Library, downtown branch.

Find out more about Dania Tomlinson and her time at UBC Okanagan as an MFA student.

Jeannette Angel is a PhD Candidate whose research is focused on water sustainability in the Okanagan. Her aim is to use creative, experiential methods to engage people from the community to understand and act on water issues.

She worked with UBC professors environmental anthropologist John Wagner and media artist Aleks Dulic to collaborate with community partners on a museum exhibition, The Social Life of Water, the title of which was based on a book edited by John Wagner in 2013.

“Water is life, it is one of the most important elements that brings us together.”

The project came to fruition when environmental activist Christine Mettler, who had already proposed the concept to the Kelowna Museums Society, connected with Angel about designing an exhibition using media technology.

“This was the perfect venue and perfect opportunity to bring together a number of partners including artists, scientists, community members and a large team of students from UBC Okanagan,” said Angel. “This show featured water perspectives in ways that made it publicly accessible.”

The exhibition uses art, audio, visual media and storytelling to explore the diverse meanings that water holds and has held for the many communities, cultures and interest groups in the Okanagan watershed.

“With this exhibition, we are able to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices together into a common space to share knowledge,” says Dulic. “In addition to exploring the past and present, the exhibition examines our relationship with water in the future, inviting participants to imagine how we might have a more responsible relationship with our water.”

Following the showing at the Okanagan Heritage Museum in Kelowna, the exhibition toured several galleries and institutions in the Okanagan watershed.

The Social Life of Water exhibition toured the North Okanagan Valley, at the Allan Brooks Centre Sept to Oct 2017 and the Vernon Museum from March to June 2018, and is currently open to the public at the Penticton Museum, until the end of August 2018.

In the Fall of 2017, Right of Way, the touch screen environment on species-at-risk access to water, from the exhibition, was selected to accompany a travel exhibit at the Lake Country Municipal Hall presented by the Okanagan Conservation Collaborative Program.

Keeping Connectivity in our Future, the evolution of the 3D touch screen environment featuring a build-your-own pollinator garden, was presented at BorderFreeBees events at The Kelowna Regional Library and the Fat Cat Festival in 2018.

Elder Richard Armstrong talking with the artists from the 2016 Summer Indigenous Art Intensive

GroundWorks sets the intention for the 2018 Summer Indigenous Art Intensive to acknowledge those who have laid the ground for past, present, and future generations of Indigenous artists, curators, writers, scholars, and creative practitioners.

Dedicated to new ideas rooted in Indigenous art-making and coordinated by the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS) with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Summer Intensive is a month-long series of undergraduate and graduate courses, related events and exhibitions, as well as a key component—the artist-in-residence program.

The artist-in-residence program brings nationally and internationally recognized artists, writers, curators, and scholars to the UBCO campus to work alongside UBCO students. This immersive learning environment provides students with an invaluable opportunity to learn from and discuss and develop new ideas with creative practitioners working beyond the Okanagan.

The work of this year’s visiting artists-in-residence broadly engages the 2018 theme, GroundWorks, connecting to place and founding practices, grounded in land, voice, and language, reconnecting to and nurturing traditions, and expanding the discourses of contemporary arts and Indigeneity.

Each artist will have a studio on campus for the duration of their 1 to 2-week stay. They will also be involved in a number of activities, including studio and class visits, exhibitions and events throughout the region, and the weekly Wednesday afternoon keynote presentations and artist panels. The Wednesday gatherings are open to the public and start at 12pm in the University Theatre (ADM026).

Joining FCCS from across Canada, the United States, and New Zealand, this year’s visiting artists are: Billy-Ray Belcourt, Carlos Colín, Ryan Feddersen, Tarah Hogue, Liz Howard, Jaimie Isaac, Steven Loft, Dylan Miner, Julie Nagam, Meghan O’Brien, taisha paggett, Ryan Rice, Natalie Robertson, Sarah Shamash, Richard Van Camp, Olivia Whetung, and Cease Wyss.

Keynote presentations will be given by Steven Loft (July 4), Natalie Robertson (July 11), Dylan Miner (July 18), Richard Van Camp (July 24), and Ryan Rice (July 25), whose practices span art-making, activism, curation, scholarship, and leadership to address Indigenous sovereignty, aesthetics, and cultural policy.

Full details of keynote presentations, artist panels, artist residency dates, and local and regional events and exhibitions involving sii18 artists-in-residence and FCCS students can be found HERE