CHASI and UFV Theatre student digital art contest

Student winner will be awarded with $3,500 prize money

RACHEL TAIT

The UFV Theatre department and the Community Health and Social Innovation (CHASI) Hub are partnering to support the Winter 2023 production of Moisés Kaufman’s, The Laramie Project with a digital art contest. Professor Shelley Liebembuk is directing and producing the show, which will be performed at the Abbotsford campus. The digital art contest responds to the themes of The Laramie Project and what it means to be LGBTQ+ today.

The contest accepts digital art submissions accompanied by a brief artist’s statement of about 300 words. Any current UFV student is eligible to partake in the digital art contest and the first place winner will be given $3,500 in prize money and an interview with The Cascade. All runner-up entries will be included in the art exhibit at the S’eliyemetaxwtexw Gallery in Building B starting on March 23. The digital art contest began Jan. 13 and will end on Feb. 3, 2023. Full contest details can be found at blogs.ufv.ca/chasi/2023/01/13/ laramie-art/

The Laramie Project is a word-for-word play (also known as verbatim), which chronicles the aftermath of the brutal murder of a gay university student named Matthew Shepard in the small town of Laramie, Wyoming. To create the play, more than 200 interviews were conducted by Kaufman and members of his Tectonic Theatre Project company in Laramie. The dialogue in the script is the exact wording from the results of the 200+ interviews with the local residents.

“It showcases how theatre is a brave space for us to engage in difficult conversations together,” said Liebembuk. “My hope is that producing this show can generate a space to support the LGBTQIA2S+ community, call-in implicit and explicit homophobia, and engage in meaningful conversation together.”

“I spoke to Professor Martha Dow, who runs CHASI here at UFV, and she had a great idea with her students that we could have a digital art call that invites UFV students to respond to the Laramie project, but also broadly to the issues around being a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community today.”

Liebembuk also explained that Professor Amy Brown and her ARTS 380 class are helping to run the contest and curate the art pieces in the gallery.

“There isn't a right way or a wrong way, and it doesn't have to require reading and dissecting The Laramie Project play” said Liebembuk concerning what the digital art submissions should look like.

Some of the students involved in the production also shared their thoughts and experiences in regard to The Laramie Project and how it has shaped and impacted them:

“It felt very important to be part of this impact of representation,” said Sterling Kai Pollock, the assistant director. “That's an important project to bring to a community which isn't very accepting, especially when you come from an even smaller community with the same kind of issues. It's very nice to feel like you're part of some positive change.”

Taya Viger, an actor in the ensemble told The Cascade, “as the interviews go on there are multiple times that the Tectonic Theatre Company goes to interview the town, and seeing how people change and grow over time through this tragedy happening… I think just that theme is really powerful to inspire other people.”

“There’s a lot of deep themes that I was unaware of when I first joined,” said Madalyn Clempson, an actor in The Laramie Project. “It's something that I hadn't thought about a lot before… this has been a huge eye opener [for] me.”

“I didn't know much about the

Laramie project before getting into it, besides the fact that it had to do with the murder of a young gay man,” said Raven Turchinetz, an actor in the play. “The more that I have come to know about it, it has motivated me to be really committed to the show because there is an important story that's being told.”

Another cast member, Alia Von Riesen reflected that, “we are being really intentional with talking about it as a group as well and really diving into… the significance of what we're saying and how we are representing these different perspectives in a way that it's true.”

Performances will run March 24 to April 1, and tickets will be five dollars for students. Students who cannot afford the fee can email the box office at theatre@ufv.ca to receive complimentary tickets. The performances will take place during Thursday and Friday evenings as well as Saturday afternoon matinees.

Disclosure: The Cascade’s former Editorin-Chief, Jeff Mijo-Burch is involved in the Laramie Project art contest as an employee of CHASI. To avoid any conflict of interest, he had no editorial input on this topic or the writing of this article.

The conclusion of a decade-long legal battle has the Crown pulling out its cheque book

BRADLEY DUNCAN

On Saturday, Jan 21, Canada’s federal government announced that it had reached a $2.8 billion settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed over the institution and legacy of residential schools. The lawsuit was brought against the Federal Government in 2012 by 325 First Nations for its role in the destruction of Indigenous language and culture brought about through the residential schooling system. The Federal Court still needs to rule on the agreement before it can be finalized, and discussions have been scheduled for Feb. 27.

The funds, which would go into a trust to be managed by a nine-person board of Indigenous directors over a twenty-year period, will operate free from government oversight. This means that Indigenous nations can allocate and distribute funds as they see fit. The agreement also comes with the stipulation that this settlement “fully, finally and forever” releases the federal government from future claims against the Crown for its deliberate enforcement of over one-hundred years of cultural genocide. It does not, however, shield the government from potential claims that may arise over children who died or disappeared in residential schools.

Marc Miller, the minister of CrownIndigenous relations, hopes that the reparations package can “address the collective harm caused by Canada's past,” though he admitted that settlements such as these can in no way make up for it. “Reconciliation isn't free,” said Miller in a statement to the press. “This is a lot of money. Is it enough? I think only time will tell, but we know there's a heck of a lot more to do."

Under the terms of the agreement, all 325 First Nations will receive an initial $200,000 payment to begin the process of developing a plan for how the funds will be allocated. Beyond that, use and dispersal of the reparations will be overseen independent of the government and based on four pillars: “the revival and protection of Indigenous language; the revival and protection of Indigenous culture; the protection and promotion of heritage; and the wellness of Indigenous communities and their members.”

Lawyer and class counsel for the plaintiffs, Peter Grant, told the CBC that factors like population size and remoteness of the nations will factor into how money will be distributed, but that those decisions will be made by the board. While more details surrounding the settlement are expected in the coming months, the board’s autonomy will give the 325 First Nations the ability to choose for themselves how best to address their unique needs and challenges going forward.

The UFV professor discusses her passion for Canadian literature from her undergraduate degree to her current career.

also lived in Canada. This helped her realise that literature was not just “out there,” but also “here” too.

Ceilidh Hart, an Associate Professor in UFV’s English department, achieved an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Western Ontario, a Master of Arts in English at the University of Ottawa, and a PhD in English at the University of Toronto.

“I had really great professors and I think that I felt inspired by them,” said Hart. “I felt inspired to carry on with my studying of literature.”

Professor Hart originally thought she would study British Romantics in graduate school, but she veered in a different direction. She said that it was one of the seminar courses she took in her undergraduate degree called “The Canadian Gothic” that encouraged her to specialise in Canadian literature instead. In this course, she read both “old” and “contemporary” literature that was written by authors who had

Hart was “compelled” by her undergraduate professors’ teaching styles. She at first thought she would join a teacher’s college, but her experience in these seminar courses encouraged her to apply to a master’s degree program instead.

Currently, Hart is working on a book project described as “a study of the figure of the City Poet in Canada” from the 19th to the 21st centuries. This project “seeks to challenge the assumption that Canadian literature in general ... is primarily rural.”

Hart said that poets in the 19th century were also interested in urban/ city-focused issues. She explained how some poets used newspapers as a way to write about city-focused topics. These poets were shaping and being “shaped” by the city. Hart is interested in the way that “poetry enlivens city issues, [specifically] from the 19th century into the 21st.”

“[It’s] really productive to think about literature through the lens of the city rather than the nation,” said Hart. “A lot gets lost when we only apply a national framework.” were a primary resource for reading in continued from page 4 the 19th century, and that they were an avenue for women to make money.

Hart is studying about “radio,” “spoken word organisations,” and “contemporary projects that cities are engaged in to get poetry into the street.” One poet Hart continues to reference for her current project goes by the pen name, “The Khan.” He had a regular column called, “Ballads of the City,” focused on what was happening in Toronto.

Hart’s doctoral research focused “on nineteenth century women’s writing and print culture.” She said that throughout this project, she encountered “incredible wealth” in 19th century newspaper archives. Her findings pointed to how women made a living in writing.

Hart mentioned that literacy rates in people, including women, were climbing during the 19th century, so there was a huge market for publishing in newspapers. She chose this topic in particular because she realised there was still a lot of work to do in studying this topic and she wanted to contribute to it.

Although Hart doesn’t have a favourite author from the 19th century,

Satire she is fascinated by Isabella Valancy Crawford. “We have evidence (in the form of correspondence) that Crawford advocated for herself when it came to fair compensation,” said Hart. As Crawford got lots of her newspaper articles published, she made a “name” for herself. Despite her reputation, Crawford describes in a letter how she was not able to break through as successfully as a writer in the way that her male counterparts could.

Hart said that we do not always