Call for Applications: MA/MSc/MFA Student Fellowships for Arts-Sciences Collaboration (NOW CLOSED)
The Okanagan Nation Alliance’s Water Strategy calls for collaborative efforts to “Build collective siwɬkʷ [water] consciousness.” This entails understanding watersheds not only as hydrological, but also social and cultural entities. Guided by this call, the project will address current water stress and ecological deterioration in Woodhaven Regional Park (Kelowna, B.C.) as part of the greater Bellevue Creek watershed. It will train a cohort of interdisciplinary graduate students in arts-sciences methodologies specifically around watershed relations, and support this cohort to develop, implement, and contribute to a series of science-informed, interdisciplinary arts-led community engagement activities that foreground climate and water justice principles.
In Year 1 of the project (2026/2027), we will initiate recruitment of our student and postdoctoral fellow research team; design an arts-sciences training program for the incoming student researcher cohort while conducting research on relevant arts-sciences initiatives elsewhere; initiate relationships with the Woodhaven Nature Conservancy to gather and analyze data about the state of water in the park; develop our research database; and organize a stakeholder roundtable.
In Years 2 and 3 of the project (2027-2029), we will implement our training program, and support the student researcher cohort to implement a series of community-engaged research events and residencies, culminating in a Watershed Festival in 2029.
Project Team
Professor, Creative Studies, Creative Writing, Digital Arts and Humanities; Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, UBC Okanagan
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, UBC Okanagan
Associate Professor, Art History, Visual Art & Theory; Director & Curator, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Faculty of Arts, UBC Vancouver
FEELed Lab Administrator, PhD Student IGS Sustainability, UBC Okanagan
Assistant Professor of Teaching, Psychology
Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC Okanagan
Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, UBC Okanagan
FEELed Lab Director & Canada Research Chair in Feminist Environmental Humanities, UBC Okanagan
For further information about the project, please email us at feeledlab@gmail.com.
This project is funded by the 2026 Peter Wall Legacy Award.
