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.

The Faculty of Creative & Critical Studies is pleased to welcome Professor Alison Conway, who joined English (FCCS) and Gender and Women’s Studies (IKBSAS) this past January, after twenty-three years at The University of Western Ontario.

Professor Conway has been the recipient of a number of teaching awards throughout her career and is the author of two books, Private Interests: Women, Portraiture, and the Visual Culture of the English Novel, 1709-1791 (2001) and The Protestant Whore: Courtesan Narrative and Religious Controversy in England, 1680-1750 (2010), and co-editor, with Mary Helen McMurran, of Mind, Body, Motion, Matter: Eighteenth-Century British and French Literary Perspectives (2016).

To find out about Professor Conway’s current research project, listen to the podcast recently produced as part of a new season of UBCO’s Library’s Frequencies series, “Faith and Relationships: Novel Reflections”. In this podcast, she explores how issues of interfaith marriage can be understood and contemporized through the 18th-century novel.

Alison Conway with colleague and running partner, Karis Shearer (left)

In addition to being a scholar and teacher, Alison is an active member of Kelowna’s running community and completed her first marathon this April, with a Boston-qualifying time. Academic and running lives are not as separate as they might seem. In her most recent contribution as a guest-writer to the blog, Fit is a Feminist Issue, Alison considers the relationship between reading and running, with reference to Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

Alison Conway at the Toledo Marathon

“I came back to running at age 50 with all the enthusiasm that anyone setting out after years of double-shifting full-time work and childcare brings to her new hobby. Which is to say, a lot. Reading about running is almost as much fun as running itself, with hearing about other people’s running following close behind. Murakami’s prose reads like running shoes hitting the pavement, carefully measured in its pacing, but also graceful, poetic.”

Listen to Alison talk about running, reading, and kinship here:

Previous seasons of Frequencies explored the open access movement and the relationship between science and society. Check out previous podcasts now!

James Luna performing “Native Stories” during the 2017 Summer Indigenous Intensive

It is with great sadness and mourning that we acknowledge the passing of James Luna, a Payómkawichum/Ipai/Mexican-American Indian. James has produced professional work for over 40 years having an important international impact and influence on contemporary and Indigenous art world wide.

His performance works such as The Artifact Piece (1987/1990), Take a Picture With a Real Indian (1991–93), and his installation series and performance at the Venice Bienale 2005 entitled Emendatio, (to name only a few) have influenced Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists a like. His work has had a profound impact on performance art and contemporary art practice. His legacy will continue to transform us and will be a source of inspiration for future generations of artists to come.

We have been fortunate over the last few years to have James participate in our Summer Indigenous Intensive Residency program at UBC Okanagan. He presented us with some of his greatest performances creating some of the most memorable moments of our residency program. As always, he was incredibly generous with his time and energy as he worked closely with students and faculty challenging us to be better, more thoughtful and engaging.

Through the high standards, he set himself in performance, photography and installation we learned how to be better artists and educators.  Through his presence, we learned how to be better people and trust in ourselves. We are forever grateful for the support and mentorship he provided our students, faculty and our program. We will miss the light and warmth he brought to our world through his art and person.

Student Filmmakers invited to submit to the Student Okanagan Film Festival

What: Student Okanagan Film Festival
Deadline: Monday April 30th, 2018
Where: Mary Irwin Theatre, 421 Cawston Ave

As part of the 2018 Spring Festival, the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies is pleased to present the 3rd annual Student Okanagan Film Festival.

Each year Creative Studies at UBC Okanagan invites emerging student filmmakers enrolled in any school across the Okanagan to submit short films to the SOFF.

“This is a great chance for student filmmakers to see their films or videos on a big screen,” says Myron Campbell, UBCO visual arts professor and an organizer of the series. “It’s rare for students to get an opportunity to watch their movie in a full house, on a huge screen. They’re producing their work on computer monitors, so a movie screening—with their peers—is an awesome opportunity. Last year’s program was amazing. The quality of film is only getting better every year.”

This year’s festival will be held at the Rotary Centre for the Arts’ Mary Irwin Theatre, 421 Cawston Ave, Kelowna, BC V1Y 6Z1, on Monday April 30th, 2018 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Thank you to this year’s SOFF sponsor, The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

The Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre (located in Bamfield, British Columbia and owned by the Universities of British Columbia, Victoria, Alberta, Calgary, and Simon Fraser University) is proud to offer its first English Literature field course.

This course, In Pursuit of the Whale, taught by Dr. Greg Garrard (UBCO) and  Dr. Nicholas Bradley (UVic), will involve close study of literature and films relating to whales and whaling, employing theoretical concepts from ecocriticism (environmentally-oriented cultural criticism) and critical animal studies.

Students will study historic and contemporary cetacean fiction, will be introduced to theory of ecocriticism and critical animal studies and will explore Indigenous perspectives on whales and whaling studies. This unique three-week course will include intensive writing tutorials and field trips to cetacean-related sites.

The BMSC is located in a pristine west coast natural environment with a diversity of coastal habitats. They provide  a dynamic, hands-on learning environment, where the field and lab are the classroom.

In Pursuit of the Whale will run from July 3 to 20, 2018, and can be taken as an upper level undergraduate or a graduate course. Interested students must first apply to the BMSC, and once accepted can then register in the course at UBCO.

For more information on the course and the application procedure, please visit www.bamfieldmsc.com.