2014 IGS Conference Organizers

2014 marks the fifth year that the Graduate Students in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies have taken the lead in organizing the IGS Grad Student Conference. This year’s conference, entitled Rethinking Sustainability: New Critical and Cultural Horizons, will be held May 2-3rd on UBC’s Okanagan Campus.

The organization of this years conference is being coordinated by interdisciplinary graduate students for graduate students across disciplines; Mina Rajabi Paak (Co- Chair), Shandell Houlden (Co-Chair), Spela Grasic, Matt M. Husain, Joanne Taylor, Max Dickeson, Fabian Cid Yañez, Camilo Peña, Katey Kyle, David Kadish, and Jeannette Angel. Organizing and running a conference offers a unique opportunity for students to become familiarized with aspects of academia beyond writing and studying, such as communicating between departments, applying for funding, organizing catering, volunteers and so on.

When thinking about ‘sustainability,’ it is common to assume a connection to environmental discourse and practice, rather than consideration of sustainability itself as a framework of maintenance, legacy, and change. But what exactly is ‘sustainability’? And what does it mean to practice sustainability? Is this a framework exclusively applicable to environmental practices and thought? Or can the concept of sustainability, or the question of what it means to sustain, be applied more broadly to the study of literature, anthropology or mathematics? How do epistemologies of sustainability vary across fields? In short, what do we sustain? What becomes normatively understood as deserving sustaining?

This year’s conference welcomes keynote speaker, Sarah de Leeuw from the University of Northern BC.  de Leeuw’s research is focused on relationships between people in place – this often includes how people care for or account for each other, mobilize power in relation to each other, or even how they relate to each other creatively and/or strategically.

The conference will also host an Eco Cultures Discussion with conference participants and invited guests Professors Denise Kenney

Jeannette Angel getting ready to install “Materiality” in the FINA Gallery

(Interdisciplinary Performance), Jodey Castricano (Critical Animal Studies) and recent MFA Graduate Cathy Stubington. The discussion is intended to generate conversation on the role of the arts in sustainability across multiple communities.

This discussion will be held in conjunction with the FINA Gallery Exhibition Materiality featuring interactive works on the relationship between nature and technology by David Kadish and Jeannette Angel, as well as a poetry reading by Kelly Shepherd on May 3 at 11:45am.

The exhibition will be open for the two days of the conference May 2 & 3rd, 9-4pm in the FINA Gallery in the CCS Building at UBC Okanagan.

In addition, the conference will close with a reception in the UNC ballroom, beginning at 4:00 PM on Saturday May 3rd.  Tickets for the reception will be $15, payable at the door; purchase of a ticket includes appetizers and one drink, with additional drinks purchasable at the bar. For more information, you can email the conference organizers at igsconference2014@gmail.com.

Visit our blog to view the conference program and for registration information.

Stephen foster, Re-mediating Curtis video still

WHAT: Indigenous Media and the Post Colonial Imagination
WHEN: Wednesday, March 19, 2 to 3:30 p.m.
WHERE: CCS 142, UBC Okanagan Campus
ADMISSION: Free

As part of the FCCS Research Series, Emerging Visions: Digital Media and Culture,  Stephen Foster will discuss his current research projects with Jason Edward Lewis Skins, Storytellers And Second Lives and Re-Mediating Curtis.

Re-mediating and remixing mass culture representation of indigeneity. From early cinema to video games, history has shown that new technologies play a critical role in shaping how Aboriginal people are perceived by Western culture. Lewis and Foster reframe mass media representation of indigenous peoples incorporating new technologies and contemporary forms of media. Their practice-based creative research critiques and subverts images of Indianess while extending the tradition of aboriginal storytelling through new media including video games, interactive installation and stereoscopic photography. .

Stephen Foster is an Associate Professor in the Creative Studies Department, teaching courses dedicated to video production, digital media, and visual and cultural theory.
Foster is a digital media artist and researcher of mixed Haida and European background whose work deals with issues of Indigenous representation in popular culture through personal narrative.

Emerging Visions: Digital Media and Culture is sponsored by Green College UBC and the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, UBC Okanagan. For more information on the research series, visit www.ubc.ca/okanagan/fccs/research/areas-of-expertise/media/emergingvisions.html

As part of our ongoing efforts to recognize contributions and excellence in a variety of areas, FCCS has established three 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.

The Teaching Awards for Excellence and Innovation were first awarded in the fall of 2013. Allison Hargreaves was the recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award, and Karis Shearer was the recipient of the Teaching Innovation Award. This year, we are excited to introduce the Community Engagement Award and the Service Award.

For information about nominating FCCS faculty, staff, or students, please see  the information below.

Community Engagement Award – This award recognizes excellence in community engagement within the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS). Community engagement is defined, in the context of this award, as an activity or activities that make a significant and positive impact on communities beyond the University.

Dean Wisdom Tettey (centre) presents the new FCCS awards for Teaching Excellence and Teaching Innovation to winners Karis Shearer (left) and Allison Hargreaves (right).

Service Award – This award recognizes excellence in service within the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS). Service is defined, in the context of this award, as significant and positive contribution to the work of a department, the Faculty, and/or the University.

Teaching Awards for Excellence and Innovation– These awards are designed to recognize one faculty member for teaching excellence and one faculty member for teaching innovation each year within Creative and Critical Studies.

Information about nominations can be found on our web site www.ubc.ca/okanagan/fccs/about.html

WHAT: Alterknowledge Discussion Series – Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden
WHEN: Friday, March 14, 7-8:30pm
WHERE: Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, 421 Cawston Ave.

Following a screening of Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden, a documentary directed by Carol Black, UBC student Alana Wittman will facilitate a discussion on the role of formal education as a means of alleviating poverty in the Global South. Featuring interviews with Dolma Tsering, Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Manish Jain, and Wade Davis, Schooling the World takes a critical look at the ideal of progress that informs formal education and argues that formal education can produce harm as well as opportunity.

The AlterKnowledge discussion series brings together faculty and/or students affiliated with the Cultural Studies Program at UBC’s Okanagan campus and members of the Kelowna community to foster discussions about topics related to Culture, Power, and Identity. The series is organized by Allison Hargreaves and David Jefferess, and is held at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, downtown Kelowna in the RCA, 421 Cawston Ave.

For more information on the Alterknowledge Discussion series, visit our web site www.ubc.ca/okanagan/fccs/news-events/ongoing/alterknowledge.html