Partner Organizations
Image credit: Public Lecture: "Material + Visuality, with Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Karice Mitchell and Dr.Jasbir K. Puar" in partnership with Artspeak at the Polygon Gallery. November 15, 2025. Photo: Solange Adum Abdala
Critical Image Forum was founded as a collaboration between the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia. Additional ongoing partnerships with The Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver), Indigenous Arts Intensive at The University of British Columbia Okanagan, and Capture Festival (Vancouver) have enabled CIF to support a wider range of research and projects throughout the region.
UBC UNITS
University of British Columbia
DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY, VISUAL ART AND THEORY
The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVA) at the University of British Columbia is an active research and teaching centre. We offer undergraduate and graduate programs that lead to BA, BFA, MA, MFA, and PhD degrees, and a post-baccalaureate diploma. At AHVA, our primary goal is to foster critical and reflexive thinking within an inclusive and supportive environment. We strive to be innovative in our pedagogy and to be international in our scholarly perspective. AHVA comprises three streams of research-based learning and practice: art history (ARTH), critical and curatorial studies (CCST), and visual art (VISA).
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
UBC Anthropology is a leader in collaborative research with a worldwide reputation for strengths in the various subfields of anthropology, archaeology, and museum and visual anthropology. Through excellence in research, teaching, field-based inquiry, and community collaboration, UBC Anthropology advances the study and constructive understanding of human diversity and commonality locally, nationally, and internationally. As the second oldest anthropology program in Canada, the department aims to create and maintain a positive and supportive environment with a culture based on respect, professionalism, fairness, empathy, and care. Its students are supported by a dedicated staff and faculty and access to outstanding research resources, such as the Museum of Anthropology and Laboratory of Archaeology, and are conducting research around the world.
DEPARTMENT OF CENTRAL, EASTERN AND NORTHERN EUROPEAN STUDIES
The Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (CENES) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) offers intensive programs to all students pursuing an Undergraduate, Masters and/or PhD. Led by a faculty with a diverse array of specialties, the department offers language courses in Danish, German, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian and Yiddish. Additionally, it provides undergraduate programs in German Studies, Modern European Studies, Nordic Studies and Slavic and Eastern European Studies. The department boasts a variety of cultural, literary, and media studies courses representing the diverse areas of Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe. Its faculty members represent a broad range of perspectives on and approaches to its interdisciplinary fields. Highly active in their research and engaged with international scholarly discussions, its professors are eager to provide supervision and mentorship to interested graduate students in areas ranging from literary and cultural studies, to cinema and media studies, and the digital humanities and many more.
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
Ranking as one of the top history departments in the world, the Department of History at UBC is a vibrant centre for scholarship. Our professors are dedicated teachers and award-winning researchers who cover a wide range of themes and regions of the world. The History Department offers both major and minor degree programs for undergraduate students. Additionally, motivated undergraduates can apply for our intensive two-year honours program. The Department offers Masters and PhD programs covering a wide range of fields.
MEDIA STUDIES PROGRAM
The Bachelor of Media Studies (BMS) program at UBC is an interdisciplinary, direct-entry program in the Faculty of Arts. Combining artistic, technical, and analytical skills, the program is designed to help students understand the impact of technological innovation on our interactions in society. Students in the BMS program have access to unique course offerings and gain hands-on experience as part of their curriculum by utilizing disciplines from over eight departments within the Faculty of Arts.
CENTRE FOR COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE
The Centre for Computational Social Science is launching at UBC with an aim to serve as an intellectual and pedagogical hub for cutting edge computational social science scholarship. Housed in the Faculty of Arts, the Centre will promote interdisciplinary scholarship within and between social science disciplines, focusing on how data and computation can advance our understanding of society, but also how data and computation are implicated in forms of power and inequality.
CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES
The Centre for European Studies (CES) aims to advance the study and understanding of European politics, economy, and societies. CES supports a broad, transnational view of Europe, embodied through the collective work of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, and visiting scholars across the social sciences and humanities. Launched in early 2022, CES emerged from the former Institute for European Studies, which was founded in 1998 at UBC. Through our speaker series, research colloquia, and other events, we provide a collaborative and engaging space for researching Europe’s history, current affairs, and diverse cultures and societies. We strive to engage with Europe from the perspective of our place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), supporting approaches that amplify Indigenous and minoritized perspectives and that decolonize our historical and ongoing relationships with Europe.
DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP IN ARTS (DISA)
Digital Scholarship in Arts (DiSA) is a hub for knowledge exchange, fostering collaboration, and cultivating a community of Arts researchers engaged in digital scholarship. We are here to support you in your research and connect you to the most relevant and innovative resources. We are a collaborative initiative started by the Public Humanities Hub, Arts Instructional Support and Information Technology and the UBC Library Research Commons focused on Faculty of Arts research and scholarship using digital methods.
INDIGENOUS ART INTENSIVE AT UBC- OKANAGAN
The Indigenous Art Intensive is a unique immersive program that brings international and national Indigenous scholars, curators, artists and writers together on campus, in Syilx territories in the Okanagan, to interact with students in an artist residency context. The program offers an educational series of courses, lectures, art shows, and opportunities to create art. It features a series of world-renowned speakers, a variety of related undergraduate and graduate credit courses, and a group of resident artists who will be working to create a new body of work.
MORRIS AND HELEN BELKIN ART GALLERY (University of British Columbia)
Located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery promotes understanding and discussion of contemporary art and ideas through its curated exhibitions, programs, publications, special projects and loans from its collection and archive. Since its inception in 1948 as the UBC Fine Arts Gallery, the Belkin has offered artists and communities space to discuss, engage and respond critically to the present. We believe that art is a form of research that produces knowledge, bringing local, national and international perspectives to the role that art can play in fostering civil societies. Admission is always free and everyone is welcome.
PUBLIC HUMANITIES HUB
The Public Humanities Hub (PHH) fosters innovative, collaborative public humanities research and advances public-facing, accountable scholarship in the Humanities across Arts, Law, and Education at UBC. The PHH supports new directions in humanities scholarship for scholars and projects, through grants, faculty fellowships, SSHRC Connection grant support, graduate mentoring, and public programming, including academic events and toolkits to build humanities community and research capacity. The PHH prioritizes public engagement, making high-brow cultural artifacts more accessible while fostering accountable academic collaboration. It seeks to reimagine knowledge creation, redistributing access to diverse publics, especially digital scholarship and historically marginalized communities. UBC-V’s Public Humanities Hub is the result of wide consultation with UBC Humanities researchers beginning over a decade ago. It has been developed to provide support fitting the nature of collaborations within the Humanities. The Public Humanities Hub supports a number of Research Excellence strategies identified in UBC’s Strategic Plan, including Strategy 6: Collaborative Clusters; Strategy 7: Research Support; Strategy 9: Knowledge Exchange; and Strategy 10: Research Culture.
UBC LIBRARY | MUSIC, ART & ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY
The Music, Art &Architecture Library at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre supports the study, research and teaching needs of the faculty, students and staff in the School of Music, the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory, the School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture, the School of Community & Regional Planning. In addition to these subject areas the collection contains mathematics, statistics, computer science, and library and information studies and older humanities & social sciences materials. It is also the home of the ASRS, UBC Library’s Automated Storage and Retrieval System.
VISUAL RESOURCES CENTRE (DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY, VISUAL ART AND THEORY)
The Visual Resources Centre (VRC) provides valuable resources and research support to Art History (ARTH), Visual Art (VISA), and Critical & Curatorial Studies (CCST). The VRC is responsible for maintaining the AHVA department’s collections and archives in analogue and digital formats containing over 450,000 holdings. As a vital teaching and research facility, we strive for pedagogic innovation in the fields of Art History, Visual Arts, Critical and Curatorial Studies, and Collections Management. We offer research support to students, faculty, and staff:
PARTNERS
CAPTURE PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL
Launched in 2013, Capture Photography Festival is Western Canada’s largest lens-based art festival. Annually in April, lens-based art is exhibited at dozens of galleries and other venues throughout Metro Vancouver as part of the Exhibition Program, alongside an extensive Public Art Program, an Events Program that spans tours, films, artist talks, and community events. Capture’s vision is to connect Vancouver to the world through lens-based art. The Festival acts as a platform to expand visual literacy; strives to give voice to traditionally underrepresented communities and to present compelling, urgent lens-based art. We aim to connect communities to incite meaningful dialogue between artists, curators, audiences, organizations and institutions. Capture is committed to presenting perspectives from diverse backgrounds and members of underrepresented groups.
Museum of Vancouver
The Museum of Vancouver (MOV) connects Vancouverites to each other and connects the city to the world. An enthusiastic civic advocate, MOV is dedicated to encouraging a deeper understanding of Vancouver through stories, objects and shared experiences. Its mission is to be a gathering space that fosters connection, learning and new experiences of Vancouver’s diverse communities and histories.
polygon gallery
Grounded in photography, The Polygon Gallery creates space to challenge how we see the world. Operating on the unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam) Nations as Presentation House Gallery for forty years, the organization has produced over 300 exhibitions and numerous publications, earning a reputation as an adventurous public art institution. The Polygon’s expansive programming has featured acclaimed Vancouver photographers, world‐renowned as well as emerging artists, and innovative exhibitions of historic and vernacular photography.
The Polygon is committed to the development of lens-based practices and to creating pathways for new voices within the medium, particularly as it works to articulate new narratives from artists traditionally outside the Eurocentric perspective of many art galleries. Importantly, The Polygon prioritizes the presentation of work by artists who reflect the diversity of its community. Of primary importance, the Gallery continues to expand its engagement with Indigenous communities, particularly the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. The Polygon is committed to inclusivity, believing that art should be accessible to all people. To this end, The Polygon has removed financial barriers to participation: admission to The Polygon is offered on a by-donation basis (all day, every day), with exhibition tours, talks, and outreach programs all included. Additionally, the Gallery is working to expand its audience by providing exhibition tours in English, Farsi, French, Mandarin, and Spanish.
COLLABORATORS
ARTSPEAK
Artspeak was founded in 1986 by curator Cate Rimmer, artist Kay Higgins, and writer Jeff Derksen. Its early association with Kootenay School of Writing served to situate Artspeak within a unique interdisciplinary community of visual artists, writers, and critics. Artspeak is operated by artists from the visual and language arts who share concerns in relation to the theory and practice of contemporary art. The mandate of the gallery is to encourage a dialogue between visual art and writing. Artspeak has played a significant role in addressing the historical, social, and intellectual conditions of contemporary visual and language arts production from the West Coast. It aims to support the practices of emerging and established artists and writers from this region and beyond by providing opportunities to exhibit, publish, and present new work to enthusiastic audiences. Artspeak actively contributes to cultural communities through its commitment to artists producing challenging, innovative work in diverse media, its affiliation with other organizations, and the public interest it generates in contemporary art.
Cinevolution
Cinevolution is a grassroots, women-led, migrant-driven film and media arts organization based in Richmond, BC. Its vision is a diverse society where people connect across linguistic, geopolitical and cultural boundaries to explore alternative perspectives and realities. Its mission is to promote innovation and critical discourse through film and media art, bring new ways of thinking and expression into cross-cultural communication, and foster collaboration and exchange amongst filmmakers and media artists in Canada and around the world.
CHUNG | LIND GALLERY (IRVING K. BARBER LEARNING CENTRE - University of British Columbia)
The Chung | Lind Gallery provides access to curated materials from the Chung and Lind Collections. Admission is free, and tours are available. The Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection contains more than 25,000 rare and unique items, including documents, books, maps, posters, paintings, photographs, tableware, and other artifacts. Donated to UBC Library in 1999, the Chung Collection represents a unique and extensive collection of research items in various formats related to early British Columbia history, immigration and settlement, particularly of Chinese people in North America and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection contains over 3,000 items, including books, maps, photographs, postcards, prints, artifacts and more. Donated to UBC Library in 2020, the Lind Collection documents the pivotal events of the Klondike Gold Rush.
EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
For a century, Emily Carr University of Art + Design has been a place where creativity sparks change. Founded in 1925, it began as a small art school with a bold vision: that art and design could shape society, influence culture, and imagine new ways of living. That vision has guided it ever since. From the first painters and sculptors to today's filmmakers, animators, designers and media artists, generations of students have come to ECU to experiment, to take risks, and to create work that matters. Its alumni have transformed industries, launched movements, and brought fresh ideas to communities across British Columbia, Canada, and the world. With practice-based learning, research, and collaboration at its core, the university continues to prepare artists, designers and creative thinkers to face the challenges of our time and to imagine the futures we cannot yet see.
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA COLLECTIVE
From the River to the Sea Collective supports oppressed narratives, initiates dialogues, nurtures systems of care, and asks its audiences to be proactive in their support while thinking about how we organize towards our collective liberation, from Turtle Island to Palestine.
LIBBY LESHGOLD GALLERY (EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN)
Libby Leshgold Gallery is a public art gallery dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art. Located within Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver Canada, the Gallery serves a broad and varied community that includes the students, faculty and staff of the University, the arts community, the public of Greater Vancouver, and visitors from around the world. Libby Leshgold Gallery is a space of experimentation, cultural production and public engagement. Situated within the context of an art and design university, it uplifts learning and research in an expanded field of presentation. Working through interdisciplinary exhibitions, collaboration and gathering, artist-led publishing, mentorship and residencies, it prioritizes artists' ideas and the issues that are important to them. Previously the Charles H. Scott Gallery, the gallery became Libby Leshgold Gallery in the Fall of 2017 with its move to the Great Northern Way Campus.
Pale Fire Projects
Pale Fire is an art gallery in Vancouver, BC, Canada that was established by Amy Kazymerchyk in 2022. The gallery currently presents eight to ten week exhibitions, while establishing a foundation upon which it can nurture long term relationships with artists, audiences, collaborators and patrons. With time, the gallery’s program will expand to include site specific, temporal or ephemeral satellite projects. The gallery’s name is borrowed from a monologue in of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens: “… the moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:” (Act IV Scene 3 488-95 ). Timon proceeds to describe how the sun, moon, earth and sea all derive their most vivid traits from one another, however, symbiosis fouled by greed turns to theft. Fire may be the defining element of the twenty-first century. Its generative properties continue to foster knowledge, technology and culture, and metaphysically it imbues us with insight, passion and faith. When fire is is exploited–as we’re experiencing–it quickly renders inner and outer landscapes parched, feverish and scorched.
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY: SCHOOL FOR THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS
Situated in vibrant downtown Vancouver, the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University offers unique programs in which studio classes in Dance, Film, Music & Sound, Performance Production & Design, Theatre & Performance, and Visual Art are integrated with the historical and theoretical study of the arts. As well, students can follow a pathway focused on the critical study of the arts through our Art, Performance & Cinema Studies (APCS) program. The SCA also offers an MA in Contemporary Arts, an MFA in in Interdisciplinary Arts, and a PhD in Contemporary Arts. This meeting of creative practice and academic enquiry is a core priority of the SCA, enhanced by our attention to critical contemporary issues and commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration, both within the classroom and beyond. Today’s world is facing unprecedented economic, social, and environmental pressures that demand flexible and creative responses. In this rapidly changing context, we encourage students to see art as a powerful instrument for critical expression. Working within the framework of Canada’s top-ranked comprehensive university, our internationally renowned faculty members focus on equipping students with the skills, discipline, understanding, and creativity to excel in the arts in Canada and around the world.
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is the federal research funding agency that promotes and supports research and research training in the humanities and social sciences.
Surrey Art Gallery
Internationally recognized for its award-winning programs, Surrey Art Gallery is the second largest public art museum in the Metro Vancouver region. Exhibitions change quarterly and admission is always free. We show all forms of contemporary art by local, national, and international artists, including digital and audio art. Learn more about art at one of our engaging artist talks or tours, participate in a symposium, or make art by yourself or with family and friends at the Gallery. We offer demonstrations, workshops, and school programs with artists, educators, and other specialists. Surrey Art Gallery's mission is to engage the public in an ongoing dialogue about issues and ideas that affect our numerous communities, as expressed through contemporary art, and to provide opportunities for the public to interact with artists and the artistic process. We accomplish these aims through exhibitions, programs, and publications of contemporary art. Surrey Art Gallery also acquires, manages, researches, preserves, and exhibits work from its contemporary art collection, held in trust for present and future citizens of the City of Surrey.
UAAC
The Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) provides a national voice for its membership, composed of university and college faculty, independent scholars, and other art professionals in the fields of art, art history, and visual culture.
WESTERN FRONT
Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre supporting a multidisciplinary program. It offers opportunities for artists across music, media art, visual art, performance, and literature to create and present new work. Through commissions, exhibitions, performances, concerts, publishing, residencies, and workshops, Western Front fosters public exchange locally, nationally, and internationally. It also preserves and provides access to a growing audiovisual archive that documents its rich history of artistic programming and production.