Treasure by Melanie Jones. (Image Credit: UFV School of Creative Arts)

By Alyssa Conti

Reclaiming Stories

Sculpture artists explore identity and lived experience in upcoming exhibit at UFV

Mar 14, 2026 | 2:10 PM

ABBOTSFORD — A selection of student and alumni artists is hoping to cut through the noise with an upcoming exhibit on archival silences at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).

Sculptor and UFV associate professor Melanie Jones’ work kick-started the idea by connecting themes of identity, queer lived experience and found objects.

“Aide-Memoire brings together emerging artists to explore the notion of ‘archival silences,’ specifically how gaps in a body of records might be interpreted in relation to marginalized lived experiences,” wrote the UFV School of Creative Arts (SoCa). 

“The works investigate how these gaps can be an invitation to claim space and construct one’s own archive in the present.”

Jones centers the exhibit on a drawer, representing the artist’s queer, non-binary body. Students were then invited to respond to Jones’ theme, resulting in a series of works that hope to amplify voices typically buried in distorted versions of their own stories.

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“Drawers store and conceal objects and archival information, but can also be opened to reveal them, therefore occupying a liminal space between access and restriction – a transitional area between one state and another,” the School explained.

Not Every Spark is a Destroyer by Melanie Jones. (Image Credit: UFV School of Creative Arts)

Aide-Memoire also features the works of SoCA student artists and alumni Aiyana Barnett, Chandradeep Majumder, Gabriel Fiset and Sien Tolmie.

Visitors can find the free exhibit at the S’eliyemetaxwtexw Art Gallery on the UFV Abbotsford campus through April 7.

A reception is set to be held on April 1 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the gallery.