This January, meet Dean of Arts Dr. Clare Haru Crowston for coffee, tea, and treats. Plus, learn about decolonizing theatre, hear from New Yorker Magazine culture writer Jia Tolentino as part of his year’s Phil Lind Initiative speaker series, and check out a variety of productions from the Arts community.
Welcome Back with Dean Clare
Wednesday, January 10 | 12:00pm | Arts Student Centre
Tickets: Free; RSVP required
Welcome back to UBC! Join Dean of Arts Dr. Clare Haru Crowston for coffee, tea, and treats and ask any questions you may have about the Faculty of Arts.
ResiStories: Reimagining Refugee Memoirs
Thursday, January 11 | 6:30pm | Museum of Vancouver
Tickets: $5-$20
Join the Museum of Vancouver and Public Humanities Hub for a compelling reading of excerpts from the memoirs, Landbridge by the late Dr. Y-Dang Troeung and Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre. Both Y-Dang and Carmen’s novels resist traditional forms of the refugee memoir and examine the problematic image of the “grateful” refugee’s arrival in Canada.
Carmen will be in attendance and Y-Dang’s work will be read by her husband and collaborator, Dr. Chris B. Patterson (aka Kawika Guillermo). The readings will be followed by a conversation with Sociology assistant professor Dr. Amanda Cheong.
Aporia (Notes to a Medium)
Friday, January 12-Sunday, April 14 | Belkin Art Gallery
Tickets: Free
This exhibition considers how history, mythology and wishful thinking entwine across media and through mediums, and includes artists’ works that contend with systems of belief and perception. How images and texts are created and in what context they are seen are determinants in reception, requiring that we ask what is at stake when media and mediums construct realities through images and words that are inconvenient to power. These works confront perception and examine power structures to query art histories, the patriarchy, capitalism, and the acquisition of knowledge.
J.S. Bach: Das Orgelbüchlein
Wednesday, January 17 | 12:00pm | Roy Barnett Recital Hall
Tickets: $0-$10
UBC Music alum Angelique Po will be featured in a rare performance of the organ in the Roy Barnett Recital Hall. J.S. Bach’s Orgelbüchlein is a collection of 46 Lutheran chorale preludes for organ that showcase his development as a composer through this early period of his career.
Nimrods: A Conversation
Wednesday, January 17 | 12:00pm | Buchanan Tower – Room 323
Tickets: Free; RSVP required
Dr. Christopher B. Patterson (aka Kawika Guillermo) will discuss his newly released prose-poetry book, Nimrods, in a conversation with Dr. Mila Zuo about poetry, pictures, and parents.
Nimrods shamelessly mixes autotheory, queer punk poetry, musical ekphrasis, haibun, academic (mis)quotations, and bad dad jokes to present a bold new take on the autobiography: the fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir.
Is this reconciliation? What does it mean to decolonize theatre practice?
Friday, January 19 | 12:00pm | Frederic Wood Theatre
Tickets: Free
Join theatre creators Quelemia Sparrow and Chelsea Haberlin as they discuss the topic of decolonization and theatre.
Quelemia Sparrow, an Indigenous theatre creator from the Musqueam Nation, and Chelsea Haberlin, a white director and producer, have been working together for 10 years on how Indigenous and settler artists can create work together, all while unpacking pre-conceived assumptions about each other, encountering triggers and fears, and striving for real communication across cultural differences. Their journey was one of deep listening, vulnerability and openness.
Asian Independent Cinema Showcase: Drifting Petals 花果飄零
Saturday, January 20 | 2:00pm-5:00pm | Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Tickets: Free; RSVP required
Attend the North American premiere of a film the creators call “a eulogy in memory of the city”. The screening will be followed by a virtual conversation with Director Clara Law 羅卓瑤 and producer/writer Eddie Fong 方令正.
BrassFest!
Sunday, January 21 | 9:00am-6:00pm | Roy Barnett Recital Hall
Tickets: $0-$27
UBC Music’s BrassFest! returns for its 10th annual festival, with masterclasses, workshops and performances by internationally recognized hornist and brass pedagogue Gail Williams, and UBC faculty and students.
The Art of Landing a Job
Wednesday, January 24 | 6:00pm | Arts Student Centre
Tickets: Free; RSVP required
Join this networking opportunity to connect with UBC Arts alumni and find out how you can launch your career with an Arts degree. Gain valuable insights on finding career opportunities, completing job applications, preparing for interviews, and marketing your Arts undergrad skill from alumni with diverse professional backgrounds. Plus, get a free professional headshot for your LinkedIn profile!
Arts Career Conversations is part of a series of events in The Compass: Arts Students Engagement Hub.
Jia Tolentino: Who’s Afraid of Eating the Rich?
Thursday, January 25 | 6:00pm | Chan Centre
Tickets: Free; RSVP required
This year’s Phil Lind Initiative speaker series takes a look at “pop politics” through the lens of artists who have used their craft to take a political stance. New Yorker Magazine culture writer Jia Tolentino will focus on the recent waves of TV shows and media that make the argument, with varying degrees of sophistication and subtlety, that extreme wealth is unjust, immoral, and corrosive to the human soul. What does this mean, when income inequality is only worsening and poverty itself is almost entirely absent from media and pop culture?
Stories of Change: Documentary Screening + Atlas
Friday, January 26 | 6:30pm | UBC Robson Square
Tickets: Free; RSVP required
Attend an exclusive screening of a climate resilience documentary by the “Stories of Change” project team. This event is not just a film screening, but a journey through the lives of resilient communities in Bangladesh facing the brunt of climate change.
The documentary will be followed by a Q&A session and networking event.
TomorrowLove
Preview: Wednesday, January 31 | 7:30pm and
Opening: Thursday, February 1-Saturday, February 10
Telus Studio Theatre
Tickets: $13-$27
TomorrowLove by Rosamund Small, directed by Camyar Chaichian and Ming Hudson, is a collection of intertwined playlets set in a near-future world where technological innovations and human connection collide. An office-worker catfishes a colleague with a new dating app, a couple craft avatars to fulfil their bedroom fantasies, and thousands have opted for the same face transplant in the hopes of achieving success.
