Visiting Speakers
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Visiting Speakers in the Arts Program
The Visiting Speakers in the Arts Program offers extensive exposure of leading practitioners in the creative field to our students and community at large. Established in 1976, this longstanding program focuses attention on a broad range of contemporary artistic practices and issues. With high-profile visitors every week through the fall and winter semesters of each academic year, students have a unique learning experience that illuminates local, national, and international achievement. In 1996, a secondary program was initiated that focuses specifically on architecture and design.
The Art Department works collaboratively with other units on campus, as well as various cultural institutions across Lethbridge and beyond to bring visiting speakers who are in various stages of their professional careers to present and interact with students on campus.
The program of presentations has expanded significantly over the years and showcases a diverse spectrum of lectures. Students and community members gain exposure to a wide range of speakers through two particular speaker series offered by the Department of Art: the Art Now series and the Architecture & Design Now series. These are tied to courses in our curriculum, and are also open to the public as free lectures.
View the archive list of Art Now and Architecture & Design Now recordings.
More information on Faculty of Fine Arts visiting artists, scholars, and professionals.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.
Art Now is an innovative core course in the Department of Art, required for both Art Studio and Art History/Museum Studies majors. The series introduces students and interested public to contemporary artists, curators, art historians, critics, and writers, from across Canada and beyond, addressing a broad array of artistic practices and issues in contemporary art.
Check our events listing for upcoming Art Now lectures.
Architecture & Design Now introduces students and interested public to contemporary architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, planning, and various design disciplines, including product design, furniture, interiors, fashion, graphic and digital design, and craft. Presentations in the series have addressed a variety of issues relating to the contemporary built environment, and design on every scale.
Check our events listing for upcoming Architecture & Design Now lectures.
In addition to public lectures in Art NOW and Architecture & Design NOW, guest speakers are often invited to conduct studio visits with graduate and senior undergraduate students. Individual critiques and group discussions with disciplinary experts support our students by providing opportunities for high quality professional engagement during their degree programs.
Studio Visits Winter 2025
Erika DeFreitas - February 5 | 2 - 4 pm
This studio visit is occurring in-person. The sign-up sheet can be found on the hallway wall outside W813, closer to the date of the visit. Please reach out to your studio professor if you have questions.
Open to ULethbridge Faculty of Fine Arts students.
Erika DeFreitas’s interdisciplinary practice includes performance, photography, video, installation, textiles, drawing and writing. Placing emphasis on gesture, process, the body, documentation and paranormal phenomena, DeFreitas mines concepts of loss, post-memory, legacy and objecthood. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Erika also speaks in Art NOW on February 5 at noon in the University Recital Hall.