The university used to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It graduated 13 students between its 2007 and 2011 intake years before the program was discontinued. The last students completed courses in 2014.
More than half of those students got their heads together, and their art together, for an exhibition that opens this week back at UNBC.
Andrea Fredeen was one of those graduates. Conversations she had as a volunteer at the UNBC Arts Council table stimulated the idea. She threw the concept out to the other past BFA alumni, and six of them liked the plan, sending in their works from the far corners of the globe.
"We were thinking about this place, the Central Interior, and the effect this place has had on us," said Fredeen. "I was interested to know what they do now in their art. So they gave that some thought, and how the essence of this place shows up in their other work since then."
The result was the title of the show, Migrations, and the accompanying content that visually talked about sense of place and the Central Interior's role in that, for these artists now residing here, there and almost everywhere.
Freeden still lives in Prince George, as do Kaitlynn Marsh and Janet McEachen. Vanessa Funk is now on Vancouver Island, Maddy Harder is in Montreal, Michelle Milburn is in Japan and Jae Waller is in Australia.
The two Waller pieces perfectly capture the show's theme, said Fredeen. One is a Canada Goose flying in silhouette over a typical Australian mountain skyline and the Southern Cross constellation prominent. The other is a moose standing near the iconic rock of Uluru.
The 14 works of art in this show run the gamut of collage, photography, digital painting, oil painting, even print-work of a comic book.
The exhibition will be unveiled Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at the Rotunda Gallery, the UNBC Art Council's meeting room and display space near the Bentley Centre, down Student Street. Fredeen said the intention for the room is to become increasingly active in displaying art and talking about it publicly.
The more that happens, she said, the more the university officials might factor Fine Arts into future plans, especially since Emily Carr University of Art + Design is now a partnered co-tenant at the Wood Innovation & Design Centre in Prince George. The routes to a resurgent BFA program might be shorter.
"The arts need to be here," she stressed. "Artists are so important in the world. They are the witnesses to what they see in life, in culture. Any healthy society has a healthy arts scene, and that should include a university's community."
The opening reception is free to attend, refreshments will be served, and some of the artists will be there in person. The works will be on display until early June.
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