Tania Willard, of Secwépemc and settler heritage, works within the shifting ideas around contemporary and traditional, often working with bodies of knowledge and skills that are conceptually linked to her interest in intersections between Aboriginal and other cultures. Public Art projects include, Rule of the Trees, a public art project at Commercial Broadway sky train station, in Vancouver BC and If the Drumming Stops, with artist Peter Morin, on the lands of the Papaschase First Nation in Edmonton, AB. Willard’s ongoing collaborative project BUSH gallery, is a conceptual land-based gallery grounded in Indigenous knowledges and relational art practices. Willard is an assistant professor at UBCO, her current research constructs a land rights aesthetic through intuitive archival acts.

www.taniawillard.ca

My primary area of interest is the writing of lyric poetry. Guided by poetic history, tradition, form, and genre, my poems engage specifically with the post-colonial imaginaries and eco-cultures of Vancouver Island and the central Okanagan. Since 2014, my research has also included a significant interest in embodied poetics, disability aesthetics, and access, which I’ve explored through social practice art and creative nonfiction. I also work in short fiction, the primary theme being working-class history and lives.

Katherine Pickering is a Lecturer in Visual Arts at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, BC. Pickering’s current research focuses on night-time perception and its effect on the development of abstract painting.. She has participated in several artists’ residencies including The Room’s Terra Nova National Park residency in Newfoundland; the Vermont Studio Centre’s residency in Johnson, Vermont and the Figure in a Mountain Landscape thematic residency at the Banff Centre, Alberta.

Alifa Bandali is an instructor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, B.C. Dr. Bandali’s research focuses on feminist activism both in institutional and creative spaces. Her PhD thesis titled: Paid to care: Women’s experiences in non-profit/NGO work in Malaysia examined how women working in the non-profit/NGO sector saw themselves in their work and the meaningfulness of ‘good work’.

Toby Lawrence is a settler-Canadian curator, writer, and researcher based on Vancouver Island. Her work is grounded in collaborative, decolonial, and intersectional feminist methodologies. Toby has held curatorial and programming positions with the Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Nanaimo Art Gallery, and Studio 111, an experimental arts laboratory in Kelowna supported by the UBC Okanagan Creative Studies in partnership with the Alternator Centre for the Contemporary Art from 2016 to 2017. She is an organizer and founder of the Islands Curatorial Collective, an annual gathering and support networks that fosters dialogue amongst creative and curatorial practitioners across the Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands region of British Columbia. She holds an MA in Art History from the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia and BA (Hons) from the University of Victoria. Currently, she teaches art history at Vancouver Island University and is working toward a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

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https://www.megyamamoto.com

Assistant to the Creative Studies Department Head - i.e. booking appointments
Departmental financial support
Departmental HR support
Visual Arts program support

Education:

Bachelor of Fine Arts

Bachelor of Education (in Adult Education)

Master of Education (Adult, Community and Higher Education specialization)

Assistant to the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies – i.e. booking appointments.
Support for research and grant-related committees.
FCCS student and faculty research awards.
Faculty promotion and development of promotional material.
Working toward increasing the faculty profile and increasing student enrolment and retention.
FCCS websites, social media.

Provides training and technical support to students and faculty in the Metal Shop.
Provides support for sculpture, printmaking, drawing and painting studios.
Produces CAD drawings for CNC and traditional manufacturing applications.
Works with faculty and staff in teaching and research related operations.
Manages and coordinates updates the workshop facilitates.
Coordinates the maintenance of technical data and records including WHMIS inventory and protocol.
Enters custodial and facilities work requests.
Purchases workshop machinery, supplies and equipment.

Technical support to the FCCS faculty in the areas of video production, photography, film development, digital media, computing and web design.
Teaching, purchasing, assisting and supervising operation of equipment and software.
Support for large scale digital printing and print production operations.

Maintains equipment and provides safety training, technical support and supervision in the Wood Shop.
Provides support for sculpture, printmaking, drawing and painting studios.
Photo documentation and lighting of FINA gallery exhibitions.
Support for the Laser Cutter.
Manages safety gear, eyewash stations, hazardous waste disposal and provides instruction on chemical safety in the studios.
Enters custodial and facilities work requests.
Purchases tools, supplies and equipment for sculpture, printmaking and painting.