Carlee Mills, Student Reader for the Bachelor of Arts ceremony for FCCS students

The Dean’s office and FCCS faculty members who were present at convocation were absolutely thrilled to witness our students walk across the stage on June 7th.

“This is the culmination of years of sacrifices and a lot of hard work. Our students, their families and other loved ones can be proud of their achievements. Well done indeed!” says FCCS Associate Dean, Dr. Marianne Legault.

After years of hard work and dedication, forty-four FCCS students graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, twenty-one students graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and ten Masters students completed their degree.

Carlee Mills, graduating with a BA (major in English), was chosen as this year’s Student Reader.

“It is an immense honour to be chosen; I wish I could put into words how much it truly means to be acknowledged in such an amazing way.” Says Carlee.

Carlee gave a thoughtful speech at the graduation ceremony, leaving her fellow graduates with some inspiring words. “I am surrounded by inspiring and inspired individuals. Standing here today, and looking back on our time here, it feels like we could do anything. Embrace change. I think it is important to not just exist in the world, but yearn to change it. I know that UBCO’s class of 2018 is capable of making tremendous changes.”

And to the students who are still working on completing their degree, she leaves this advice, “I think that the best advice I could give is to not be too hard on yourself. There will be times when you feel that nothing you do is good enough or that you aren’t cut out for University. The key is to not give into those feelings and push through. Not everything you do in University will be ‘pure gold.’ There will be times that you have to just tell yourself “next time” instead of dwelling on it.”

Aside from this whirlwind of being able to speak at graduation, Carlee said that a highlight of her time at UBC Okanagan is the ability to have taken a lot of very interesting courses; courses from Ornithology and Anthropocentrism to Punk culture, taught by some of the most inspired individuals who foster their students’ interests in the subjects.

“What stands out to me about Carlee is her dedication,” says George Grinnell, professor of English. “When given the chance to design and execute a project entirely of her own making for a Do-It-Yourself themed assignment, she worked with a partner from our class to create an hour-long documentary film, which was a massive undertaking.”

After the ceremony, a reception was held in the Creative and Critical Studies building for all of the FCCS graduates and their guests to continue the celebrations of the day.

FCCS Graduation Reception

Dean Traister giving a toast to the 2018 graduating class

Dr. Bryce Traister, Dean of FCCS, addressed the attendees wishing the graduates great success as they embark on their next stages of life, “I congratulate the students and their families on the occasion of their graduation. It takes a village for a student to achieve a degree, and it has been a pleasure being part of your journeys as young artists, readers, thinkers, and writers. I only just got to meet many of you on stage for the first time, and I certainly hope that it won’t be the last. Best wishes for your successful futures, and don’t be strangers to the FCCS!”

MA English grads Brittany Rhodes & Francesca Gimson with instructor Melissa Jacques (centre)

Marianne Legault (centre) with her students Jolene Hayter & Jenica McKenzie

FCCS is also pleased to recognize the achievements of the following graduating or continuing students who received awards for their outstanding academic performance this year:

• Moozhan Ahmadzadegan, DVC Purchase Award
• Evan Berg, Asper Scholarship
• Arden Boehm, FCCS Dean’s Award for Artistic Excellence; BMO First Art nominee
• Megan Butchart, FCCS English Scholarship
• Taylor Carruthers, Craig Hall Memorial Visual Arts Scholarship in Printmaking
• Sari Elizabeth Dale, Creative Studies Prize in Creative Writing
• Sarah Ellis, Okanagan Visual Arts Scholarship; Asper Graduating Prize; Head of Class (BFA)
• Joshua Fender, Elinor Yandel Memorial Award in Fine Arts
• Mat Glenn, Creative Studies Department Award; BMO First Art nominee
• Angela Gmeinweser, Murray Johnson Memorial Award in Visual Arts
• Ayla de Grandpre, FCCS French and Spanish Scholarship
• Toby Handford, Kelly Curtis Memorial Scholarship in English
• Jill Janvier, UBC Okanagan Visual Arts Award; DVC Award for Artistic Excellence
• Safeera Jeffer-Hirji, FCCS Cultural Studies Scholarship; R.M. Middleton Student Prize; Head of Class (BA)
• Sarah Kapp, DVC Purchase Award
• Patricia Leinemann, Norma and Jack Aitken Prize in Visual Arts; BMO First Art nominee
• Jenica McKenzie, FCCS French Essay Prize; FCCS French Scholarship
• Darren Patterson, Dr. Shelley Martin Memorial Scholarship
• Sarah Polak, Asper Scholarship; New Monaco Enterprise GP Corp. Award in Sustainable Development
• Emerson Rogers, FCCS Art History and Visual Culture Scholarship
• Amy Salter, Jack and Lorna Hambleton Memorial Award
• Kara Sikora, DVC Purchase Award
• Sarah Spencer, FCCS Visual Arts Scholarship; Frances Harris Prize in Fine Arts
• Emily Thomas, FCCS Interdisciplinary Performance Scholarship
• Hayden Ward, Creative Writing Prize
• Felicia Watterodt, German Canadian Harmonie Club Prize in German Studies
• Melissa Weiss, FCCS Creative Writing Scholarship
• Natalie Whiteman, International Student Faculty Award
• Aiden Wilhelmina de Vin, Doug Biden Memorial Scholarship in Visual Arts

Safeera Jeffer-Hirji, recipient of the Cultural Studies Scholarship & the R.M. Middleton Student Prize

Sarah Ellis, Head of Class (BFA)

Amy Hanfstingl working with professor Briar Craig in the printmaking studio

Having the chance to work in an advertising firm overseas is not something that every student gets, but for Amy Hanfstingl, it was an experience that will stick with her for life.

Amy is a student at UBC Okanagan that is combining visual arts and biology in her degree. She spent the summer of 2017 in Paris as an intern at Team Creatif, an international graphic design company.

Amy working on her drawing

In order to be considered for the internship, Amy had to submit a portfolio, and was accepted based on the fact that she is studying visual arts and has amazing technical drawing skills. Amy credits her drawing instructor, Aleksandra Dulic, for pushing her to keep a journal of weekly sketches, making it so Amy was able to hone her drawing skills.

Over the last academic year, Amy took Introductory Screen Printing from Professor Briar Craig. “Amy brought the same dedication to observational drawing and to getting her images ‘right’ to the printmaking studio and as a result the technical skill level she brought to her screen prints tended to captivate her classmates with their intricacy and nuance. It is increasingly rare to see someone as technically capable as Amy who is also willing to put in the time and the focused energy to develop their work so fully.”

Amy spent three months with Team Creatif in the trainee program working in a number of different departments, including with the strategic planning team, the design team, working on a photoshoot, and working on packaging design. During her time there, Amy was even asked to create a mock-up design for packaging for a Kinder Bueno chocolate bar, where she had to create drawings, make the chocolate bar with the package out of cardboard, and present her project to the design team.

“Having this opportunity to work for a company and travel around in a different country changed the way I think,” says Amy. “As I spent a lot of time travelling alone, I was able to see things from a different perspective, see that I can focus on what I want to do, and I am more aware of my time, prioritizing myself in school. I am looking at setting my goals a bit higher than I did before.”

Amy working at the light table

Amy has always enjoyed science, and was looking to start her degree only in biology, but, because of her drawing abilities, her high school art teacher encouraged her to delve further into the study of visual art. She has aspirations to pursue medical illustration, and as a student who still has two years to go with her degree, she has time to figure out what she may want to do with the rest of her life.

Harsimran K. Kalra with fellow students and professor Francisco Peña in the Mythologies in Motion course

The study of World Literatures is something new that is being offered by the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. World Literatures creatively takes advantage of FCCS faculty’s range of expertise in the field of literature and proposes to open a dialogue between worldviews through the study of literatures from a range of cultures and historical periods.

This year, professor Francisco Peña taught Mythologies in Motion, a course at the 300 level that students were able to take as an elective from a number of different programs. Dr. Peña noted that the biggest surprise he had was in relation to the range of students and the diversity of programs that the students are in.

“There have been many students interested in the humanities, in general, but there have also been those who come from the field of science, especially biology.” says Peña.

This course looks at understanding mythology “in its motion”, in a constant state of transformation or re-adaptation, without ever losing sight of the transcultural nature of mythology.

Harsimran K. Kalra, as student from Human Kinetics, noted that this course had her learning things and ideas that she had never come across before academically, and helped her push the boundaries of her own thinking.

“This was my first ever Humanities course at UBCO and I absolutely enjoyed it.” says Harsimran, “My favorite part of the course was that it had me questioning my own ideas, beliefs and world-view, that I have been socialized into and indoctrinated with. It had me thinking critically and analyzing my own sense of ideology and identity, which is always a wonderful exercise in self- awareness and self-improvement.”

student presentations in the WRLD 310 course

In a subject as diverse and rich as mythology, an instructor always learns a lot from the perspectives and the readings, questions and impressions that the students bring.

“In this particular course, I have learned a lot from my students because of the diverse composition of their backgrounds, of their interest, and the work they brought to their projects and presentations.” noted Peña.

“Mythology has always intrigued me and yet I had never come across it as an academic discipline. When I read the course description, I initially thought that this would be an interesting course to take and that I would learn novel ideas that I would thoroughly enjoy!” says Harsimran.

This coming year there is also a new World Literatures courses at the 100 level, A World History of Horror, which will be an introduction to the idea of horror in literature across historical themes, geographical regions and genres. Students can take this or the Mythologies in Motion course as an elective to add to almost any program on campus.

For more information on the World Literatures courses and initiative, contact francisco.pena@ubc.ca

right to left: Andrew Thorpe, Dean Traister and Jacqui Marshall

The University of British Columbia, Okanagan, has entered into a Statement of Cooperation with the Exeter College of Humanities

During a recent visit to the UK, Bryce Traister, Dean of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, formalized a new agreement with the University of Exeter.

While attending a symposium, held at both the Streatham Campus in Exeter and the Penryn Campus in Cornwall, Professor Bryce Traister (Dean of Faculty, FCCS at UBC), met with Professor Andrew Thorpe (Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean for the College of Humanities) and Jacqui Marshall (Exeter’s Director of People Services and Global Partnerships) to formalize the agreement.

“I am delighted to announce the Memorandum of Understanding between the University of Exeter’s College of Humanities and the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC’s Okanagan Campus.” Says Dean Traister.

The agreement aims to strengthen the relationship between the universities, and nurture a collaborative approach to education, research and academic exchanges.

Dean Traister added: “As a top 5 Russell Group member in the UK, Exeter is one of the very best locations to study the humanities and the arts, and our partnership will explore and develop vibrant research collaborations and teaching opportunities for faculty and staff across the range of program and course offerings on both campuses.”

The symposium, held from May 9 to 11, had a central theme of ‘Culture, Creativity and Well-being’, and featured researchers from UBC, Exeter, Simon Fraser University, Grenoble and the University of Northern British Columbia.

Project(ed) Canadian Identity, creative project by English and Creative Writing major, Tyler Fey

The option of completing a term project with either a standard analytical essay or a creative project is not something that is available to all students on campus, but professor Dan Keyes feels that offering these options allows students the flexibility to leverage their own particular skills and talents.

Dan Keyes teaches a range of courses in English and Cultural Studies that deal with media. This past term he taught a course on English-Canadian Screen Culture, and gave students the option of handing in a final research paper, or producing a creative piece for the final class project with an artist statement explaining how the creative work leveraged the critical material.

“Being in a faculty of creative and critical studies, it seems important to allow students to leverage both modalities to consider how they create knowledge.” says Keyes.

While the standard research essay is a valuable tool for communicating knowledge, a creative option allows students to see that there are other ways to build on prior-knowledge and skills to convey their message or ideas to a wider public who might not read a scholarly article in a scholarly journal.

One of the students in Keyes’ English class this year, Tyler Fey, an English and Creative Writing major, chose the option of producing a creative piece instead of a traditional essay.

“Many classes only offer students the standard essay for their term project, because Dr. Keyes was willing to offer a creative avenue of expression for our research papers, I jumped at the opportunity to produce something creatively.” says Tyler

Tyler’s creative project involved the creation of an unglazed rounded white vase split into two pieces and woven together with sweetgrass and sinew with the help of First Nations friends, who taught him how to work with this material and generously supported the project. Tyler worked with Shelley Isaac, Wendy Huggan (Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation), and Jean-Anne Copley (Cowichan Nation, Vice President of the Kelowna Friendship Society), who provided the vase with its own little medicine bundle as an exercise in cultural healing. Tyler is acutely aware of the politics of appropriation, but sees the necessity of working together to think through issues of decolonization in relation to contemporary and modern national forms.

close up of the maple leaf dream catcher in Tyler’s project

Perhaps the most striking part of the vase is the creation of a dream catcher inside the negative image of the iconic maple leaf, which like the vase itself hints at how Canadian identity is woven together using First Nations culture in a way that should acknowledge various forms of appropriation.

There is etched writing both inside and outside the vase. The outside text contains jingoistic nationalism Anglo white pride texts taken from mass media texts while the inside hidden part of the vase contains etched texts from mass media dealing with outstanding land claims, Canada’s recent 150 celebrations as exercises in national forgetting, residential schools, and murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Tyler writes “Even though the words on the inside are printed plainly, it becomes an effort to see, read, and understand them. In the same sense, I thought of the 2014 Jeff Barnby film Rhymes for Young Ghouls, as it deals directly with residential schools and living on reservations, but we learnt it was not broadly released into Canadian theatre despite its impactful and timely message.”

Tyler wants the vase to serve as a metaphor for how some screen texts that challenge decolonizing forms of cultural productions are hindered and hidden while other exalted white forms of popular entertainment like Labine’s Mountain Men (2016) available on Netflix offer examples of unfettered and exalted whiteness. The vase with its negative maple leaf image woven together with a dreamcatcher woven out of sinew serves as a metaphor for Canadian identity, the outside being what is projected to the world through dominant mass media and the inside being issues that are largely ignored by the media.

“Over the years, I have developed this assignment, I have seen students leverage this assignment to graduate and pursue careers in journalism, or documentary film making, “ notes Keyes, “I am astounded by the work and effort students apply to this assignment, which tends to attract a particular student keen to reveal their critical and creative vision.”

From left to right: Arden Boehm, Mat Glenn, Patricia Leinemann, Myron Campbell & Katherine Pickering

BFA students recognized for their academic and artistic achievements

More than 350 guests attended a gala reception this past weekend for the students graduating from the BFA program this year.

The exhibition, 20, includes a wide variety of work from the artists including sculpture, photography, drawing, painting, digital media and printmaking.

Each year, the top students in the graduating class are recognized for demonstrating outstanding academic and artistic achievement over their final years in the BFA program, with a number of donor funded and faculty and university awards.

“These students were recognized for the excellence of their work and creative output.“ says Marianne Legault, FCCS Associate Dean. “They can be proud of their achievement in the BFA and we wish them the very best in their next artistic endeavors. “

Awards were presented by professors Myron Campbell, Katherine Pickering and FCCS Dean, Bryce Traister to the following students from the 2018 graduating class:

Asper Graduating Prize: Sarah Ellis

DVC Purchase Awards: Kara Sikora, Sarah Kapp, Moozhan Ahmadzadegan

DVC Award for Artistic Excellence: Jill Janvier

FCCS Dean’s Award for Artistic Excellence: Arden Boehm

Creative Studies Service Awards: Jamie Roodzant, Meghan Beyers

Creative Studies Department Award: Mat Glenn

Norma and Jack Aitken Prize in Visual Arts: Patricia Leinemann

UBCO Okanagan Visual Arts Award: Jill Janvier

BMO First Art nominees: Mat Glenn, Arden Bohem, Patricia Leinemann

For the last number of years, works are chosen for an exhibition at the Vernon Public Art Gallery. This year, curator Lubos Cullen chose works from BFA students Mat Glenn, Kara, Arden, Sarah Kapp and Moozhan. The exhibition, Emergence, will be at the Vernon Public Art Gallery from May 24 to July 18.

Imagine a building designed to function like a flower! Imagine a classroom designed by nature and the determination of middle school students! Two documentaries; two inspiring stories.

What: Double Bill Film Screening
Who: Eco Art Incubator featuring Denise Kenney and Shimshon Obadia
When: Thursday, April 12 from 7pm to 9:30 pm
Where: The Innovation Centre, 460 Doyle Ave, Kelowna

As part of the 2018 Spring Festival, the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and the Eco Art Incubator are pleased to present a double film screening by FCCS professor, Denise Kenney and BFA alumni, Shimshon Obadia.

Two community-based projects have come to fruition and corresponding documentaries telling their stories will be screened at the Innovation Centre on Thursday, April 12; Living Building- The Ethel Lane House and Daylighting the Classroom.

The Ethel Lane House is a documentary by Denise Kenney and UBCO undergraduate students in the Interdisciplinary Performance program. It follows the building of a remarkable 600 sq. foot home from the first stake in the garden to the last energy use test results a year after completion. The building is designed to function as cleanly and efficiently as a flower and is lovingly crafted for a family member with a developmental disability.

Daylighting the Classroom is a documentary produced by BFA alumni, Shimshon Obadia. The film follows Shimshon as he works alongside passionate environment students from École K.L.O. Middle School to restore their schoolyard’s natural environment after finding crushed turtle eggs in their long jump pits. This documentary watches a long ignored wetland see daylight through art and the discovery of the educational resource goldmine that is the natural world.

Daylighting the Classroom was just named “Official Selection” of the Creation International Film Festival and the 2018 Cinema WorldFest Awards!

“Our intention is to bring the communities together that were involved in both projects for the screenings and then to facilitate discussion regarding development practices and ecological issues in the Okanagan.” Says Denise Kenney. “We look forward to sharing these stories with the communities that created them!”

Tickets for this event are by donation, and will be available at the door.

Find out more about the FCCS Spring Festival.