Free Coffee would like to acknowledge that NSCAD university is hosted on the ancestral and unceded land of Mi’kmaq people. Free Coffee is a free, non-juried, student run publication featuring work from all disciplines at NSCAD University. This publication is made possible through SUNSCAD, the Student Union of NSCAD University; a non-profit organization that uses a portion of student fees to fund Free Coffee. Thank you to our sponsors Humani-T Cafe, Ciboulette, Uncommon Grounds, Sawadee Tea House, Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op, and Smith’s Bakery & Cafe for supporting this publication. It wouldn’t have been possible without you, your donations, and the Free Coffee! But most of all, thank you to the students who helped create Free Coffee, those who came to fundraisers, and to those whose student fees made it possible. —Olivia King, Vice President Internal of SUNSCAD, for Free Coffee 2017 Editorial Committee Gabriel Soligo Luke Mohan Lucy Pauker Olivia King Celeste Cares Paulina MacNeil Design Committee Jacqui Bush Meg Spindler Tasha Verbeke Celeste Cares Gabriel Soligo Olivia King Luke Mohan
Fundraising Committee Em Lawrence Lucy Pauker Olivia King Celeste Cares Printing Halcraft Printers Inc. Proofs Jeff Wry, Dawson Print Shop
As Halifax melts into Spring NSCAD emerges from its hibernation, and as the students’ spirits lift, the fruits of a hard winter’s work hang ripe in their tender skins. You are holding one of these fruits right now—Free Coffee 2017, a student-made publication. Shrunk down into book form, these pages hold a sampling of the work being produced by NSCAD students right now. This year marks 218 years of Colonial Halifax (K’jipuktuk), 150 years of the Canadian Confederation, 130 years since Anna Leonowens founded the Victoria College of Art, and 50 years since Garry Neill Kennedy began his presidency. This year and beyond, we vow to fully decolonize our institution and city, confront ongoing violence in the Canadian state, make better art, and (dis)respect our elders. At NSCAD we are shown pathways, but it is up to us to plan our routes. If NSCAD is a ship, then we are all burgeoning Navigators. If the ship’s timber hull springs a leak then we are Carpenters too. If its ballasted heart breaks, we are Friends who listen. And when our time runs out, our hands leave its deck and our feet take to the jetty, leaving the ship’s waves in our wake.
— Celeste Cares and Gabriel Soligo for the Free Coffee Editorial Committee
In their performance on December 8th at Art Bar, Camila Salcedo and Jade Peek explored the history of NSCAD as an institution, through an alternate lens, considering the perspective of racialized and indigenous voices, and the lack-there-of in a NSCAD historical context. In this piece they inhabited the personas of two art historians called Dr. Leon and Dr. Owens, an allusion to Anna Leonowens, the founder of the Victoria College of Art, now known as NSCAD University. This alternate history lesson took place in the form of a lecture from the future, in the year 2036, exploring questions about whose history was represented in NSCAD history and curricula. The lecture had a satirical and comedic tone, and the slides contained archival images gathered from the Visual Resource Centre (VRC), as well as oral histories gathered from NSCAD professors and students. Through this performance Salcedo and Peek actively talked about issues surrounding the university’s past, present, and future. They aimed to provide an awareness of the social, cultural and historical past of NSCAD, and provide a constructive critique. In using performance as the medium for this work, they aimed to be rewriting NSCAD history itself. The following is an excerpt from the performance, which ended with a rap. Here is the story of Anna Leonowens, this is the story you should all be showing. This cultural history’s important for survival, we must act now, it’s the time for revival. We wanna be in the NSCAD archival. We’re not hating on white men, we’re freaking tired, just saying. Self-determination, self-realization, representation, f@*! your discrimination. These knowledges are real, they take up a lot of feel. Demystify your vision ‘cause it’s so surreal, we need to share not steal. Dr. Leon and Owens writing this song, 2036 and we’ve just been heard, listen real close, this is spoken word!
Paulina MacNeil Photograph Dimensions Variable 2016 My series, Confessions of an Anonymous Person explores the relationship of surveillance and discipline. It is an observation in how we examine ourselves and what we share. Through digital and analog processes, the work examines the historical act of confession and its place in contemporary society.
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Anastasia Pindera In the Beginning, I was Perfect 2016 Sterling silver, steel binding wire, liver of sulfur and sand sheathed in cotton covered in satin and brocade fabric 35.5 × 15.2 × 15.2 cm
In the Beginning I was Perfect uses object, material and process to explore abusive relationships – emotional and physical. The teapot has two bodies. The outer body was raised aggressively in order to form cracks. A tube was soldered to the inner body, which is whole and intact, allowing the teapot to function. Unable to stand on its own, the teapot rests on a pillow filled with sand, symbolizing the illusion of dependency within and often after an abusive relationship.
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Devon Berquist Delicious, Delirious 2017 Inkjet Matte Photographic Print 91.4 × 61 cm
Devon Berquist is a photographic artist from Dawson City, Yukon. Focusing on themes of identity, sense of place, and geographic isolation, Devon’s work ranges from colourful, playful landscapes to dramatic portraiture with emphasis on aesthetic form and fluidity.
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Evan Peacock Scan.jpg Ink on Paper 29.5 Ă— 22.7 cm [[ tacit experience inductive reasoning >Desire to Being ]]
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Erica Flake Of Shipwrecks, Seascapes & Sacred Cenotes 2017 Video/Projection 121.9 × 182.8 cm
Erica Flake is a visual artist who works with mixed media, photography, film, digital scans, and audio recording. As an adoptee with little connection to her lineage, Erica’s work focuses primarily on themes of anxiety, identity, nostalgia, and connections to the body. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Photography and a BA in Art History from NSCAD University.
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Brianna West Bold Weaving  2016 Wool 69.9 Ă— 340.4 cm
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A classic Huck-a-back weave, which has been disrupted by bright color and pattern. This piece is in process, and will be used as yardage for fashion in the future.
beach-sticks, sand, hand, yarn, plywood, cotton, mordant, turmeric, water, giggle, tumble, dye / palos de playa, arena, mano, hilo, madera, algodĂłn, mordaz, cĂşrcuma, agua, sonrisa, batida, tinta
Camila Salcedo Performance 2016 12
Aiden Gillis Tiam 2016 Acrylic and oil on canvas 121.9 × 121.9 cm Awkward in existence, a moose is a landscape. Despite it’s size it doesn’t want to be seen.
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Lydia Hunsberger A metaphor is a metaphor is a metaphor Hand knit wool, rocks
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Athanasia Vayianou Unknown Flora 2016 Fine Silver, Sterling Silver, Freshwater Pearls 3.8 × 4.5 × 1.9 cm
As a child I was fascinated by the thought of outer space and how other planets worked. I imagined being an explorer and going out to other worlds in order to discover new civilizations or budding new life and the excitement that I felt was unparalleled. The resulting work offers a glimpse into my inner child’s mind that still remains.
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Lauren Hodder Holding Your Baby 2016 Oil on canvas 121.9 × 106.7 cm I make bright, deliciously coloured abstract paintings. I work, in an intuitive manner, to harmonize painted forms that play on a viewers’ desire to relate such forms to human bodies, parts of bodies, and known objects. I paint with my personal memories and emotions in mind and aim to express the flickering nature of memory through mark marking and the application of paint.
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There is a group of adolescents who circulate at the edge of a music scene. At first they are glad to have encountered what seems to be a community of engaged youth who are making their own fun and cultural output that is specifically relevant to them rather than being spoon feed what is suggested to them as youth culture by the mainstream. Time passes and and the new joiners remain on the periphery of the scene because they do not know how to sing or play instruments and the people who do are not willing to take the risks to include them. A copy of Theodor Adorno’s essay On Popular Music is passed around the circulatory system of their community. These excluded youth without formal musical training like the part where Adorno says that emotionally manipulative music is bad. They can relate this with their growing boredom and disdain for being made to pay, or made to expend what little social capital they have in order to be psychically hijacked by the effect of someone else’s music. Their interest in music fades when they are told that they have no ability to make it. Now they go to shows just because it gives them an chance to feel part of something. Reading Adorno affirms that there should be a space where their experience of not having the skills to use music to create intentional emotional experience is recognised as the norm. These kids decided to embrace their youthful (mis)reading of Adorno and adopt it as their ideology. They form a band that will be without emotional effect in their performances and will attack the site of emotionally manipulative music from whence it was born.
Noah Lichtblau Written work 17
Carmen Thompson She Is Losing Her Memory 2016 Oil on Canvas 61 × 91.5 cm The most exhilarating part of painting is watching the paint taking on a life of its own, while still balancing within my control. It is thrilling when something works out spontaneously because more often than not, it doesn’t end up working out at all.
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JD Boudreau Already been chewed 2016 Bubble gum 15.2 × 30.5 × 61 cm
Born in Halifax, JD Boudreau is an illustrator and graphic designer whose work features a combination of physical and digital methods with a strong emphasis on storytelling.
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Sinéad Dempsey Still Life 2016 Acrylic on canvas 61 × 61 cm A still life depicting objects of nostalgia from my childhood. Exploration of colour, texture, and composition.
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Steven/Tiandongding Zuo Discarded Blanket and Stones 2016 Oil on canvas 91.4 × 121.9 × 5.1 cm
The questions and confusions I experience in my paintings are a stimulation for formal inventions that speak to that uncertainty. I willing to embrace my distrust of my visual decisions which in the process of revisions leads me new pictorial discoveries of the odd sort of harmony in these contradictions from daily life.
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Moira Hayes Blessed is the Pour 2016 Metalwork 91.4 × 30.5 × 30.5 cm The sculpture demonstrates a metal can spilling it’s contents, seemingly of it’s own accord. The can symbolizes an individual who is mindlessly pouring their innards out, in hopes of creating something other than a mess. But only a mess has resulted.
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Grace Laemmler Graduation Catalogue 2016 Paper 16.5 Ă— 16.5 cm
This catalogue was created for the 2016 graduates of NSCAD university. The tactility of this catalogue cover was created to allow students to recall these unique emotions and reflect on their time here. The engagement we have with the material we work with is integral to the direction of our artistic process. It is this touch that will guide us through the hidden obstacles and uncertainty of our future beyond graduation.
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Anna-Lisa Shandro I am, without a doubt, turning into a tree 2016 21.6 × 27.9 cm
There are feelings that don’t have words in my mind, and so I give them images. This piece comes from a place of trying for me, and uncertainty of who I am. That is who I am right now, in a non suffering manner, I’m uncertain, and this piece helped me come to terms with that and “keep swimming”.
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Justice Colwell Put It On 2016 35 mm B&W Film (Ilford HP5 Plus 400)
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Mark Sark #NODAPL 2016 Acrylic on Canvas 61 × 91.4 cm My 3-year old grandson calls me Tata, but my name is Mark Joseph Sark. I’m also a US veteran and member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation in Quebec, Canada. This is my 2nd semester at NSCAD, which means for me that I sometimes still get lost around the Fountain campus. While my ultimate goal is to complete my studies with a BFA, I’m just happy to be learning and creating at such a great school. My interest is in indigenous-contemporary art, but any art medium is cool. Wela’lien, Thanks.
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Daniel Lurvey Thoughts & Prayers 2016 Interactive Web Lurvey.co
Thoughts and Prayers explores empathy and privilege on social media. As news articles of disasters and crisis at home and abroad become viral, audiences offer their condolences with likes and shares. This can be compared to a military air-show performance; the audience has the power to make change through material support, but rather publicly offers the empty gesture of the victims being in their “thoughts and prayers.” In this piece users spawn praying hands on a projection website by tapping a “like” button on their mobile device.
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Annabel Biro Steps 2016 Ceramic, Metal 145 × 73 × 40 cm [Step] a movement made by lifting the foot and setting it down again in a new position, accompanied by a shifting of the weight of the body in the direction of the new position, as in walking, running, or dancing.
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Kathryn Cronin Coral Necklace Cast silver with lace blue agate and an Australian opal 48.3 cm length
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gabriel soligo 2017
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Ho Ching Chan Into the Woods 2016 Maple wood, sterling silver, steel pin 4.6 × 5.4 × 1.6 cm www.hoching-c.com
Into the Woods is a brooch which is part of the Tangible Thoughts series. This body of work consists of personal emotions that I choose to express in wood. Through the reductive process, I am releasing the form from the material, just as emotion is released from the mind.
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Bronwyn Mundell Untitled 2016 Weaving
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Olivia King electronic intimacy 2016 Vibrating chair, screen, plastic vacuumed phone, failed flocked gear set, Doritos
Inspired by her anxiety surrounding physical intimacy, Olivia created a room of sensual, gaudy, and lurid objects that satisfy her need for intimacy without the added stress of human contact.
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October 2016: Much like poking a grizzly bear, Kyle will almost certainly get after you if you do it enough. This isn’t to say he has a bad temperament, but for as long as I’ve known him I’ve known his little outbursts as well. I have known Kyle since I was very young, probably nine or ten. Our fathers both worked on the army base at CFB Halifax, & were good enough friends to introduce us once on a run-in sort of basis. My first real memory of Kyle was that we played minor hockey in the same league. He was the goalie on one of the other Sackville teams. This team was very much better than mine, & this was in large part to the fact he was pretty good. I knew it was him in net so every time we played I tried extra hard to score on him. I was mostly unsuccessful, to be honest- but the one time I did score it was on a total fluke rebound. He got up from the ice, yelled; & smashed his stick on the ice. I remember thinking “holy cow he is really mad!” & I made extra sure to take a long time in the dressing room afterwards so my dad wouldn’t get to talk to Bobby, Kyle’s dad. I didn’t want to catch a glare from him- not even a little bit. Fast forward almost a decade, Kyle & I have went from something of childhood rivals to a pair of good friends. I can’t speak for him but I always see his progression as a challenge for me to get better. When it comes to skating, or style, or whatever the case may be. We both have done plenty of growing up, but one thing that hasn’t changed is that shake-the-bottle style temper of his. If he tries a trick for too long, he’ll throw his board around. If people tease him a bit, he’ll pick a play-fight that usually ends up in a full blown wrestle. His energy comes in spurts but when it comes it is explosive, & most of the time- pretty funny at that. This photo was taken in the midst of one of those spurts. He was trying to do a line of tricks & it was taking way more tries than he’d intended. He was starting to get frustrated, so naturally- we started to make fun of him a bit. Jeers to the effect of: “COME on doodle just do the fucking line already!” “Man we are gonna be here all fuckin day boys…” & “How can you look that good but skate like that?” I took the camera out & just started to point it at him. At first he tried to ignore it, but I didn’t stop! For a few seconds I let it build up, & then I said, “Come on big sexy look alive! I’m trying to get a picture!” He turned to me in a flash & said simply, “Fuck off Nick!” He flipped me off. Snap! Everyone started to laugh. He charged the line, & did it two tries later. Some people never change, but we wouldn’t really want him to anyway.
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Nick Chapman people i love & stories worth sharing 2016 33 × 48.3 cm @chappievision Nick Chapman is a Halifax photographic artist whose work focuses on human interactions with others & on their environments, plus the little treasures found along the way. This series explores & documents the stories behind everyday moments of our day to day. Each story has been written from memory prompted by viewing the images, & they have seen little post production in attempt to keep them accurate to real life.
Ann Perry McCosker Cyberpunk Hacker’s Hairpick 2016 18.5 × 4.7 × 3 cm Sterling silver, cubic zirconia, synthetic sapphire, maple, ink
Ann Perry McCosker makes narrative jewellery incorporating silver and gemstones. Employing the ancient technique of filigree, McCosker is inspired by her love of deep space and imagined futuristic sciencefiction characters. ‘Cyberpunk Hacker’s Hairpick’ allows future cyberpunk hackers to mentally connect to the internet with only a thought!
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Clarissa Long Balance 2016 Copper, Enamel, Patina 30.5 × 7.6 × 5.1 cm Clarissa’s current works are studies on balance, coexistence and contrast of seemingly opposite forces. Her work explores concepts of dualism from her own personal histories but also from human nature. Drawing from the connection of self and others, her works are portraits of the human spirit and all its complexities. Collaborating with both traditional and experimental techniques and materials, she is always interested in the alternative, whatever that may be.
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Luke Mohan Made of Clay 2016 Porcelain, embroidery thread 37
Evan Drakes Photography 6000 Ă— 4000 px 2016
The days blur together. Streets, lights, people streak by the windows we stare absently from. We take in more than we realize, though. Images of what we experience differ so vastly from what we remember that they become alien. Light, present in every aspect of our lives, is far less familiar than we might think.
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Emma Piirtoniemi Plywood, paint, fabric, LED lights, acrylic, sterling silver, leather, resin Dimensions variable 2016 Draw Near (jewellery exhibition) Anna Leonowens Gallery Photo credit: Grace Laemmler Model: Eunseon Park
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Katarina Marinic Artifact #2 2016 Photography 30.5 Ă— 30.5 cm Katarina Marinic is a visual artist whose work focuses on the idealized female form, and on how representations of women can serve as a means to investigate the body and selfimage. Many of her works are introspective explorations of the dynamic between flawed and flawless bodies made possible by imaging technologies. Utilizing photography and digital manipulation, her work often presents fragmented bodies that produce and uncanny effect for the viewer.
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Tamika Knutson Lichen Necklace 2016 Copper, silver, enamel, patina 47 × 10.2 × 2.5 cm
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Helah Cooper the concentrated experience of lying on a carpet 2016 15 pompoms (16) 10.2 Ă— 10.2 cm cards, wool and synthetic yarn, colour prints on paper The pieces can be used as a framework or starting point for systems of arrangement, memory, intuition, composition and communication with other players or between the pompoms and cards
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Meg Spindler Fantastic Fresh 2016 Photography 61 × 61 cm
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Eunseon Park Dancing Flowers 2016 Copper, powder coat, coloured pencil, nogal 39 Ă— 18 Ă— 36 cm I am engaged by creating metal pieces that contain vibrancy and beauty I perceive from nature. While working with metals I experience unstrained properties of the material which reminds me of nature. Using the characteristics of metals, I create bright and interesting organic forms and apply soft and warm colours with various colouring methods.
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Kaleigh Woodard Untitled 2017 Digital Textiles A digitally rendered visualization of the artist’s fabric as upholstery.
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Ali Seglins ‘Five Times, Twice’ 2016 35 mm colour photograph facebook.com/ AliSeglinsPhotography flickr.com/alibabbles Ali Seglins is a Halifax-based artist originally from Toronto, Ontario. She currently works mainly with photography and has interests in audio, video and performance. Through photography she explores identity, geography, language, sentimentality, and abstraction.
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Geneviève Brideau femmecomingout LANDSCAPE 2015 Wood, plaster, other 182.9 × 121.9 × 61 cm Geneviève Brideau is a non binary Montréal-born, Halifax-based artist and illustrator working in sculpture, installation, and performance art. Their work centers around concepts of fantasy, fabricated environments, and sensory stimulation. They’re particularly interested in ideas surrounding The Total Work of Art and The Aesthetic Experience. 47
Cassandra Vitiello At the Core 2016 Sterling Silver, Quartz Druzy 5.5 × 5.5 × 3 cm
Cassandra Vitiello takes interest in how the exterior of a locket fulfils jewellery’s traditional purposes of adornment and expression, while the interior is more intimate and private. She allows the wearer to choose what will reside in some of her lockets, as she chooses what will inhabit others. Inside “At the Core” is a sparkling stone that can be kept as a secret between the wearer and the locket, or can be shared with others.
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Jacqui Bush Ecstatic Motion 2016 Ink on Paper 20 × 28 cm The piece is an illustration created in response to a friend’s poem. It aims to capture the euphoric, buzzing energy of a connection between two lovers.
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Curtis Botham Ostpolitik 12 2016 Charcoal 119.4 Ă— 198.1 cm This drawing of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin was the last in my historical/political series Ostpolitik. Bombed into ruin during the Second World War, the remaining tower of this church has come to symbolize how war can uproot every aspect of society. This piece is meant to challenge the notion that modern aerial warfare is always justified and clean.
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Gabrielle Gallant Centennial Pool 1 & 2 Photography Descriptive and interpretive architectural photographs of Centennial Pool. Gabrielle is a freelance photographer from Halifax who enjoys documenting people, places & things.
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Jessica MacDonald Managing I  2016 Video Installation Salvaged electronics, found objects, junk. 121.9 Ă— 91.4 cm
Jessica welcomes you to take a listen to Nothing To See Here: Experimental Radio from NSCAD University. https://soundcloud.com/nothing_ to_see_here_radio 52
Index Berquist, Devon
6
Lurvey, Daniel
25
Biro, Annabe
26
MacNeil, Paulina
Botham, Curtis
48
MacDonald, Jessica
50
Boudreau, JD
17
Marinic, Katarina
38
Brideau, Geneviève
45
McCosker, Ann Perry
33
Bush, Jacqui
47
Mohan, Luke
35
Chan, Ho Ching
29
Mundell, Bronwyn
30
Chapman, Nick
32
Park, Eunseon
42
Colwell, Justice
23
Peacock, Evan
7
Cooper, Helah
40
Piirtoniemi, Emma
37
Cronin, Kathryn
27
Pindera, Anastasia
5
Dempsey, Sinead
18
Salcedo, Camilla
10
Drakes, Evan
36
Sark, Mark
24
8
Seglins, Ali
44
Flake, Erica
4
Gallant, Gabrielle
49
Shandro, Anna-Lisa
22
Gillis, Aiden
11
Soligo, Gabriel
28
Hayes, Moira
20
Spindler, Meg
41
Hodder, Lauren
14
Thompson, Carmen
16
Hunsberger, Lydia
12
Vayianou, Athanasia
13
King, Olivia
31
Vitiello, Cassandra
46
Knutson, Tamika
39
West, Brianna
Laemmler, Grace
21
Woodard, Kaleigh
43
Lichtblau, Noah
15
Zuo, Tiandongding
19
Long, Clarissa
34
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Free Coffee acknowledges the generous support of the Office of Student Experience and the Office of Admissions in the production of this issue. For information about studying at NSCAD, visit my.nscad.ca
happy 130 th birthday NSCAD