Attempts at making UBC's campus more gender-inclusive are underway as the Envisioning Equality Art Project aims to showcase achievements of staff and faculty members via public art.
The awardees – five staff members and five faculty members – will have their contributions artistically rendered on art banners around campus. Nominations for the award closed on February 1.
Naznin Virji-Babul, senior advisor to the provost on women and gender-diverse faculty and the chair to the project’s awards committee, said she hopes this project will “make people really rethink what we mean by inclusive excellence at UBC.” The project aims to highlight diverse people, but also aims to engage people in thinking about excellence in different ways than the historical norm, according to Virji-Babul.
Virji-Babul began fundraising and launched a committee in 2020 to create criteria for the award. “I really wanted to try and kind of wedge some of the artistic work that I've been interested in with the equity, diversity and inclusion work,” she said.
The project is funded by the Office of the President, the Equity & Inclusion Office, the Office of the UBC Vancouver Provost and by the members of the UBC community — specifically alumni who were interested in this project.
The committee aims to release the list of awardees by International Women’s Day on March 8, and display the artwork by International Women’s Day in 2023. The banners will be put along Main Mall and near the bus loop.
Barbara Cole, curator of outdoor art at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, is putting together a committee of female and gender-diverse artists who have knowledge of contemporary art practices, of issues of art in public space and have a distinct approach towards representation.
“I think there's a lot of potential in this work for it to take on different formats. In this stage, it's banners. But with these kinds of images that result from it or works that result from it, they could be printed in many different scales and many different substrates,” Cole told The Ubyssey.
Additionally, Cole said that Virji-Babul’s approach to include staff members in addition to faculty helps recognize that there are many people who make the university work and have contributed a lot in creating this kind of space of exploration, experimentation and research.
These artists will digitize files and photographs, videos, drawings, paintings and graphic applications. Cole said that these images can be printed in many different scales and substrates. The artists will have a lot of freedom with how they would like to portray the award winners, according to Virji-Babul.
Additionally, there will be a website that highlights why the awardees were selected and their contributions to UBC, the BC community and to the international community.
“I am hoping that [staff and faculty] will recognize that the contributions are recognized and that will give them a sense of belonging, hope and aspiration,” Cole said.