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As the Smyth Chair in Arts & Engagement, Dr. Andrea Walsh inspires the public to think about the role of art and cultural institutions in reconciliation. As an anthropologist, Dr. Walsh has worked alongside Indigenous communities on Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan in BC to amplify the voices of artists and residential and day school Survivors and their families for decades. Over the past five years, the donor-funded chair position has created greater space for community-led research and advocacy in Dr. Walsh’s work.

“The Smyth Chair is a unique one in the landscape of research at UVic. It has strengthened my belief that arts-based research, which is community-led, makes space for critical advocacy and it has a very important place in the academy,” says Dr. Walsh.

The creation of this endowed chair role reflects the shared commitment to reconciliation through art and engagement held by the donors George and Christiane Smyth and the university.

Connecting art to culture and education

One product of the funding is the new UVic Visual Stories Lab—a community-focused gathering and storytelling space in the Department of Anthropology. The lab, which is co-run with Walsh’s two colleagues in anthropology, Dr. Tommy Happynook and Dr. Tatiana Degai, allows faculty and students to engage with Indigenous art, research and each other. The lab creates opportunities for collaboration, where students, faculty and community members work together to share stories for the wider public.

In October 2024, Walsh helped launch a permanent exhibition of artworks at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa, in collaboration with Survivors of the Alberni Residential School. They also collaborated on online learning resources to enable children nationally, and even internationally, to engage with the material. As the museum website explains, the artworks “bear witness to the resilience of children’s connections to land, family and culture, in spite of the destructive aims of the school system”. Since its launch, over 500 people have participated in the Survivor Truth Learning Program, including school groups, university students and public servants.

Amplifying Indigenous stories

Another powerful initiative of the Visual Stories Lab is tr̓ ar̓ iʔ sʕax̌ ʷip - interwoven roots. This exhibition tells the story of a group of youth from the sukʷnaʔqin Okanagan syilx Nation who were encouraged to create art and dramas based on their culture and language while attending the Inkameep Day School in the 1930s and 40s. At a time when Indigenous culture was all but erased by the government, this story shines through as an example of cultural celebration. The exhibition ran at the Legacy Maltwood Gallery at UVic until March 2025 and will become part of the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Summer 2025.

A decolonial approach to museum curation

Reflecting on student participation in the lab, Dr. Walsh says, “Students are learning about artists’ work in an experiential manner, using their hands, hearts, and minds, and this is a profoundly different way to carry their education in university forward as knowledge to be relevant in their post-graduate lives.”

One participant is anthropology student Emma Wilton. In 2024 and 2025, she was the recipient of the Smyth Master’s Fellowship, which provides donor-funded support to graduate students. Emma is also working as the collections and exhibits manager at the Sooke Region Museum, redesigning the museum’s exhibition on Salish history in collaboration with the T’Sou-ke Nation. Her work will help provide a fresh understanding of the Nation’s history that sheds the previously used colonial lens.

Building enduring partnerships

With her term recently renewed for five more years, Dr. Walsh has many new projects on the horizon, including creating exhibitions and archives for local W̱SÁNEĆ Master Artists Doug LaFortune, SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout First Nation) and the Late TEMOSEṈŦET (Charles Elliott), W̱JOȽEȽP (Tsartlip First Nation). She is looking forward to collaborating with other chairs across campus with a similar focus and continuing to build trust with Indigenous communities to inspire them to work with the Visual Stories Lab and the wider university. Dr. Walsh is grateful that donor support allows her to be a present and nimble partner in relationships.

“With this funding, someone can call you from community and say 'can we do this?' and you can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ right away because you have that flexibility with funding. There’s no waiting for grants to come in,” says Dr. Walsh.

By building long-lasting relationships with communities, Dr. Walsh is breaking the typical research cycle of grant applications, deadlines and final reports. Ultimately, she hopes that the chair will continue to bring UVic and Indigenous communities together in meaningful partnerships that promote friendship and reconciliation.

“When people speak about the university and the projects undertaken with Smyth Chair funding, I hope expressions relate to good relationships and respect for each other,” says Dr. Walsh.

Thanks to the support of donors, the Smyth Chair in Arts and Engagement is educating Canada and the world about Indigenous Peoples with the goal of sparking reconciliation and change.