Visual Arts Department

In the morning we met with Gregory Ball, who took us on a tour of VIU’s Visual Arts Department. We were let into various classrooms to see where VIU’s painters, computer graphics designers, sculptors and printmakers learn how to make their art. We also saw some of the students at work and found out about the steps one needs to take in order to make a print. 

With Gregory Ball in the Tamagawa Garden, VIU Campus.

Later, Gregory lead us to the Nanaimo ArtGallery, where we could admire the works of Amy Loewan and Deryk Houston. Amy Loewan’s pieces were particularly interesting: she had woven large mats from folded pieces of rice paper, intertwining within them words in many different languages, all describing the idea of peace. There was an additional installation that allowed guests of the gallery to write their thoughts about peace on long strips of paper and then weave them into a wire net. The strips would later be used by the artist to create a new work of art.

One of Amy Loewen's Installations.

After the gallery, we once again headed for the library. :P It’ll be hard to part with this particular building on the VIU campus!

The Library in a Blizzard

The morning attacked us with an unexpected blizzard. Seriously, within a half hour, the whole VIU campus was covered with an inch-thick layer of snow. We spent most of that time sheltered within the walls of the Arts & Humanities building, attending Professor Daniel Burgoyne’s class on English Romantic Literature. Today, we discussed Keats’ poem, “The Fall of Hyperion”, which was kind of tough, but I think we did manage to glean some kind of coherent meaning out of it, so it was good.

The Library in the Blizzard.

Later, we moved to the library again – what a surprise! We had another lovely, productive session with our research, and then decided to go home to prepare for our presentation, which is going to take place tomorrow. We spent the afternoon and evening making sure that nothing was amiss with our PowerPoint file and rehearsing our speeches.

More book-devouring...

We began the day with a beautiful sunrise seen from the VIU campus. That’s the second Canadian university situated in a picturesque environs – it makes us supremely jealous! :P Not to mention the wild rabbits hopping about the parking lot. If only Sosnowiec was a bit prettier…

Another Shot of the VIU Campus.

The first class of the day was taught by Laura Cranmer, whom we met a couple of days earlier at the Colloquium. It was a lecture on Aboriginal Communities, and it opened with a prayer in the Kwakwala language, which we didn’t expect, so it came as a bit of a surprise. The classes in the First Nations program here at VIU are very hands on – usually there is a First Nations Elder assisting the lecturer and providing his or her knowledge for the benefit of the students. This particular class was a discussion of Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach, a novel by an Aboriginal author, addressing contentious issues of the First Nation communities in Canada, among them the trauma of residential schools.

A View from Sugarloaf Mountain Park Situated Not Far From Where We Live.

Afterwards, we spent some more time at the library, salivating over countless books, but we only had a couple of hours before we had to go to another class, this one about theoretical approach to first nations studies. Turns out the group had already moved on from the theoretical part and onto the practical, and they were working on their final projects. The lecturer was very accommodating, though, and she showed us a lot of examples of performance art created by Aboriginal authors.

Bookworming

One Tiny Part of the VIU Campus.

Today we braved the buses in Nanaimo. It wasn’t a very good day for it, because the weather was frightful – it was raining and the wind was so strong that it almost broke our umbrellas. :P So, fighting hostile elements, we managed to arrive at VIU, where we were to take one of ProfessorDaniel Burgoyne’s class. The thing was, we had thought we would be discussing Keats’ “The Fall of Hyperion”, so we had spent half of last night trudging through the opaque poem, but, as it turned out, we were doing William Hone’s “The Political House That Jack Built” instead. Fortunately, we didn’t need to read that one beforehand, and Keats has been moved up to Wednesday, so all our hard work deciphering his words hasn’t been for naught! ;)

View from the Library.

After the class we headed for the library. It took us some time to figure out the shelving system, but after that, we were on a roll. It’s safe to say that “so many books, so little time” doesn’t quite cover the sheer magnitude of our enthusiasm. :P It’s such a shame that our research trip is so short, because limiting yourself when so many things interest you is such hard work. Still, the three hours spent browsing the Nanaimo Campus Library were time extremely well-spent. :)

And the Library Viewed from the Outside. :)

University of British Columbia

A View on North Vancouver and the Mountains.

We began our day by setting off in search of MacLeod’s Books - the biggest used bookstore in Vancouver. We browsed through their haphazard, staggering stacks of paperbacks and came out very satisfied with their Canadian literature section, but thoroughly disgusted with the complete lack of critical texts on offer. Burdened with books, we took a stroll around Downtown, happy to finally see some sunlight and bits of the mountainous landscape in between the skyscrapers (which is not something you get to see every day, because even though it’s generally quite a bit warmer here than in Poland, the sky is usually overcast and it rains a lot, so the mountain tops are hidden behind heavy clouds). 

UBC Campus Sign Post. Yes, You Need Those.

Around noon we took a bus to the University of British Columbia, which is situated immediately on the coast and is a bit removed from the rest of Vancouver. The campus is like a small city, complete with its own sports centre and hospital. It’s an incredibly beautiful place: open, green and a bit mismatched, combining a multitude of architectural styles, from towering glass structures to quaint Victorian manors. It is no wonder that finding Buchanan Tower, where we were to attend a seminar of Dr Sherrill Grace, was a real challenge. 

Buchanan Tower, UBC.

The class itself was a treat and we were very warmly welcomed thanks to Dr Grace, who is a lovely, open person. It was a graduate seminar on Timothy Findley, a postmodern Canadian writer. Today we were discussing one of his novels, Not Wanted on the Voyage, which is a retelling of the story of Noah’s Arc, albeit with a twist. Here Noah is an authoritarian figure, abusing his position in the family, his wife smuggles her blind cat called Mottyl onboard, Ham’s wife, Lucy, a beautiful transvestite, is in fact Lucifer in disguise, unicorns are brutally killed, and the olive branch the dove brings from its flight comes from its cage on the Arc, and not from the promised land. The discussion that followed the presentation of one of the students was very lively and interesting, and it’s a real pity we couldn’t participate more, but none of us had read the book before, as we’ve only found out about it two days previously. 

Koerner Library, UBC.

In Front of Irving Learning Center, UBC.

After the class we spent at least half an hour looking for Koerner’s Library and repeatedly ended up at Irving Learning Center, where we eventually decided to have a quick lunch. As it later turned out, the library we were searching for was exactly in front of where we were sitting, which was just typical. All the hassle had been worth it, however, for the visit at the library was very fruitful and each of us found something of interest. Afterwards, we walked a bit more around the campus and found a spot with an amazing view of the ocean and the surrounding mountains. If only Polish universities had such beautiful locations!

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