Life Stories
to
UVic Legacy Gallery Downtown 630 Yates St, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 1K9
Curator Tour and Interview
with curators Dr. Erin Campbell and Jaiya Anka, and Legacy Director Mary Jo Hughes
Wednesday, January 27 | 5pm
Online Via Zoom
Open to the public | Register online
Join the UVic Alumni Association for an online exploration of Legacy's current exhibition. Life Stories is a poignant exploration of how art shapes our life stories, our sense of self and our relationships, as we journey through the life stages. Curated by three UVic Art History and Visual Studies scholars: Dr. Erin J. Campbell, Professor, Jaiya Anka, PhD Candidate (UVic, MA ‘17); Holly Cecil (BA ’16, MA ’19), Life Stories draws from UVic’s rich art collection. The evening will include a short tour of the exhibition followed by a live interview led by Legacy Director Mary Jo Hughes with the curators and featured artist and alumna Elly Heise (MFA ’20).
If you have any questions, please contact Alumni Relations at 250-721-6000.
Life Stories
With artists: Nina Raginsky, Frank Pimentel, IITTAASHTEXAALIASH Winona Plenty Hoops, Ulli Steltzer, Maxwell Bates and more.
Art shapes our life stories, our sense of self and our relationships, as we journey through the life stages: Beginnings, Childhood, Coming of Age, Maturity, Later Life, and Passages. Life-stages imagery and objects may inspire memories and reflection, offer comfort, joy, and healing, and foster a sense of belonging. However, such imagery can also be a source of cultural stereotypes, engender marginalization, cause pain, and create feelings of loss.
Paintings, drawings, photographs, textiles, ceramics, and furnishings from the university collections evoke a plurality of experiences across the life course. Artist Elly Heise’s installation Related Repose in The Bed Room highlights the intertwining of memory, materiality, and life passages. Interwoven with the artworks are voices of writers, artists, scholars, and curators offering diverse perspectives on significant stages informing our lives.
Curated by Dr. Erin J. Campbell, UVic, Professor, Art History and Visual Studies (BA, MA, & PhD, University of Toronto). Co-curated by Jaiya Anka, UVic Art History and Visual Studies PhD Candidate (UVic, MA ‘17); Holly Cecil (UVic, BA ’16, MA ’19). Related Repose Installation by Elly Heise (UVic, MFA ’20)
Orion Lecture in Fine Arts: Jennifer Baichwal
Wednesday, February 3 | 4pm
Online Via Zoom
Open to the public | Register online
UVic's Faculty of Fine Arts, in sponsorship with the Art History & Visual Studies department, presents an Orion Lecture Series webinar with Canadian documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal, in conversation with writer and director Barbara Todd Hager. Jennifer Baichwal will highlight the “life story” of our planet and how its life stages shape the life stories of human and non-human species. A link to her award-winning, feature-length documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch will be available to registered webinar guests for a limited time before and after the discussion. More info.
Presented by UVic’s Department of Art History & Visual Studies
For more information on this lecture please email: ahvsasst@uvic.ca
Performance - Hearing Voices
Connie Morey responds to Life Stories
Saturdays, February 13, 20, 27 | 11am-12pm
Downtown Victoria
While the exhibition Life Stories gives space to the objects and associated memories that inhabit our lives, Connie Morey’s (UVic MEd ’07, Phd ‘17) performed sculpture Hearing Voices explores the voices and stories of life in seemingly uninhabited spaces. As a way to extend Life Stories beyond what we see and hear in the gallery into the surrounding downtown neighbourhood, Connie will carry a collection of abandoned spaces on her back as she walks through the streets and alleys of Victoria. Through walking, she activates spaces that are seen as inactive, exploring what it might look like to hear the voices of those who inhabit spaces deemed vacant. What is the voice of a decomposing building, of the overgrowth of nature on concrete walls, of the layered processes of graffiti on unkept structures? What are the life stories of the spaces we don’t often see?
Writing from Life Stories
Poetry workshop with Carla Funk
Saturday, March 6 | 1-4pm
Online via Zoom | Participation limited - email legacy@uvic.ca to register
In this three-hour online workshop, writers will draw inspiration from Life Stories, an exhibition that illuminates the various stages and rituals of life through visual and material culture.
Participants will engage with a series of guided prompts and literary experiments designed as a tour and a treasure hunt through both the exhibit and one’s own personal gallery of memory and experience. All literary genres and levels of experience are welcome.
As part of the workshop, writers will have the opportunity to have their work included as part of the interactive Life Stories journal.
Artist Talk with Connie Morey
Wednesday, March 17 | 7-8 pm
Online via Zoom | Register online
Join us online with Victoria-based artist Connie Morey (UVic MEd ’07, Phd ‘17) for a discussion about her performance work Hearing Voices and her broader practice as an artist and educator.