AUDAIN FOUNDATION GIVES $2 MILLION TO THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA

Fiona Morrow reports for the Globe and Mail that the University of Victoria will announce a new professorship in its Department of Visual Arts today. The Audain Professorship in Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest was made possible by a two-million-dollar donation from the Audain Foundation, the philanthropic British Columbia organization founded by Michael Audain. In recognition of the gift, the university’s faculty of fine arts will name the visual art department’s main exhibition and public gathering space the Audain Gallery and Atrium.

Many of the province’s educational establishments have benefited from donations from the Audain Foundation––the University of British Columbia, Emily Carr Institute University, and Simon Fraser University have all been recipients. “The universities are a very important part of the reason why British Columbia is becoming an international center for the visual arts,” Audain explained by phone yesterday, adding he was pleased to be able to give back in Victoria, the city where he grew up. “We support visual arts across BC,” he said. “We try very hard to spread it about and not concentrate all the gifts in Vancouver.” When asked how much money the foundation had awarded to arts institutions in the past year, Audain chuckled and said he had no idea: “I don’t really know. I don’t keep track of that sort of thing.”