(detail) 山水 Mountain Water, 36″ x 60″, oil on canvas, 2016

What: Rick Leong, Artist in residence
Where: Studio 111 (RCA, downtown Kelowna)
When: November 7 to 12, 2016

For one week Rick Leong will inhabit Studio 111, during which time the public is invited to visit, discuss and explore ideas relating to Rick’s work and the development of a future exhibition to be held in Victoria, BC that explore the influence of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria’s Asian Art collection across Rick’s practice. As a working space, Studio 111 facilitates a concentrated period of time for Rick and curator Toby Lawrence to collaborate on and experiment with ideas in a public forum. This open studio/residency model introduces Rick’s praxis to Kelowna and enables the curatorial process to be dialogical–extending exhibition development as, and beyond, a conversation between artists and curator.

As visitors of this territory, we honour and acknowledge the traditional lands of the Syilx peoples on which the activities of Experimental Production of an Idea take place.

Rick Leong is a Victoria-based artist of third generation Chinese Canadian and European ancestry. Drawn from observation and influenced by historical Chinese art forms, Rick’s work investigates the interconnectedness of the land and is rooted in a bilingual vocabulary and style. Rick obtained his MFA from Concordia University (Montreal, 2007), and his thesis work was acquired by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In 2008, he was a finalist in the Royal Bank of Canada’s Painting Competition, touring to the National Gallery of Canada, the Power Plant (Toronto) and the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver). In addition to having participated in many group exhibitions at various Canadian and international spaces, Rick has exhibited solo at Two Rivers Gallery (Prince George), Anna Leonowens Gallery (Halifax), the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and the McClure Gallery (Montreal).

Toby Lawrence is a curator, writer and researcher of mixed Canadian European ancestry based between Kelowna and Gabriola Island, on the traditional lands of the Syilx and Snuneymuxw peoples. Her curatorial work draws from feminist pedagogies and explores collective methods and models founded in dialogue. Recent exhibitions include the multi-site, collaborative performance and video installation Speaking Outside (2016); In Another Place, And Here (2015), co-curated with Michelle Jacques, exploring geographic relationships through international photo-based practices; Carlos Colín’s Definciones (Definitions) (2015); Dana Claxton’s Indian Candy (2014); and Conversations with Lucie Rie (2014). Toby has held curatorial and programming positions with the Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Nanaimo Art Gallery and the University of Victoria Legacy Art Galleries. She obtained a MA in Art History & Theory from UBC in Vancouver and is currently working toward a PhD in the Faculty of Creative & Critical Studies at UBC Okanagan.

What: Who are the Caretakers in your Parks?
When: Sunday, Oct. 23, 1-4 pm
Where: Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre, 969 Raymer Road

Join a community-led conversation! The Community-Based Environmental Art class at UBCO invites you to come for conversation and tea and, if you like, to make some fabulous art on Sunday, October 23.

Drop in any time between 1 and 4 PM to the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre, 969 Raymer Road, Kelowna. We will celebrate the social and cultural values of people in parks with a family-friendly, enjoyable event led by three local artists: MFA student Tania Willard, from the Secwepemc First Nation, has worked with the Vancouver Parks board, has just won this year’s Vancouver Book Prize, and is one of five curators for the ground-breaking nationwide “art in the national parks” initiative, LandMarks2017; Chelsea Robinson is a BFA student who gathers community around food and conversation to further cultural exchange; Asia Jong is an art history student who won an FCCS research award last summer to explore cultural heritage in her community.

Join these students and artists, make some park-focussed art with them, and talk to people in the community and neighbourhood about parks and cultural and social stewardship. If you remember, bring a tea cup and help us save a paper cup!

Contact Nancy Holmes at nancy.holmes@ubc.ca for more information.

What: echo + seashell – Artist talk and performance
When: Monday, Oct. 17 from 1 – 2 PM
Where: CCS 144, UBC Okanagan Campus

The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies is please to welcome echo + seashell for an artist talk and performance as part of Neil Cadger’s Theatre 482 class on Monday, October 17th, 1:00pm.

echo + seashell was founded in 2011 by artists Henna Hyvärinen (Finland) and Susan Kooi (Netherlands) when they met at an art-student residency in Germany. Performing in venues ranging from concert halls to art spaces, the duo is interested in how they can fit into the existing locales they come to occupy through their creative practice. Utilizing film screening paired with live performance, echo + seashell seek to create site-specific experiences for viewers around the world and have performed at various locations across Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany.

On their first Canadian tour echo + seashell are producing new songs, texts and videos as they travel throughout Western Canada, culminating with a performance at the M:ST Festival in Calgary on October 21.

Henna Hyavärinen received her MFA from the University of Arts Helsinki, Finland. She is member/curator of artist-run gallery, Sorbus, in Helsinki.
Susan Kooi received her BA in Fine Arts from Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Kooi is a member of Samet Yilmaz artist collective in Rotterdam.

2016 FCCS Award Recipients: (left to right) Briar Craig, Marianne Legault, Shirley McDonald, Myron Campbell

As part of our ongoing efforts to recognize contributions and excellence in a variety of areas, FCCS has established four awards for the members of the FCCS community. These awards present FCCS with yet another opportunity to express gratitude for the contributions that advance our mission and the objectives of our strategic plan, and to shine the spotlight on those contributions.

This year’s award recipients are Briar Craig (Visual Arts), Shirley McDonald (English), Marianne Legault (French) and Myron Campbell (Visual Arts).

The year’s recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award is Briar Craig. Briar received this award on the basis of students support and teaching evaluations. Briar’s students note that he has a clear and concise teaching style; he offers fair and constructive feedback on assignments, taking the time to write a full and thoughtful critique for each student; and that he expands his teaching outside of the classroom by encouraging them to submit their work to exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally.

The 2016 Teaching Innovation Award recipients is Shirley McDonald for her work with Ramine Adl on a project called “Stopping Plagiarism Before It Starts,” (funded by an Innovation in Teaching and Learning Grant). The focus of this project is to talk to students about the prevention of plagiarism rather than penalizing inadvertent cases of plagiarism that arise in papers and essays.

Marianne Legault is the recipient of the 2016 Service Award for her contributions to the Faculty over the 2015 academic year. Marianne has generously given her time and expertise in the service of FCCS over the past year, and has worked with various areas of the University, both at the Okanagan and Vancouver campus, to promote FCCS and to assist with recruitment initiatives.

The 2016 Community Engagement Award recipients is Myron Campbell. Over the past year Myron has spent a number of hours working with the community in a variety of ways, including working with the Community Service Learning Program on campus in which his students work with community organizations to produce promotional videos for their programs or initiatives. Myron is also the creator of Draw By Night, a collaborative drawing party that involves faculty, students, industry and the general public.

To learn more about the FCCS Awards and the nomination process, please visit www.ubc.ca/okanagan/fccs/awards.html

Film Screening and Q & A with Jennifer Ruth Hosek  

The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies is please to present two screening of the film, Rodando en La Habana: bicycle stories. 

When: Wednesday, October 12, 4-5pm
Where: UBCO Campus, Reichwald Health and Science Centre, RHS 260. (This screening is presented as part of FILM 100 with Denise Kenney.)

When: Wednesday, October 12, 7pm
Where: Okanagan College Theatre. (This screening is presented as part of the Hispanic Cinema Retrospective 2016: Viva Cuba supported by OC and FCCS)

Rodando en La Habana: bicycle stories (30 min) Spanish with English subtitles, Santos and Hosek) is a tale of bicycling and community in Havana today, 20 years after the hardest time of the Special Period, when over one-million Chinese bicycles were imported to aid survival on an island suddenly without Soviet petroleum.

This collaborative documentary premiered at the 2015 Festival of New Latin American Cinema, is screening at venues including Cine Pobre and the International Bicycle Film Festival, and will be broadcast on Telesur TV.

Jennifer Hosek

Filmmaker and scholar Jennifer Ruth Hosel is an Assocaite Professor of German Studies and affiliated with Film and MEdia and Cultural STudies at Queen’s University. Her work includes Sun, Sex and Socialism: Cuba in the German Imaginary (U Toronto, 2012). Current projects include a monograph on urban movement and cinema and the eTandem exchange LinguaeLive.ca

Bee Hotel. photo credit: Geoff Campbell

UBC’s Public Art Pollinator Pasture Project will hosting two big events at the Kelowna Art Gallery in October.

“Making Insect Hotels” is the UBC/ Kelowna Art Gallery Culture Days event on Saturday, October 1 from 10 am – 4 PM.  You can help designer Evan Hutchinson build a home for pollinators. Many solitary bees and other insects live in bee hotels all over the world. Evan is building a hotel to be permanently placed at Brent’s Grist Mill Heritage site as part of The Public Art Pollinator Pasture Project.  This family-friendly event is held in conjunction with the exhibition For All is For Yourself. On October 1, the public is also invited to participate in an open mic at 1:30 PM.  Local writers and bee-lovers are invited to come and share their pollinator poetry. See  http://kelownaartgallery.com/culture-days-2016/

“What We Can Learn From Bees” is a talk by Dr. Mark Winston on Thursday, October 6, 7 – 8:30 PM at the Kelowna Art Gallery. Mark Winston is that rare individual, a scientist who can speak eloquently to the public.  Recognized as one of the world’s leading expert on bees and pollination, Dr. Winston believes humans can learn a lot from the bees in terms of building a balanced community.  “Bees are an extraordinarily collaborative society, in which the good for society always comes first,” he says. Come and hear Dr. Winston’s talk and reading from his remarkable book, the Governor General’s award-winning Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive.  We ask that people preregister for this event at:  https://drmarkwinston.eventbrite.ca

Both events are free admission and will be held in the front project space of the Kelowna Art Gallery at 1315 Water St.  Community members interested in weeding, seeding, constructing insect hotels, and planting the pollinator pasture should contact the project at ecoartokanagan@gmail.com

Contact UBC Associate Professor Nancy Holmes at nancy.holmes@ubc.ca  or 250-807-9369.    More information is available at ecoartincubator.com.