Everything This Changes is programming initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has shut the doors of galleries and many businesses while keeping most of us working at home.

The world we will find when all the restrictions on movement and gatherings are lifted might be very different than the one we left when we locked down in March 2020. Already, as the Himalayas can be seen from New Delhi for the first time in decades and fish swim in the clear waters of Venice’s canals, there is thinking that the pause in the frenetic world economy might lead to action on combatting the destruction of the planet’s ecology.

Many ways of doing things have been altered. Suddenly old habits must be confronted and new ways of doing things imagined. Systems and patterns of circulation are shifting. Old paths are closed off and may never reopen, while others are being forged.

Everything This Changes adds to the Belkin’s online presence as a platform for works of art, research projects, podcasts, interviews, conversations and events. One of our tasks is to explore new relationships and possibilities between embodiment, especially in social space, and the disembodied lives we lead on screen. This relationship has been the subject of critique and speculation since the invention of the telephone and radio. In what ways have artists and thinkers prepared us for thinking about the present crisis? Or to put it another way, how does the present crisis change the way we see and read?

Everything This Changes programming has been made possible with the support of the British Columbia Arts Council’s Arts and Culture Resilience Supplemental Award.

Audio content is available as a podcast via direct download, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

• Bahar Mohazabnia, Belkin Public Programs Assistant, considers the 2022 Iranian protests as seen through Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber’s work, Yazd, Iran (2005), held in the Belkin collection زن زندگی آزادی   Women, life, freedom The streets of Iran burn with the fervour of revolution as protesters set fire to hijabs, images of the supreme leader, flags, governmental buildings, police cars and materials symbolic of the regime. The burning of the mandatory hijab, an agent of the patriarchal regime’s control over women’s bodily autonomy, […]
• Lisa Jackson, Savage (2009) On a summer day in the 1950s, a native girl watches the countryside go by from the backseat of a car. A woman at her kitchen table sings a lullaby in her Cree language. When the girl arrives at her destination, she undergoes a transformation that will turn the woman’s gentle voice into a howl […]
• Works from the Collection: Laiwan Laiwan she who had scanned the flower of the world…, 1987/2017 giclée prints and flowers in 35 mm slides Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Gift of the artist, 2018   Artist Laiwan writes: Begun in 1987 investigating the questions, What is an image? What is a photograph?, she who had scanned […]
• Works from the Collection: Liz Magor Liz Magor Tent, 1999 silicone rubber and fabric Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, 2020      Liz Magor is one of Canada’s most respected and internationally known artists whose unique sculptural practice consists of assemblage, casting, moulding, stitching and painting. Her […]
• Works from the Collection: Audrey Capel Doray Audrey Capel Doray paintings and sculpture from the mid to late 1960s Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery       Audrey Capel Doray’s paintings in Stations: Some Recent Acquisitions use a technique that she refers to as “lift-off, as described in a 2008 conversation: “Vortex and this series of work seemed to predict […]
• Works from the Collection: Rhoda Rosenfeld Rhoda Rosenfeld from Maps of the World series, 1977 lithograph on paper Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, gift of Carole Itter, 2021     The artist writes about her work included in the Stations: Some Recent Acquisitions exhibition: “Maps of the World started with a roll of negatives (among 25 others) that […]
• The Balcony as Agent of Reciprocity by Ilaria Casini, Academic Programs Assistant   My grandparents lived on the top floor of a four-story building in the periphery of Florence, just outside the old medieval walls. The neighbourhood was part of a city-wide postwar urbanization project. A series of anonymous-looking ochre apartment complexes with green shutters, dark red roofs and strings of […]
• Works from the Collection: Krista Belle Stewart Krista Belle Stewart Seraphine, Seraphine, 2015 2-channel video Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance program and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2018   Seraphine, Seraphine is a two-channel video installation juxtaposing footage from a 1967 CBC docu-drama following the experience […]
• Alejandro A. Barbosa: Artist Conversation on Somatics of the Self as Citational Form The following is a conversation between Alejandra Bonilla Restrepo and Alejandro A. Barbosa about Barbosa’s piece Somatics of the Self as Citational Form (2020) on view at one sentence too many, one word too few: UBC Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition 2020 (July 17-August 16, 2020).   First, I would like to acknowledge that I am […]
• Matthew Ballantyne: Stress Positions Matthew Ballantyne, Stress Positions (PDF) Matthew Ballantyne, 2020. All rights refused. Edited and designed by Nicholas Loewen. Typeset in Arno Pro. This poetry book by Matthew Ballantyne is part of one sentence too many, one word too few: UBC Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition 2020 (July 17-August 16, 2020).  
• Jay Pahre: ecologies on the move it’s sliding out along damp ground, it’s scooting over leaves meshed thick with sodden mold, it’s springing underfoot and pushing heaving against the movement of bodies up above, it’s wriggling, a shivering, bolting, gnarly thing that chews at the bristling it thrushes itself against we are on the first rise of flipping this island when […]
• Sam Kinsley: Act III. Sticks on sticks I walk down to the beach, The tide, neither low nor high. It rains. The beach is quiet. I pick up a stick, it is almost long enough to use as a walking stick but not quite. As I walk up the stairs I drag the stick along the railing feeling the vibrations from the […]
• Nazanin Oghanian: Objects in My Imperfective Memories Objects in My Imperfective Memories is a series of performances and conversations by Nazanin Oghanian. A recording of Chair/صندلی performed August 14, 2020. Objects in My Imperfective Memories is a series of writings, sound pieces, performances and conversations by Nazanin Oghanian. The texts are handwritten pieces in Nazanin’s journal during the COVID-19 pandemic which she holds in her right hand […]
• Rosamunde Bordo: The Relationship Without Images (the Denise File) Your browser does not support the video tag. Rosamunde Bordo, Trailer for The Relationship Without Images, video, 4m 10s, 2020   This project by Rosamunde Bordo is part of one sentence too many, one word too few: UBC Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition 2020 (July 17-August 16, 2020).
• Germaine Koh: Crowd Shyness In crown shyness, trees grow with distinct space between their crowns to avoid spreading pests, to avoid damaging their own fragile tips and to leave room for their peers. They make small, individual sacrifices for collective health. These natural processes are analogous to societies making adaptations rooted in mutual care: “crowd shyness” as a form of conscious […]
• Outdoor Art Tour: Bird’s Eye, Bug’s Eye Have you seen a work of art from high above the ground or walked across one that’s so huge you weren’t aware of it? This handout for children and families shows how an artwork can look different depending on your point of view. There’s an activity you can do at home or outside along with […]
• Waking Hours: A Project Choreographed by Justine A. Chambers Collaborating Artists: Justine A. Chambers with Alison Denham, Marie Claire Forté, Kate Franklin, Lisa Gelley, Alana Gerecke, Jesse Gervais, Adam Kinner, Alanna Kraaijeveld, Billy Marchenski, Josh Martin, Katie Ward   Early this April 2020, Justine A. Chambers and her colleagues in dance and performance across the country were coming to terms with the need to sequester at […]
• Sonic Responses A facet of campus life that has changed significantly with the pandemic is one that most of us never noticed before but would be struck by now: the sounds of campus. The whir of students moving between classes, the hum of vehicles on the road and the ripples of classroom discussion were all familiar noises, […]
• BLACK LIVES MATTER: A Statement from the Belkin This week we are holding back on our instalment of Everything This Changes. At this remarkable time we defer to the conversations about combatting systemic racism in our society, in our institutions, in our museums and galleries and in ourselves. The video of the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis […]
• Curve-flattening and Bird Song: An Interview with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens’s collaborative practice has considered both the prevalence of statistical thinking evident in graphs and models and an examination of interspecies care through data-gathering. As we are immersed in a collective effort to alter statistical projections with our very behaviour, Ibghy and Lemmens bring a fascinating perspective on our present circumstances. […]
• Rock Gardens: Lisa Robertson and Yaniya Lee A Conversation Exploring Other Tangled Forms of Living Together   We gathered at the beginning of March, in what can only be described now as the last weekend of before – before the new normal of these isolated days – to celebrate the culmination of Beginning with the Seventies. For two days we shared ideas, […]
• Works from the Collection: Roy Arden Roy Arden Komagata Maru, 1989 Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, gift of the artist, 1994   On May 18, 2021, Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart formally apologized for the city’s role in the Komagata Maru incident, proclaiming May 23, 2021 as the first annual Komagata Maru Day of Remembrance. It was on May […]
• Works from the Collection: Robert Steele Robert Steele Earth Structure, 1965 drypoint etching Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, gift of Leon and Joan Tuey, 1997   Drypoint etching is usually done on copper, with lines scratched directly into the softer metal plates. A special diamond-tipped needle is used to “draw” directly onto the plate, pushing up the […]
• Works from the Collection: David Horvitz David Horvitz For Kiyoko, 2017 inkjet print on paper Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, purchased with support from the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Acquisitions Fund, 2018   During a period when governments urge us to “stay home,“ I chose this work because in a sense it is about confinement. […]
• Holly Schmidt: Sensorial Walk Holly Schmidt, the Outdoor Art Program’s artist in residence, worked with UBC mycology students in the fall of 2019 at the UBC Farm and elsewhere on campus. Schmidt adapted the sensorial workshop she devised for their introductory walk as a takeaway guide that you can print out or upload onto your own device and enjoy […]
• Twenty-minute Walk with Holly Schmidt Lorna Brown, Associate Director and Curator at the Belkin, interviews Holly Schmidt, the Outdoor Art Program’s artist in residence at UBC. Schmidt’s residency at UBC that she has titled Vegetal Encounters began in the fall of 2018 and will extend into 2021, taking the framework of a slow, unfolding process of exploration and research with different departments […]
• Holly Schmidt: It All Started with a Cashew by Ilaria Casini During these days of physical distancing and deserted campus spaces like the gallery, the lab, the farm, we find ourselves recalling the strength of collaborations over the past year and ways we might reimagine them in the context of an emerging new reality. Last fall 2019, Shelly Rosenblum, Belkin Curator of Academic […]
• Belkin Home Delivery Like most of the world right now, the Belkin is looking at the way we work and wondering how to move forward in this moment of unprecedented change. We are looking at the world through a different lens now – the texts we’ve read are no longer relevant in the same way; the ways we […]
• Works from the Collection: Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, House Burning, 2001 video Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC, gift of Wayne Baerwaldt   I first saw this work at Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, PI, years before I started working at the Belkin. Segments of this video are also used in […]
• Works from the Collection: Kevin Schmidt Kevin Schmidt, Wild Signals, 2007 video installation Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Purchased with support from the Audain Foundation, 2008   Kevin Schmidt’s video installation Wild Signals (2007) was produced for the Belkin’s 2008 exhibition Exponential Future while Schmidt was in residence in the Yukon Territory. Wild Signals presents a video of a stage rig set in […]

Image (above): David Horvitz, For Kiyoko, 2017.