UNBC has no shortage of art displays for students, instructors, and visitors to observe as they walk through the halls of the Prince George campus.
The post-secondary school is now hoping to add to their collection in the coming months and are calling upon Indigenous artists to create another installation, offering $20,000 to help build, sculpt, and transport the new project.
University faculty member Zoë Meletis believes it's time to put a more prominent display on campus, hoping the finished product can provide a source of knowledge, history, representation, and inspiration.
“For years now, various groups across the campus have been building this proposal,” she explains in a statement. “We want ongoing, contemporary engagements with Indigenous art to be part of the relationships, learning, and teaching that happens here. Art is one way that we can keep learning about Indigenous skills, knowledge, cultures, and contributions. Investing in Indigenous art also allows our campus material culture to reflect ongoing efforts in community building.”
Indigenous art including this hand-woven basket is on display at UNBC's Prince George campus (via UNBC)UNBC says by moving forward with this Request For Proposals, they hope to build more bridges in the spirit of reconciliation.
The successful commission will join the University Artwork Collection and will ‘complement the teaching and academic research needs’ of UNBC and the public.
Paneena Sara-Lynn Harding, an Indigenous artist and UNBC Environmental Studies Masters Degree candidate says all local, regional, and provincially-based Indigenous artists, regardless of their degree of difficulty or career stage, should consider applying and use any preferred medium they want to.
“Indigenous art is not static,” explains Harding in the same statement. “It ranges from bead-work, clothing, sculpture, uses mixed-media, and can visually engage viewers to experience the life of the artist. Indigenous peoples are highly adaptive and our artwork is a strong example of our adaptability, our resilience, our contributions to the societies who benefit from use, and access of our traditional territories.”
A free online page for artists, traditional, contemporary, or otherwise, to submit their ideas for the new proposal is available here.
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 31, 2019 at 3 p.m. Pacific time.
