Fireweed Fields transforms a UBC lawn site into a fireweed meadow, encouraging increased biodiversity through gradual succession as a metaphor for the resurgence of life after a crisis. This installation acknowledges the global climate emergency: by tearing through the fabric of maintained lawns and colonial ideals, it plants the initial seeds for change and catalyzes dialogue, creative experimentation, and new biodiversity research and learning opportunities.

Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists highlights the artist's attention to the material and symbolic vocabularies of print and lens-based media between 1980 and 2000 and features her early interventions into the logic of the book form and the ideology of historical and encyclopedic genres. Guest curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, the exhibition title references processes related to printmaking, while also speaking to the absent narratives, redacted perspectives and critical refusals that are latent in official publications.

As part of Holly Schmidt’s three-year residency at UBC, the artist presents Forecast (2019-23), the latest in a series of short poetic texts using the language of weather reporting to speculate on collective responses to environmental changes.

From January to April, the Belkin's Outdoor Screen sets a number of works in relation to one another, drawing associations between the exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists in the gallery, the longterm artist's residency in the Outdoor Art program and the affinities to be found with research partners on campus.

Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists highlights the artist’s attention to the material and symbolic vocabularies of print and lens-based media between 1980 and 2000, and features her early interventions into the logic of the book form and the ideology of historical and encyclopedic genres. Since the early 1980s, Laiwan has made a meaningful contribution to Vancouver’s cultural ecology through her participation with numerous queer, feminist, multicultural and visual art print publications. In addition to the audio-visual works, Traces, Erasures, Resists presents Laiwan’s archive of public writing and community interventions. In addition to showing these writings and works in the gallery, the Belkin includes here a selection of the artist's writings for the duration of the exhibition.

Over the course of her career, Laiwan has nurtured extended connections to many arts and community organizations across the city through her engagement with artist-run centres and her participation with queer, feminist, multicultural and visual art print publications. As a way of honouring and highlighting these relationships, the Belkin is cross-promoting events that Laiwan is engaged in across the city and more widely. This list is growing and changing; check often for updates.

Students from UBC’s Department of Biology practice botanical drawing – and immersive observation – with artist in residence Holly Schmidt.

Join us for a concert by the UBC Contemporary Players directed by Paolo Bortolussi in a program that celebrates the Belkin’s current exhibition, Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists.

Join Laiwan for tea and a discussion of her work in Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. This two-part series follows the subtitle - Traces, Erasures and Resists - with an in-depth consideration of each theme in a conversational setting with the artist.

Please join us for a reception to celebrate Laiwan’s exhibition Traces, Erasures, Resists, guest curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, which opened quietly in January without fanfare due to BC’s provincial health orders in response to COVID-19. This afternoon event is also a moment to launch The Capilano Review’s 50^th anniversary series that features Laiwan’s AGILE (2021), a work commissioned by TCR for this first of three commemorative glossaries.

Laiwan writes, "Begun in 1987 investigating the questions, What is an image? What is a photograph?, she who had scanned the flower of the world... is an ongoing project where I collect flowers from the city I am showing in, placing the petals into slide mounts."

African Notes Parts 1 and 2 are composed of photographs that Laiwan took on a trip home to her birthplace of Zimbabwe in 1982, two years after the country’s independence.

Vegetal Encounters is Holly Schmidt’s three-year residency with the Outdoor Art Program at UBC. Through this residency, Schmidt has been creatively engaging with plant life as a significant source of life, connection and learning.

The following are resources related to the artists in Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. This list is not exhaustive, but rather comprised of suggested readings compiled by researchers at the Belkin. These readings are intended to provide additional context for the exhibition and act as springboards for further research or questions stemming from the exhibition, artist and works involved. Following the introduction, resources are arranged along the themes of traces, erases and resists as explored through and adjacently to Laiwan’s work. This compilation is an evolving and growing list, so check back in the future for more additions.

The Belkin’s Lorna Brown talks with artist in residence Holly Schmidt about her practice and its relationship to care, distance and embodiment in this very particular historical moment.

On January 17, Laiwan and curator Amy Kazymerchyk walked through the Belkin discussing their exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. The two touched on the latent traces, erasures and resists in the artistic and curatorial processes behind the exhibition. While the tour was to take place in front of a live audience, COVID-19 restrictions required that the conversation take place behind closed doors.

In collaboration with the UBC Film Society and screening at The Norm, the Belkin presents a short program of films selected by Holly Schmidt that resonate with Vegetal Encounters, her slow residency in the gallery's Outdoor Art Program.  The selected films, Wild Relatives, Fordlandia and Indigenous Plant Diva, engage in multiform ways with questions of presentness, biodiversity and learning from the relationships between human and non-human beings.

Join artists kQwa’st’not (Charlene George) and Holly Schmidt for a conversation about their art practices in relation to the climate crisis.