You are invited to Border Free Bee’s Pollinator Picnic to celebrate Kelowna’s very first Nectar Trail!

What: Pollinator Picnic
Who: Border Free Bee’s
When: Sunday, June 25, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: Summerhill Pyramid Winery, 4870 Upper Mission Drive, Kelowna

Rhonda Neufeld

The picnic will take place at the Summerhill Winery Heritage Lawn on Sunday June 25th from 11am to 3 pm. The Pollinator Picnic’s purpose is to raise awareness of the importance of wild pollinators by providing an afternoon full of fun, family-friendly community activities and to celebrate the wild success of The Kelowna Nectar Trail Project. We aim to have booths and displays set up from our many community partners. There will be music and a great creation opportunity for kids and adults: A Swarm in June, a community art project with Armstrong artist Rhonda Neufeld.

The Kelowna Nectar Trail is a 7.4 km series of flowery stepping stones through the south Mission neighbourhood that helps pollinators move safely through the urban landscape. The more than 80 businesses and private homes, as well as every single school along the route, who have signed on to the Trail will be invited as special BeeIPs (Bee Important People). The Nectar Trail has already inspired other community groups to create Nectar Trails in their own neighbourhoods- Glenmore neighbours are hosting a nectar trail project and UBC is creating a nectar trail through the campus.

The Pollinator Picnic and the Kelowna Nectar Trail are part of Border Free Bees, a SSHRC-funded research project that uses art and design to inspire conservation and stewardship of native bees. The Kelowna Nectar Trail has brought together UBC students and faculty members, environmental partners, community groups, and members of the public, and is supported by a grant from Go Wild, a community initiative funded by Telus through the World Wildlife Federation.

For more information contact Kelowna@borderfreebees.com or visit borderfreebees.com/events/upcoming-events.
Nancy Holmes, Associate Professor, nancy.holmes@ubc.ca, 250-764-9666

Do Not Erase, 2017 BFA graduating student exhibition

Awards given to graduating BFA students recognize academic and artistic achievements

guests at the 2017 BFA graduating exhibition gala reception

The gala reception for this year’s BFA graduation exhibition, Do Not Erase, was another successful event with over 350 community members, students, faculty and staff in attendance.

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.

Awards were given to the following students from the 2017 graduating class:

The Wilden Creativity Award: Rho Shaw

Norma and Jack Aitken Prize in Visual Arts: Gabe Delaney

Asper Graduating Prize: Shannon England

DVC Purchase Awards: Rho Shaw, Gabe Delaney, Pamela Turner & Jackie Deck

FCCS Dean’s Office Purchase Award: Gary Dewhurst

Creative Studies Department Award: Shayla Ritchie & Pamela Turner

Left to right: Wilden award recipient, Rho Shaw, Jackie Deck, Karin Eger-Blenk and Pamela Turner

FCCS is grateful to the donors who make these awards possible for emerging artists in our community. The Wilden Creativity Award is given to a student who has produced a body of work that reflects a powerful message as well as a high level of originality, passion and accomplishment. The Asper Graduating Prize is awarded to a graduating student who has completed course work and project work in video production at the Asper Centre for Artists’ Video. The Norma and Jack Aitken Prize in Visual Arts has been endowed by the family and friends of Norma and Jack Aitken to honour their memory and to recognize Norma Aitken’s lifelong contributions to the visual arts.

In each studio course in Visual Arts, students create works which are frequently displayed in the FINA Gallery in the Creative and Critical Studies building. Visit our new blog showcasing some of our current student works.

Photo of the medieval manuscripts

Claudio García Turza, one of the most renowned scholars worldwide in the study of the history of the origins of Romance languages, spent three weeks on campus working with faculty and students as one of this year’s FCCS Visiting Scholars.

During his visit, Dr. Turza donated a facsimile of three medieval manuscripts that belong to the Royal Academy of History in Spain. The manuscripts show the first examples of a romance language that were originally held at the monastery of San Millan de la Cogolla. As the director of the Centro Internacional de Investigación de la Lengua Española , Dr. Turza was in charge in the transcription, study and notation of the manuscripts.

left to right: Paige Hohmann, Diana Carter, Claudio Garcia Turza, Robert Eggleston, Stephen Foster, Francisco Pena

Dr. Turza brought these valuable books that contain the facsimile and edited volumes of these medieval manuscripts as a gift to UBCO as a token of the collaboration that is being establishing between UBC and the Centro Internacional de Investigacion de la Lengua Espanola (Research Centre for the Study of the Spanish Language).

“We are exceptionally fortunate to be able to accept this kind donation from Dr. Turza as a visiting scholar,” says Paige Hohmann, Special Collections Librarian.

The titles of the manuscripts are:

• Fuentes españolas altomedievales. El códice emilianense 46 de la Real Academia de la Historia, primer diccionario enciclopédico de la Península Ibérica. Edición y estudio. Real Academia de la Historia, 1997
• El códice emilianense 31 de la Real Academia de la Historia. Real Academia de la Historia, 2004.
• Los primitivos romances hispánicos. Nuevas aportaciones desde los glosarios visigóticos. Cilengua, 2011

Located in the Library on UBC’s Okanagan Campus, the Okanagan Special Collections (OSC) provides a repository for titles published in and about the Okanagan and neighbouring regions of British Columbia, a variety of titles that support the teaching and learning needs of the campus, as well as archival collections that present the rich and dynamic history of the region. The collection mandate also extends to publications of and special donations from faculty at UBC Okanagan.

For more information about the Special Collection, visit library.ok.ubc.ca/use-the-library/collections/special-collections-archives/

The Assembly, a participatory installation by Victoria-based artist and 2015 FCCS artist-in-resident Jeroen Witvliet

UBC Okanagan and the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art have always enjoyed a mutual relationship. Over the last year, the Creative Studies department has made Studio 111 an exciting and busy place, a space that has operated through Alternator and is located in the Rotary Centre for the Arts.

Studio 111 is an experimental arts laboratory and exhibition space, and is a great opportunity for our students to have a more active role in community outreach. Activities in this space are centred on contemporary art practices, processes, and ideas in the form of exhibition, studio experimentation, collaboration, residencies, and events. The space has been host to a wide variety of activities, including the Visiting Artist Mentorship Program, Reading the Valley panels and workshops, and continues to be a space for FCCS students, alumni, and artists from the Okanagan region and beyond.

“The space allows for more visibility of the programs offered in Creative Studies, and allows our students, alumni, and faculty to showcase their creative work to the wider community within the downtown core.” Says Ashok Mathur, dept. head for Creative Studies.

The primary significance of Studio 111 is in its focus on experimentation. Toby Lawrence, a PhD student in FCCS, has been working to bring activities into this space that are not confined to the parameter of conventional art galleries.

“As a curator and researcher concerned with collaborative and dialogic practices, the visibility, accessibility, and space for experimentation and creative-research is crucial for exploring the social construction of ideas and relationships through art.” s Toby.

Throughout March and April 2017, The Assembly, a participatory installation by Victoria-based artist and 2015 FCCS artist-in-resident Jeroen Witvliet, will occupy Studio 111. Paintings presented as banners draw on source material from civilian responses to oppressive situations—political, racial, and/or economical. Unmediated and unmonitored in this gallery setting, the banners are used as props to situate the viewers as active participants in the experience and production of the meaning of the work.

Studio 111

Programming proposals from emerging and established artists, curators, and creative practitioners are accepted on an ongoing basis. The space is approximately 430 ft2. For inquiries, contact: Toby Lawrence, curator/facilitator at ubcostudio111@gmail.com

Studio 111 is supported by the University of British Columbia Okanagan Faculty of Creative & Critical Studies and co-organized by the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.

Studio 111, Rotary Centre for the Arts, 111-421 Cawston Ave., Kelowna, BC

We are excited to announce the 2nd annual Student Okanagan Film Festival! SOFF continues a tradition of celebrating emerging student filmmakers of the Okanagan Valley.

Submissions for this festival are now being accepted until April 18th. To submit your short film, please go to: soff.ok.ubc.ca 

The screening will take place at the Mary Irwin Theatre on Monday May 8, and will showcase short films from a wide range of genres including mini-documentary, experimental, music videos, animation, short narrative & more!

Admission for this event will be by donation.

Claudio García Turza is one of the most renowned scholars worldwide in the study of the history of the origins of Romance languages. He has combined his teaching with intense research work covering almost all areas of Hispanic linguistics. His research focuses on Medieval Studies, Spanish Language, Spanish Dialectology and Historical Linguistics of the Spanish Language.

Dr. García Turza was invited to be one of 2017’s Visiting Scholars by UBC’s Dr. Diana Carter, Instructor of Spanish, and Dr. Francisco Peña, Associate Professor of Spanish.

“During his visit to UBCO, Professor Turza will be working on a digital humanities project with FCCS researchers, as well as lending his insight, expertise and years of experience to linguistics students and professors in the Anthropology and Spanish programs,” says Dr. Carter. “We are very excited to have Professor Turza as the FCCS Visiting Scholar this year.”

Claudio García Turza is a leader in the academic community in Spain. He is Full Professor in History of the Spanish Language at the University of La Rioja in Spain and the Director of the Instituto Orígenes del Español (Origins of the Spanish Language Institute) at the Centro Internacional de Investigación de la Lengua Española. He is a member of both the Royal Spanish Academy of Language and the Royal Spanish Academy of History.

Claudio Garcia Turza will spend a four weeks on campus from March 4 to 28, 2017 working with students, faculty and offering a public lecture.

What: Public Talk | La génesis y los orígenes históricos del español (The genesis and historical origins of Spanish)
When: Wednesday, March 15, 2:00 pm
Where: UNC 325, UBC Okanagan Campus

Please note the talk will be in Spanish, with notes provided in English

Contact:
Diana Carter, PhD
Spanish Program Coordinator
diana.carter@ubc.ca