2024-2025 Visual Art (VISA) Sessional Lectureships

2024-2025 Academic Term Visual Art Sessional Lectureships

The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVA) at the University of British Columbia invites applications for part-time sessional lecturers for the following courses in Visual Art (VISA):

VISA 110 — Foundation Studio: Digital Media (online lecture, one section term 1; one section term 2)

VISA 210 — Digital Arts (three sections term 1)

VISA 220 — Drawing (one section term 1)

VISA 230 — Painting (one section term 1; one section term 2)

VISA 240 — Photography (darkroom) (one section term 2)

VISA 241 — Digital Photography (one section term 1; three sections term 2)

VISA 250 — Print Media (two sections term 1; one section term 2)

VISA 260 — Sculpture (two sections term 1; one section term 2)

VISA 310 — Intermediate Digital Arts I (one section term 1)

VISA 330 — Intermediate Painting I (one section term 2)

VISA 360 — Intermediate Sculpture I (one section term 1; one section term 2)

VISA 390 — Performance (one section term 1; one section term 2)

Course descriptions are available here

The term dates are term 1, September 1 to December 31, 2024 and term 2 January 1 to April 30, 2025. All instruction takes place in person, unless otherwise indicated.

A minimum of an MFA is required, and preference will be given to applicants with post-secondary teaching experience and a record that provides evidence of teaching effectiveness. Applicants from both inside and outside UBC are encouraged. The minimum salary for a three-credit course in the Faculty of Arts is currently $9,559.11.

Applicants must submit their application at https://ahva.air.arts.ubc.ca/application-for-visual-art-sessional-lectureships/ and upload the following in the order listed within a single PDF (max size 15MB):

cover letter

CV, which includes a record of experience and a detailed list of all post-secondary courses taught (course name and number, length, credit value, dates, and teaching responsibilities)
sample course outline(s)
evidence of teaching effectiveness (i.e., teaching evaluations, if available)

Applicants should also arrange to have two confidential reference letters submitted by email to ahva.head@ubc.ca (or have them on file for incumbents). All materials should be received by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, April 26, 2024.

For information, please visit www.ahva.ubc.ca

All positions are subject to availability of funds and will be governed by UBC’s “Agreement on Conditions of Appointment for Sessional Faculty Members.” The salary effective July 1, 2024 is $3,186.37 per credit, based off a nine-credit term. Therefore, a regular three-credit course in our department would be remunerated at $9,559.11

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All q

2024-2025 Art History (ARTH) Sessional Lectureships

Winter 2024 Term 1 Art History (ARTH) Sessional Lectureships

The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVA) invites applications for a part-time sessional lecturer.

2024 Winter Term 1 (September 1 to December 31, 2024)

ARTH 323 (001) – Heaven and Earth: Renaissance Art and Culture in Northern Europe

Concepts and issues critical to the understanding of art and its histories in a global context.

A minimum of a PhD (ABD) in Art History is required, and preference will be given to applicants with post-secondary teaching experience and a record that provides evidence of teaching effectiveness. Applicants from both inside and outside UBC are encouraged. The minimum salary for a three-credit course in the Faculty of Arts is currently $9,559.11.

Applicants must submit their application at https://ahva.air.arts.ubc.ca/arth-sessional-lectureship-applications/ and upload the following in the order listed within a single PDF (max size 15MB):

cover letter
CV, which includes a record of experience and a detailed list of all post-secondary courses taught (course name and number, length, credit value, dates, and teaching responsibilities)
sample course outline(s)
evidence of teaching effectiveness (i.e., teaching evaluations, if available)

For information, please visit www.ahva.ubc.ca

All positions are subject to availability of funds and will be governed by UBC’s “Agreement on Conditions of Appointment for Sessional Faculty Members.” The salary effective July 1, 2024 is $3,186.37 per credit, based off a nine-credit term. Therefore, a regular three-credit course in our department would be remunerated at $9,559.11.

Seeking Black Scholar Assistant Professor in Visual Art (tenure-track)

The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory invites applications for a tenure-track appointment in Visual Art at the rank of Assistant Professor. The anticipated start date of employment is as early as July 1, 2024.

AHVA seeks to support Black inclusion and excellence at UBC and promote the research and practices of Black visual artists by welcoming an artist-practitioner who can contribute to existing courses as well as develop new and innovative ones on the art of what Paul Gilroy calls the “Black Atlantic.” This faculty hire responds to the university’s Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force report (2022) and addresses a lack of Black faculty representation in the Department, for which both students and faculty have voiced demand. The candidate will introduce practices, techniques and geographicaland cultural influences that will disseminate ideas of Black aesthetics, agency, and resistance. The candidate will be transformative in practice, teaching, and research and will give the Department a unique focal point on the colonial and post-colonial relationship within Black visual and performance cultures.

In the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, distinguished Indigenous and multi-national faculty teach, research, and produce work in dedicated studio and exhibition spaces, utilizing UBC’s excellent libraries and internationally renowned museums and galleries, and against the backdrop of one of the world’s top-ranked research universities. AHVA is one of the most interdisciplinary and culturally diverse departments at UBC, with faculty drawn from North and South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. A Black faculty hire would expand and develop these strengths further.

The successful candidate will be expected to maintain an active program of research, exhibition, graduate supervision, undergraduate- and graduate-level teaching, and service. A demonstrated record of or potential for innovative pedagogical approaches is considered an asset.

Applicants must possess the following minimum qualifications:

an MFA degree is preferred; however, in exceptional cases, the equivalent combination of education and professional practice may be considered;
an active national and international exhibition record or, alternatively, evidence of contribution to an emerging field of practice;
demonstrated engagement with contemporary art practice, theory, and critical discourse;
post-secondary teaching experience or evidence of potential for teaching excellence, and the capacity to teach at all levels from foundation courses to graduate-level seminars and studio courses;
ability to teach and to lead discussions on contemporary art and critical theory with students across all levels.

Application Process

Pursuant to Section 42 of the BC Human Rights Code, this search will be restricted to qualified Black scholars. We welcome applications from Black scholars who may also identify as Indigenous (First Nation, Métis, Inuit) Peoples, multi-racial persons, persons with disabilities, women, and/or members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Candidates are invited to self-identify through the Applicant Diversity Survey, which takes approximately two minutes to complete. All questions are voluntary, with an option to decline to answer. Applicants who wish to be considered for this initiative must self-identify as ‘Black’ to be considered eligible. All information collected by UBC will remain confidential and any reported data will be in aggregate form and shared with the Search Committee co-chairs to track intersectional diversity and support an equitable and meritorious search process.

Interested applicants must submit all the following documents:

Applicants must submit their application at https://ahva.air.arts.ubc.ca and upload the following in the order listed within a single PDF (max size 15MB):

Cover letter
detailed curriculum vitae (that includes a listing of relevant publications and exhibitions, including authored works and reviews);
statement of artistic practice/research (max 1000 words),
Statement of teaching philosophies (max 1000 words);
evidence of teaching effectiveness (that includes courses taught or may be offered), teaching evaluations and/or sample course syllabi);
URL to (and/or a PDF of) visual documentation of current and recent work;
name, title, affiliation, and contact information of three references*;
UBC aspires to promote inclusive excellence by supporting and recognizing efforts to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion as well as decolonization (EDID) through the academic and research ecosystem. Please provide a brief (1000-1500 words) statement describing experience working with a diverse student body and contributions or potential contributions to creating/advancing a culture of equity and inclusion. Your comments may relate to lived/living experience, professional work or practice, academic and research activities, and/or community-engagement.

*Please note we do not require letters of reference for your initial application. However, your listed references should be willing to provide a letter of reference at a later date should your candidacy progress.

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. This position is subject to final budgetary approval.

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority for the position. To comply with the Government of Canada’s reporting requirements, the University gathers information about applicants’ status as either a permanent resident of Canada or a Canadian citizen. Applicants need not identify country of origin or current citizenship; however, all applications must include one of the following statements:

Yes, I am a citizen or permanent resident of Canada
No, I am not a citizen or permanent resident of Canada

Career Interruptions

UBC acknowledges that certain circumstances may cause career interruptions that legitimately affect an applicant’s record of research achievement. We encourage applicants to note in their applications whether they would like consideration given to the impact of any such circumstances due to health, family, or other legitimate reasons to allow for a fair assessment of their research productivity.

Dual Career Inquiries

UBC is committed to supporting candidates within a dual career household. Information about spousal/partner employment may be found with the Office of the Provost & Vice President Academic at https://academic.ubc.ca/faculty-life/recruiting-supporting-top-faculty-students/dual-career-programs

Commitment to Accessibility and Accommodations

The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible work environment for all members of its workforce. Within this hiring process we will make efforts to create an accessible process for all candidates (including but not limited to people with disabilities).

If you have any questions regarding accommodations or accessibility during the recruitment and hiring process or form more information and support, please visit UBC’s Center For Workplace Accessibility website at https://hr.ubc.ca/health-and-wellbeing/working-injury-illness-or-disability/centre-workplace-accessibility or contact the Centre at workplace.accessibility@ubc.ca.

Review of applications will begin on February 10, 2024 and will continue until the position is filled.

Any inquiries may be sent to ahva.head@ubc.ca

This position is subject to final budgetary approval. The expected pay range for this position is $9,167 – $10,417/month. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience

UBC’s campuses are located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Syilx (Okanagan) Peoples and of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh) Nations.

Johnny Willis

Russell Stephens

Alejandra Morales

Carmen Milne

WRECK – Volume 5, Number 1

On the Threshold

In recent decades a number of disparities have underscored inadequacies of justice, capital, medical, and sociopolitical conditions that we now must grapple with as our relationship to space and time has been upended. We remain in a space of negotiation within society and are at a threshold for how we want to continue forwards. For this comeback issue of Wreck, we contemplate the generative possibilities of what a threshold is and what comes after it as we mediate this new world that the events of this new decade have ushered in.

In Wreck’s newly revived issue we want to explore this idea of what a “threshold” is and the possibilities of transition as our own journal transitions into a new phase of its history. The space of a threshold and what it represents is difficult to define, especially as the “other side” is often undetermined and in flux. What does it mean to be on a threshold? How have images and other artifacts of visual culture responded to thresholds in present and past times, and how have these been framed historically?

A marker of time, space, and ideas, the threshold is a place of transformation; a marker of metamorphosis from one state to another. However, it can also function as a limit, a border marker where “things” can be held back or pushed through into a different state. How do two vantage points (or things) become thinkable through the space between them? How have thresholds, such as the change of a century, been communicated visually? How do anxieties of the unknown on the other side of a threshold become visualized? What imaginative possibilities do the unknowns of thresholds offer artists? How do thresholds provide spaces of negotiation for artists in times of difficulty?

Issue website: https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/wreck/issue/view/183068

Cover image: Postcommodity, Repellent Fence / Valla Repelente, 2015, land art installation and community engagement (Earth, cinder block, para-cord, pvc spheres, helium), Douglas, Arizona, U.S.A. and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, https://postcommodity.com/Repellent_Fence_English.html.

Wreck Logo by Arlee Stewart

Full Issue

Edited by Emily Cadger, Julia Trojanowski, and Tim McCall

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Signalling Spanishness: Communicating peninsular Spanish identity in Antonio Rodríguez Beltrán’s “María Luisa de Toledo with her indigenous companion” (c. 1670)

by Hana Nikčević

In the early modern Spanish Habsburg world, preoccupied with the attempted colonization of the Americas, the Atlantic Ocean functioned as a threshold of identity. Spaniards born in the Americas, as well as those who simply relocated overseas, were thought to be fundamentally, negatively altered by their new environment. In this paper, I argue that Antonio Rodríguez Beltrán’s María Luisa de Toledo with her indigenous companion (c. 1670) seeks to communicate its sitter’s ‘pure’ Spanishness by both associating her with Spanish royalty (through deploying a conventional Spanish mode of court portraiture) and emphasizing her whiteness (by contrast with the darker complexion of the indigenous woman, in a historical moment wherein white skin was associated with Spanish purity and superiority). First, I outline the history of hosting and portraying little people at the Spanish court, concluding that, in deploying this established pictorial genre, María Luisa’s portrait associates her with historical Spanish royalty. I also summarize the intended utility of the genre as a means of communicating physical contrast. Second, I discuss Spaniards’ perceptions of indigenous American, African, and mixed-race people as well as creoles (criollos, Spaniards born in the Americas) in the Spanish Americas to explain the rationale behind my overall conclusion: within the context of Spanish colonialism and emergent, racially-inflected notions about Spanish superiority, María Luisa de Toledo with her indigenous companion is intended to portray its sitter as ‘purely’ Spanish, an identity not only communicated through the association with Spanish royal portraiture, but also keyed to whiteness and, thus, emphasized in this painting via María Luisa’s physical (namely, epidermal) contrast with her indigenous companion.

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Abjection in contemporary Black Feminism: An Intersectional Approach in Doreen Garner’s Red Rack of Those Ravaged and Unconsenting

by Yoobin Shin

Brooklyn-based African American artist Doreen Garner (b. 1986)’s recent sculptural assemblage, Red Rack of Those Ravaged and Unconsenting (2018) visually reiterates the history of medical experiment on enslaved Black women’s bodies conducted by white doctors in the United States from 1845 to 1849. Sculpturing the dismembered bodies of Black women in a realistic, yet grotesque manner, Garner expresses her intersectional identity of being a woman and Black in the American contemporary art scene. In this paper, the author argues that through Red Rack of Those Ravaged and Unconsenting, Garner attempts to engage with Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection to unsettle viewers, typically white male and female, as well as white feminists, by evoking two histories of America: the history of Black slavery in the nineteenth century and the history of feminist art practice in the 1980s. Instead of fully embracing Kristeva’s theory of abjection from the Anglo-feminist perspective which has dominated theoretical discourse on the pursuit of the female subjectivity since the 1980s, Garner rather takes up the limitations that came out from their feminist research into her sculpture to contest her viewers in reading her work of art from the position of contemporary Black feminist.

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Spaces Unknown: Articulations of Suburban Normativity and Alterity in James Wan’s Insidious (2010)

by Marcus Prasad

This article explores the representation of the suburban house and the concept of suburbia as a space of social normativity in the American and Canadian context following World War II. I pursue this line of investigation by analyzing a work of horror film that questions and disrupts this distinct space – James Wan’s Insidious (2010). The following reveals the unique means through which this work exposes a decades-long disdain held toward postwar suburban development and its deep ties to normativity by closely examining how Wan represents the space of the home and its subsequent undoing. I thread works of queer theory within my analysis to act as a guiding framework through which the productivity of the film’s represented ulterior space may be read and understood.

Drawing from spatial and temporal theory primarily, I articulate how normativity is formed in the space of the suburbs through structured rhythms, movements, and gestures that become attributed to the heterosexual, white, middle- to upper-class family. This investigation is followed by a methodology that adopts from queer theory a process of estrangement, a deviation from the normative space of the suburbs that seeks to disrupt and challenge existing scripts within dominant social frameworks unique to horror film. As such, this article provides a new method through contemporary horror film may be analyzed, away from canonical or genre prescriptions, and toward the productive potential of spaces considered to be ulterior.

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Indigenous Sovereignty and the Border: Postcommodity’s Borderlands

by Kristina Parzen

In the United States, a border’s function is to demarcate the limits of territory at the domestic and international level. This view is based on the assumption that territory is a possession to be controlled and comes to be defined by the dominating group that occupies the space inside the border. This framing of the border is rooted in the United States settler colonial history. When examining this history in relation to the impact that the U.S.-Mexico border has had on borderlands communities and Indigenous peoples specifically as part of these communities, we can see that borders exist in both physical and ideological space. The physical and ideological presence of borders has major implications for Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and identity. This paper will examine three successive works of the interdisciplinary arts collective Postcommodity. Their work and artistic practice engages with border politics and border impacts that are part of the ongoing challenge and critique of the effect borders have on the Indigenous peoples in the area of what is now referred to as the Southern United States in North America. These works, Repellent Fence (2015), A Very Long Line (2016), and Coyotaje (2017) focus on border and borderland (the area around the border) spaces. The movement of people across borders through migration, the border as a site of and for American nationalism, the border as part of a trade network (globally, locally, and historically bound to traditional Indigenous trade routes), and the border as a space that weaponizes Indigenous knowledges are just a few of the conversations that Postcommodity engages with in these works. This paper aims to contribute to the overarching conversation about the U.S.-Mexico border while providing further insight into this border’s disruption of Indigenous sovereignty and identity. It further addresses how Indigenous artists such as Postcommodity are responding to and working to resist this disruption. In doing so, I will argue that the physical and ideological border, which divides collective bodies from each other simultaneously works to oppose Indigenous sovereignty.

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Nicole Georgopulos: Cassatt – McNicoll: Impressionists Between Worlds

This groundbreaking book brings together for the first time the work of two pioneering women Impressionist painters: the American Mary Cassatt and her Canadian contemporary Helen McNicoll. Renowned for their depictions of modern womanhood, their work had a profound impact on the development and proliferation of Impressionism in North America.

Educated in Philadelphia and Montreal respectively, Cassatt and McNicoll both left North America for Europe in their early twenties to study and pursue art professionally. Cassatt was an original member of the Impressionist movement in Paris, and a generation later, McNicoll contributed to the movement’s evolution and spread around the globe. Posthumously, history came to know them as painters of women and children, yet their work has a far more nuanced relationship with themes of womanhood and maternity than such labeling has allowed.

Featuring essays by Caroline Shields, Nicole Georgopulos, Samantha Burton, and Julie Nash and richly illustrated with over 100 reproductions, including previously unpublished images from Helen McNicoll’s sketchbooks, Cassatt – McNicoll shines a long overdue spotlight on two trailblazing artists.

Seeking Assistant Professor in Visual Art (tenure-track)

The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, invites applications for a tenure-track appointment in visual art at the rank of Assistant Professor. The anticipated start date of employment is as early as July 1, 2024.

The department seeks an individual who pursues studio practice against a strong background of contemporary, art-historical and theoretical concerns.

We welcome applications from individuals working in a wide range of practices from traditional to expanded or post-media art forms. Our department is committed to the understanding that equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence; an open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We are interested in a variety of pedagogical approaches and interests, applications from individuals who are qualified to teach courses in expanded sculpture, sound, digital media and/or performance; from the perspectives of queer and trans practices and/or decolonial methodologies are strongly encouraged.

The successful candidate will be expected to maintain an active program of research, exhibition, graduate supervision, undergraduate- and graduate-level teaching and service. A demonstrated record of or potential for innovative pedagogical approaches is considered an asset.

Applicants must possess the following minimum qualifications:

an MFA degree is preferred; however, in exceptional cases, the equivalent combination of education and professional practice may be considered
an active national and international exhibition record or alternatively, a significant contribution to an emerging field of practice
a serious engagement with contemporary art practice, theory and critical discourse
post-secondary teaching experience or evidence of potential for teaching excellence, and the capacity to teach at all levels from foundation courses to graduate-level seminar and studio courses
ability to teach and to lead discussions on contemporary art and critical theory with students across all levels

The University of British Columbia, one of the largest and most distinguished universities in Canada, has excellent resources for scholarly research and artistic practice. It is home to the Audain Art Centre, purpose built in 2013. The artistic and intellectual community of AHVA is built on meaningful interaction between faculty and students across the three scholarly streams. We are committed to the belief that the production, exhibition, critical and historical analysis of art are all advanced by the close integration of the specific perspectives and methodologies each stream contributes to our endeavours. Visual art students may pursue an MFA, a BFA, a BA major or minor in visual art, and we are also a participant in the Bachelor of Media Studies program. Our faculty and students benefit from frequent pedagogical and research opportunities in partnership with the internationally recognized Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and Museum of Anthropology here on campus. With its international faculty, the department is committed to a global historical and contemporary analysis of artistic production.

Applicants must submit their application at https://ahva.air.arts.ubc.ca and upload the following in the order listed within a single PDF (max size 15MB):

letter of application
detailed curriculum vitae (that includes a listing of relevant publications and exhibitions, including authored works and reviews)
statement of artistic, research, and teaching philosophies
evidence of teaching effectiveness (that includes courses taught, teaching evaluations and/or sample course syllabi)
statement of experience working with a diverse student body and contributions or potential contributions to creating/advancing a culture of equity and inclusion
URL to (and/or a PDF of) visual documentation of current work
name, title and affiliation, and contact information of three references

Please note we do not require letters of reference for your initial application. However, your listed references should be willing to provide a letter of reference at a later date should your candidacy progress.

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. This position is subject to final budgetary approval.

Review of applications will begin on September 21, 2023, and will continue until the position is filled.

We would like to acknowledge that the land on which we are situated is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) People.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the BC Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person.

Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority; however, all qualified candidates are encouraged to apply.