Climate professor receives $2.5 million grant to document stories globally
Fires rage, floods devastate, storms surge: every day we hear about the impacts of climate change, with ever-increasing casualty counts and infrastructure damage tipping into the billions. But all too often, climate politics and media reporting favour the voices of...
UVic theatre grad headed to London for MFA
El Newell receives the Spirit of the Phoenix Award from professor Peter McGuire (photo: Sadie Kupery)With over 200 students graduating from Fine Arts on June 12, we're not able to profile everyone but Theatre student El Newell is an outstanding representative of her...
Climate Disaster Project play wins award
Congratulations go out to the Climate Disaster Project on winning Silver in the "Environmental and Climate Change" category at the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards on June 1 for Eyes of the Beast:Climate Disaster Survivor Stories, a documentary play about...
Instructor & Lehan Lecturer wins $25K award
Congratulations go out to Theatre instructor and 2025 Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Lecturer d’bi.young anitafrika, who has been awarded a $25,000 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize. An internationally acclaimed Black-queer-feminist non-binary dub poet,...
New Phoenix season announced
While the 2024/25 academic season is coming to a close, it's the ideal time to pick up a subscription to the 2025/26 mainstage season at UVic's Phoenix Theatre. This year, we saw a remarkable season highlighted by productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling...
Distinguished Alumni Award winner: Chari Arespacochaga
Chari Arespacochaga is an acclaimed theatre director and educator at the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University (FSU) where she is the Director of the MFA Directing Program. Her theatrical direction credits include Rent, Kinky Boots (Short North Stage), The...
Submission call for $1K Student Impact Awards!
Are you a current or graduating Fine Arts student who’s been involved with some community-engaged creative activity between January 1 2024 & May 31 2025? If so, you could qualify for $1,000 via our annual juried, donor-funded Community Impact Awards. Since 2021,...
New Indigenous student listserv
Xʷkʷənəŋistəl | W̱ ȻENEṈISTEL | Helping to move each other forward—UVic’s Indigenous Plan Are you an Indigenous student in any of our Fine Arts units (Art History & Visual Studies, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts or Writing)? If so, you may like to sign up for our...
Distinguished Alumni Awards: Cassandra Miller
We are thrilled that Cassandra Miller is the recipient of one of the 2025 Presidents’ Alumni Awards. Born in Victoria, Cassandra received her Bachelor of Music in Composition and Theory from UVic in 2005; her brother, the award-winning graphic designer Emrys Damon...
Phoenix Theatre is seeing double with Twelfth Night
Running March 13-22, the final mainstage production of Phoenix's 24/25 season is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Shipwrecked and separated from her twin brother Sebastian, Viola disguises herself as a young man to serve Duke Orsino. What follows is a whirlwind of...
Supporting the next generation of writers in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community
Thanks to the Candis Graham Writing Scholarship, an award created by the Lambda Foundation alongside friends and family of the renowned lesbian-feminist writer and teacher, UVic student Zoe Bechtold is able to explore her diverse interests in writing and performance...
Orion Lectures: Michelle Chawla
The OrionLecture Series in Fine ArtsThrough the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:Photo: Christian LalondeMichelle Chawla Director & CEO, Canada Council for the Arts A...
2025 Lehan Lecture: d’bi.young anitafrika
When it comes to activism and the arts, it’s hard to think of anyone more suitable than d’bi.young anitafrika. The author of 12 plays, seven albums and four poetry collections, they embody, create and teach decolonial performance praxis on a global scale. The third...
The Killing Game at the Phoenix
The latest mainstage production at our Phoenix Theatre is Eugène Ionesco's absurdist comedy The Killing Game. Directed by Theatre professor Conrad Alexandrowicz, from a translation by Helen Gary Bishop, The Killing Game transcends the ordinary by offering a surreal,...
Orion Lectures: “Thriving in the Arts” & “Connecting Audiences”
The OrionLecture Series in Fine ArtsThrough the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:“Thriving in the Arts” & “Connecting Audiences” Sara Topham & Pablo Felices-Luna, Visiting...
Top 10 Fine Arts stories of 2024
There’s no better time than the start of a new year for a moment of reflection on the previous year’s accomplishments. With that in mind, we're happy to present the Fine Arts Top 10 of 2024: an inspiring series of story highlights about our students, faculty and...
Get festive with Fine Arts
If there's one thing we can all agree on, the winter holiday season is the one time of the year where people join together to enjoy the biggest range of festivities. From concerts, plays and readings to holiday films, it seems like there's a bit of everything ready to...
Call for grad student proposals: ONC ArtScience Fellowship Program
Call for grad student proposals: ONC ArtScience Fellowship ProgramUVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) are calling for graduate student applications for the paid 2025 ONC ArtsScience Fellowship program. Note: the application period closes on...
Explore UVic on Nov 30
Considering a future as a student in UVic's Faculty of Fine Arts? Join us on Saturday, Nov 30, as we open our doors as part of Explore UVic—UVic's free, all-day open house. We’ve created a fun-filled day of student panels, sample lectures, presentations, tours and...
Jeannette Armstrong and Lina de Guevara awarded Honorary Doctorates
The Faculty of Fine Arts is thrilled to announce that Jeannette Armstrong will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) and Lina de Guevara will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA) at the Fall 2024 Fine Arts convocation ceremony. You can watch as...
2024 Student Impact Award winners
Since 2021, the Fine Arts Student Community Impact Awards have recognized individual achievements or outstanding efforts made by full-time Fine Arts undergraduate students beyond their traditional studies. Open to submissions from across the faculty, these juried...
Orion Series presents Carleigh Baker
The Orion Lecture Series in Fine Arts Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present: Carleigh Baker Writer "Writing Fiction in our Complicated Contemporary World" 2:30-3:50pm,...
Orion Series presents Atom Egoyan
The OrionLecture Series in Fine ArtsThrough the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:Atom Egoyan Writer, Director, Producer In Conversation with Atom Egoyan (Q & A) Moderator:...
World premiere of climate disaster play at Phoenix Theatre
People across Canada came together to help one another during recent climate disasters, and now Neworld Theatre and the Climate Disaster Project are bringing those true-life stories to the stage. Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories is the first...
Theatre grad Medina Hahn is choosing her own path
Medina Hahn with Daniel Arnold in Inheritance (David Cooper photo)Any professional actor will tell you that success in the industry demands a combination of talent, determination and plain old hard work. But Vancouver-based actor, singer and writer Medina Hahn (BFA...
World premiere climate play coming in September
A Neworld Theatre production presented by the Climate Disaster Project in association with the University of Victoria’s Department of Theatre, Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Stories is about ordinary people surviving these extraordinary times. Adapted from the...
Externally funded research (select)
Heather Igloliorte (centre) speaking as part of the Distinguished Women Scholars event at Legacy Gallery's 2024 exhibit, Latent (Beth Bingham photo)Each year, Fine Arts faculty members receive external funding for their ongoing creative and scholarly projects. This is...
“This funding is an absolute lifesaver“
100 Years of Broadway (Jaeden Walton photo)Carson SchmidtRoad vs Wade (Megan Farrell photo)While Theatre student Carson Schmidt never knew the late Fine Arts donor Jack Henshaw, his success as an undergraduate is exactly what Jack had in mind with his JTS Scholarship,...
Students & seniors work towards wellness
Over the past several decades, Applied Theatre artists have been developing activities that help communities access joy and connection with others. This spring, a group of third-year Applied Theatre students learned how to facilitate interactive, creative workshops...
Snapshot of a year
We're excited to share with you the latest edition of the Faculty of Fine Arts Annual Review. While it's always difficult to encapsulate an entire year's worth of activity into a single 36-page magazine, we do enjoy the creative challenge of sharing our top stories...
Laura Ramoso is that one girl who became an internet sensation
Laura Ramoso live on stage (Angelo Manalac photo) Like many artists, Theatre alumna and comedy sensation Laura Ramoso (BFA ’16), struggled to find a way to practise her craft when the pandemic turned out the stage lights in 2020. Her fledgling career in live comedy...
Summer Arts Series now registering
Looking to add some hands-on art-making to your summer plans? Curious about how art can transform our experience of the world and the way we engage with each other? The UVic Summer Arts Series is back in July with a series of Fine Arts alumni-led public workshops...