Panel Discussion on Monuments with Deanna Bowen, Ken Lum and Hamza Walker

Online, Thursday, April 24 at 5 pm

Join us for an online panel discussion exploring the relationship between monuments and contemporary artworks that challenge canonical monumental forms and disrupt dominant historical narratives. The conversation will be centred on artistic practices and curatorial projects that address the production of memory in public space and the willful erasure of unacknowledged histories. Artist Deanna Bowen will discuss her work that concerns itself with histories of Black experience in Canada and the US that remain below the threshold of visibility. Ken Lum, artist and co-founder of Monument Lab, will examine histories of public art and monuments that have assumed universality while ignoring the complex social landscape of individual and community difference. Curator Hamza Walker will present on his upcoming exhibition Monuments (Fall 2025 at The Brick), which brings together a selection of decommissioned monuments with pre-existing and newly commissioned contemporary artworks.

In 1958 a sculpture of King George VI by William McMillan, a second casting of the original sculpture leading up to Buckingham Palace in London, was gifted to the University of British Columbia. The work was unveiled by the Lieutenant-Governor in 1958 and dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II when she visited campus. Until recently the work was located near the Woodward Library on UBC campus, but was removed in 2021 due to construction in the area and remains in storage at the university. The presence of King George VI on campus serves as a marker of British Columbia’s colonial history as well as Canada’s continued membership in the British Commonwealth. Since 2020, the removal of monuments has become widespread internationally in an effort to reckon with histories of slavery, colonization and other forms of oppression. As King George waits in storage, the Belkin has set out to reassess the future of the statue on UBC campus by considering the reverberations of monuments through open critical dialogue.
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UPCOMING AT THE BELKIN

Outdoor Art Decolonization Tour

Friday, April 25 from noon-1:30 pm

Join us for a Decolonization Tour of outdoor artworks by Kayám̓ Richard Campbell, Brent Sparrow, Ellen Neel, Edgar Heap of Birds and James Hart 7idansuu (Edenshaw). The tour highlights site-specific artworks by Indigenous artists and raises questions around issues of place, space and identity. Considering how these works address urgent social and political concerns, we will discuss ideas of settler colonialism, decolonization, reconciliation, protocol and the history of UBC’s Vancouver campus, which is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. Tours are free, but we ask you to register at belkin.tours@ubc.ca.
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Ars Scientia Essay Prize: The Art-Science Connection

Deadline: Wednesday, April 30 at 6 pm

$1,000 Prize for the Winning Entry

Ars Scientia, UBC's interdisciplinary initiative at the intersection of art and science, welcomes all UBC undergraduate students across campus to participate in our 2025 Essay Prize. This is an opportunity to explore the profound and often catalyzing connections between these two fields. If we take the long view, art and science have been considered pursuits comfortably woven together for most of human history. Somehow over the past two centuries we lost sight of that holistic worldview and these disciplines became seemingly incompatible. You are invited to write an essay considering how art and science are inextricably linked in fundamental and generative ways, addressing specific examples you have encountered – in a lab, an experiment; in an exhibition, an artwork; perhaps a thought experiment.
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Impos(s)able Impositions: UBC Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition

May 2 to June 1

The Belkin is pleased to present an exhibition of work by the 2025 graduates of UBC’s two-year Master of Fine Arts program: Solange Adum Abdala, Mahsa Farzi, Vanessa Mercedes Figueroa, Sarah Haider and Yuan Wen. Join us on Thursday, May 1 from 6 to 8 pm to celebrate these artists and their work.
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