KALEIDOSCOPE No—1
KALEIDOSCOPE www.rukaleidoscope.com rukaleidoscope@gmail.com @rukaleidoscope All stories, words, photos, videos, books, poems and other remaining content are copyright of their respective creators as indicated herein, and are reproduced here with permission. Copyright information can be found on the same page as and next to each submission featured in the anthology. Printed in Toronto, ON by Standard Form
from the team
A common preconception about being a creative is the idea that “creative” is synonymous with “artistic.” What we’ve learned is that being a creative actually has almost nothing to do with being artistic. Creativity is defined by novelty, but still builds upon existing work. It is as chaotic as it is organized. It follows the rules set by the industry, but still breaks them in every way possible. It is, in the most basic form, about being non-traditional, rather than artistic. Our vision for Kaleidoscope is that it can prove just that, and that no one knows this better than students in communication and design programs. This non-traditional nature of creativity is what lies at the core of each piece in this anthology. Ryerson provides students with learning opportunities that extend beyond the classroom, where students can be inspired, fully engaged and encouraged to take advantage of diverse curricular and co-curricular opportunities. By extension, Kaleidoscope exists in a community bound by shared experiences of applied learning. For two years, Kaleidoscope was an unnamed experiment that existed only as pages upon pages of research and development. When we assembled the executive team last March, we had nothing but our passion and commitment to storytelling to sell them on. Watching our team grow from one to almost thirty students, and then inspire over a hundred additional students to share the work they’re passionate about, has been a humbling experience. We invite you to experience this first volume of ideas, stories and analyses. Read with us. Admire with us. And keep in touch! Paulina and Daphne Co-Curators, Kaleidoscope
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from the dean
Congratulations to all the students showcasing their work in this premier issue of Kaleidoscope, your creative innovation leaps off the page! From stunning photography, to innovative designs and thrilling articles, this issue has it all. For the first time ever, it is wonderful to see a collection of work from across the FCAD schools in one student produced publication. The composition of our nine schools allows for collaboration and exploration to advance the cultural industries. When they are united that our competitive edge is truly remarkable and this magazine is a testament of that. FCAD is pleased to share this publication with partners, donors and alumni as a reminder that we are Ryerson’s creative innovation hub. I wish to extend my congratulations to the team behind Kaleidoscope. Your endless hours of work and dedication are visible on every page. It has been a pleasure working with you to initiate the FCAD Best of Kaleidoscope award and I look forward to announcing this year’s winner alongside your team. Sincerely, Charles Falzon Dean Faculty of Communication and Design
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MY NAME IS KENNY CHOI
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I AM BUT I’M NOT ARIA DE LIMA
5 DRIFT CELIA LEES 6
REGARDING TOPICS WE WILL NEVER DISCUSS OVER EMAIL OR ANYWHERE ELSE JULIA MASTROIANNI
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STRANGER SILHOUETTES JARED BROOKES
EAT YOUR HEART OUT GABI MACIAS
FLOWERS IN FAUX SARAH MITCHELL
LOST GRIFFIN STOBBS
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WHAT FITS CLEA CHRISTAKOS-GEE
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ALIA YOUSSEF | IMAGE ARTS
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ALL AT ONCE IRIS KIM
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THE HUMAN SERIES LUCY PELLETIER
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CHILD’S PLAY SABRINA CALANDRA
24 REPOSE LAURA BATTAION, CAITLYN BLOCH, DAHYUNG KIM, MADDIE LEGAULT, NADINE MOSSALAM 26
BRI HOY | CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
32 FAUVE ELOÏSE PTITO-ECHEVERRIA 34
INNER WORLD ELOÏSE PTITO-ECHEVERRIA
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FOOD & FEMINISM JESSICA HUYNH, ELAINA PAWELKA
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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ARTSCAPE YOUNGPLACE NANCY CHU, MARGOT HADAYA, STEPHANIE MARTIN ELAINA NGUYEN, ERIKA NONIS, CLAUDIA YUNG
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HER PRETTY BIRD MICHEIL ROTHWELL
42 UNPACKED KEVIN NGUYEN
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CLARA EATON | PERFORMANCE
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STONE COLD SAGI KAHANE-RAPPORT, MIKAEL M. MELO
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PIECES OF ME DANIELLE VAN WERKHOVEN
54 RESILIENCE GABRIELLA FRANCIS 55
RISE UP & RESIST: WOMEN’S MARCH TORONTO KATII CAPERN
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LEAH GUGLIOTTA | RTA SCHOOL OF MEDIA
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ELECTRONIC EXPERIMENT MITCHELL HOULAHAN
62 GHOSTED CHLOE HAZARD
CONTRASTING BEAUTY NOAH LALONDE
SPACE CADET KAROLINE MAZZARELLA
VISIT CANADA SHIHAB MIAN
OUTFIT #1 CASEY PACE
EQUALITY FOR ALL NIPPLES ANDREA VAHRUSEV
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THE STATIONARY EMMA KULCSAR
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RESTRUCTURING OF HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION LAURA BURRETT
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VOICE VISION TINA CUI
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SALMAAN FAROOQUI | JOURNALISM
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2016 KID LARRY HENG
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THE HUSTLE OF AMERICA’S HEARTLAND ANTOINE PLENDERLEITH, OLIVIER SMITH
80 CALIFORNIA SANDRO MASTROMATTEO
DIGITAL AUTO-EROTIC ASPHYXIATION ALEX MCMURRAY
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MAKE BELIEVE VICKY WANG
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SONIC EVOLUTION AUSTIN POMEROY
84 LABOUR HALEY WILSDON 85
RMTC STORY THE RYERSON MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY
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JUSTINE HOUSELEY | INTERIOR DESIGN
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PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE ERIK BABINSKI
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8MM SERIES ALEK BÉLANGER
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HEY YOU: TO MY 14-YEAR-OLD SELF CARINA GRODEK
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SELECTION FROM WHAT FITS CLEA CHRISTAKOS-GEE
NUDIE LADIES CARMEN LEW
FAUVE GIRLS AND THEIR INNER WORLDS & PARASITE PORTRAIT SERIES ELOÏSE PTITO-ECHEVERRIA
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I LOVE YOU, MICHAEL CERA QUINTON BRADSHAW
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A STUDY IN WOOD
TRANSFORMING TRADITIONS PEARL KRAFT
TEA TIME LISA MANGANAAN
THE LOBLOLLY HOUSE, SIGHT LINE MODEL LIZ MOLLON
3 AMANDA ROSS 108
JESSICA ROCHA-DA SILVA | GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT
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SUKU BALI JONATHAN MICAY
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THE BIG CITY ANDREA JOSIC
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MAPPING TORONTO
DISTILLERY DISTRICT GHOST HUNT AUSTIN FALCONER, VANESSA GLOUX, KEN HAMMOND, CASSANDRA LEE, KAREN LEE, VIVIAN PHUNG, JOANNE SRIFAH, TONG TIE
HARBOUFRONT GUIDE EUNIQUE BROOKS, RACHEL DECOSTE, JORDAN LEE, ANASTASIA LUKOYANOV, GEANIE LUU, SERENA NGUYEN, JENNIFER OWEN, JULIE WONG
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URBAN RELIGION BRYCE JULIEN
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CLOTHING OPTIONAL RORY ECCLES, GRAEME LEUNG, CINDY LONG, LAUREN SMITH
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NOT SEEN ON TV ISABELLE DOCTO, DANIELLE LEE, ORIENA VUONG
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GRAEME MONTGOMERY | PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
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HEIKIGANI: YOSHITOSHI JO CURTICAPEAN
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VINTAGE OR VÊTEMENTS? EMMA-CHASE LAFLAMME
134 POLISH’D EMILY SKUBLICS, NAOMI BREARLEY 138 UNTITLED TARA COLE 139
MATERIALIZING THE MAGAZINE EMMA SHARPE
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HYEJIN LEE | FASHION
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3D PRINTING IN FASHION STEPHANIA STEFANAKOU
151 DECAYING ASHLEY STEWART
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kenny choi 1
Kenny Choi loves to tell stories. He finds inspiration in real-life situations that he experiences and transforms them into a short films. He worked with Will Selviz to create the film “My Name Is,” which was Choi’s final project for his video visual studies class in the fall of 2016. The short film is about the life of a character named Will who has dedicated his life to making a positive impact on the world through visual art. Choi created the film to show that everyone is special and has a story worth sharing, regardless of who they are or what they do. Everyone creates and controls their own narrative.
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Kenny Choi Actor: Will Selviz 2nd year Photography My Name Is Video 2016
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I AM BUT I’M NOT I was older before I was fully grown Learned to make things happen on my own Tried to make sure nobody felt like me Alone. I was a protector before I even knew what it meant to fight Seeing the troubles that happened Even after I closed my eyes at night A mother before I had a child That won’t happen for a while A therapist is something I am not But listening to problems is something I did a lot I was a teacher before I had finished school It was just something I had to do As I grew I learned to make things happen on my own I am older but I am not fully grown
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Aria de Lima 1st Year Journalism Poetry 2017
drift
Celia Lees is a 3rd year Fashion Design student who channeled the stresses of university in designing her second-year evening wear class’ cumulative project. The garment’s ethereal qualities and title highlight how she tries to “drift” rather than stress, focusing on the beauty in life instead of getting caught up in the little things. DRIFT represents her journey at Ryerson, who she is and who she has become through the FCAD program.
Celia Lees 3rd year Fashion Design Garment 2016
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REGARDING TOPICS WE WILL NEVER DISCUSS OVER EMAIL OR ANYWHERE ELSE in the style of devyn andrews
re: that time you told me to be home by 1 and I wasn’t re: stepmoms re: her pasta isn’t the same re: we were your kids first re: her family hates us why don’t you care re: I used to be a middle child I guess that never changes re: over his deathbed? really? re: sorry would’ve been good enough but I didn’t even get that
Julia Mastroianni 1st Year Journalism Poetry 2016
re: being the middle child re: being the middle ground re: being in the middle of everything re: it’s my daughter’s birthday party please make this work re: we’re on your side re: how are you even on your own side re: I never liked him anyway re: we watched their wedding video re: he’s my big brother and I miss him sometimes
This poem by Julia Mastroianni is the unspoken dialogue between five siblings addressing their father. Writing poetry is a way for Mastroianni to speak about things she cares about and is connected to. She believes that a person’s poetry accurately reflects who they are, as each of her poems reveal her own interests and different aspects of her life. Though poetry is technically unrelated to the forms of writing students in Journalism are trained in, Mastroianni continues to express the same search for journalistic truth and objectivity in her creative work.
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Gabi Macias 1st year Photography Eat Your Heart Out Photography 2016 Sarah Mitchell 3rd year Fashion Design Flowers in Faux Pencil crayon, ink 2016
Jared Brookes 2nd year Graphic Communications Management Stranger Silhouettes Photography 2016
Griffin Stobbs Model: Alek Gombik 1st year New Media lost Photography 2016
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what fits CLEA CHRISTAKOS-GEE Clea Christakos-Gee has been practising the art of collage making for many years outside of her classes at Ryerson. Inspiration hit her at a young age, when she found herself struggling to be completely comfortable with the business of fashion magazines. Her natural attraction to their beauty was combatted by her repulsion towards them for creating an unrealistic and harmful image of women. She grappled with this until one day discovering the pleasure of cutting the images up. Using scissors or just her hands, Christakos-Gee began to cut and rip the pages in these magazines and make collages out of pictures from completely different contexts. She then pieces them together to create a completely new image that seems to clash and fit at the same time. What Fits has received tremendous encouragement from FCAD, enabling Christakos-Gee to hold a solo show of her collage work at Ryerson this past November.
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Clea Christakos-Gee 2nd Year Photography Selections from What Fits Collage series 2016
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WORDS PHOTOS AMY VAN DEN BERG ANKIT SINGH
alia youssef
pares for her final thesis project that will conclude her last year as a photography student at Ryerson. She developed a focus in portraiture, and its use in capturing the light and character of women has been her continuous ambition and the focus of her personal work and academic projects. Looking sleek in a black jumpsuit and bomber jacket, her dark hair in a classic shoulder length bob, Youssef pays for a recent print, chatting with the lady behind the desk as she delicately handles the colossal photograph. It is a recent one of her sister, Asalah, and will be featured in an upcoming exhibition in the building’s Gallery 310. Although she takes pictures of many different women, her sisters remain her favourite subjects. “They were the available models. I get so much inspiration from their faces and I find them so wonderful to photograph,” she says as she pores over the picture, a portrait of her sister with her eyes closed and a ladybug on her cheek. “I think it helps with their confidence seeing those beautiful photos. I shoot them so regularly that they get to see how much they’ve grown and how amazing they were at every stage of their life.” Youssef has spent most of her life in Vancouver, but growing up in Egypt until she was eight and living in a Muslim family has given her a different perspective of self-expression and feminin-
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When Alia Youssef walks into the Image Arts building she looks and feels at home. Her smile, already bright and eager, broadens as she greets familiar faces and meanders her way around the winding corridors, pointing out her displayed pieces along the way. In a glass case is a photo book of her personal family portraits that was bought by Ryerson University last fall, and in the hallway on the second floor hangs a landscape photograph taken by her years ago on a trip to Egypt. In the picture a dusty street is contrasted with a patch of greenery with a background of rubble. “I know there’s some kind of symbolism in there somewhere but I don’t know what it is,” she says, laughing. The photograph is striking and proves her talent and eye for capturing beauty, especially since her specialty is in portraiture. She began photographing her younger sisters Asalah and Rayhanah, five and seven years her junior, when she was fourteen years old and uses these portraits to make them feel beautiful. “I love taking really fierce and cool photos of them so they can see themselves as powerful and young little ladies. Within the comfort of being around them I’ve been able to rediscover my style.” They inspired her to pursue and develop a passion for photography, and continue to do so now as Youssef pre-
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ity. She has found that every woman finds themselves beautiful in different ways, regardless of culture and spirituality, and spending time behind the lens with her family has let her harness those little particularities and turn them into photos that suit her subjects. She uses this appreciation of uniqueness and her 50mm camera to empower women by capturing them at their most beautiful. Youssef started making money taking photographs when she was in the tenth grade. She spent a summer doing family and wedding shoots by request and discovered an eye for capturing the people behind the faces of her subjects. After taking a trip to Egypt in her teens, Youssef began snapping more and more photos of people. She realized she could discover individuals through this medium, but most importantly through them her subjects are able to discover themselves. She began developing her style, which is simple and elegant with a focus on the eyes and smile. She attributes this aesthetic to Vanity Fair photographer Sue Bryce, whom she modelled for as a teen after entering and winning a competition that sent her to New York. It was the summer before she started her first year at Ryerson and she was put in the model seat for one of the most talented professional photographers in the industry. She entered her photographs into the Chester Fields photo contest at the Presentation House Gallery in Vancouver. She won, which inspired her to pursue photography even further—so she applied to Ryerson. “It’s hard to explain what it feels like to go into a photo shoot and feel really beautiful. When I was being posed I wasn’t being posed as a teenager or a kid; I was being posed as a woman and it definitely felt like this coming of age moment of my life...the confidence of becoming the adult version of myself. ” This experience being in front of the camera rather than behind gave her a
fresh perspective on the model experience and would shape her style and approach to portrait photography for the next four years. “It taught me so much about when I shoot portraits because I was in the opposite role,” she says. “I got to really learn how to move my body to make it look better on camera so when I shoot people I really know how they feel.” “I think it was really beneficial for me to go through the modelling experience so now I can give that same experience to other people.” When Youssef arrived at Ryerson’s Faculty of Communication and Design she was bursting with ideas and confidence. She was given the resources to experiment with different ways of achieving her goal of inspiring and empowering people through photography, and immersed herself in the student life. “It’s good being in such a creative environment! Within specialized programs each students is even more specialized and we help each other without competition.” Youssef passes someone in the hallway that asks her if she posted an event on Facebook yet. She says she’ll do it right away, and apologizes as she sneaks behind the Image Arts reception desk and unlocks a drawer with a key, pulling out a laptop which she types away at with her pointed nails. She works here 25 hours a week and doubles as the Image Arts Special Events Assistant, where she does promotional work and is the official events photographer for the School. “I pretty much live there,” she says. “I definitely see more of the Image Arts building than home.” She has showcased her work at multiple exhibitions around Toronto through the School of Image Arts and The Gladstone Hotel, and held her first solo exhibition just last year at Gallery 310. She has also received many awards for her work including the notable Dr.
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shoot goes the way they want it to go,” she says. “The pre-shoot process is making sure it’s exactly how they want it to be.” From there she plans with them where they should shoot the photographs and what they should wear from their own closet. Youssef does all the hair and makeup herself, and is not one to haul fancy reflectors and multiple lenses around. She snaps her photos with only the help of natural sunlight or when indoors she operates on a ‘one-light mentality,’ where she refrains from roasting the models with multiple lamps. This allows her to focus on the subject instead of the equipment, and builds an organic atmosphere that brings out the most natural side of her models. “[It’s] all about making a woman feel her most empowered, her most beautiful. It’s about bringing out the light and encapsulating this time of your life.” Although she sometimes photographs men, Youssef focuses most of her work on simply making them feel beautiful. The experience of being photographed in their own environment and clothes gives her subjects what you could call a bonding experience with themselves. This, she believes, is an important experience, and when captured by the camera produces beautiful pho-
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Julius Lukasiewicz Award this November, which distinguishes photographic work that features unique beauty and talent. Outside of classes and work, Youssef is also an entrepreneur and artist. Over the years she has steadily developed Alia Youssef Photography, her real-life dream job of making a living from her portraiture work. On her website and Instagram, Youssef uses her business to pursue her passion of capturing the femininity that her sisters inspired in her since she learned to use a camera. She believes a big part of the mentality of feeling able and confident to succeed outside and after her degree at Ryerson is thanks to the program and people. “I love being around business-minded people,” she says. “This program is all about making; it’s very production based.” The building is quiet and most students have gone home. Outside it is getting dark on campus and Youssef is just finishing up her day. “I really feel at home at Ryerson.” Her talent and dedication to helping her models fall in love with themselves through portraiture is clear in her work. Light and laughter characterize many of her photographs, and she goes to great lengths to make sure her subjects feel comfortable and easy. “A big part of it is making sure the
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tographs that they can look back on later. “I try to ask them about what’s going on in their life right now,” she says. “They own what they’re like right now and not wanting to be any different. The real power of portraiture is that it makes you feel like you are enough and that you are beautiful because of or despite your circumstances.” To truly capture the qualities of her models, Youssef must navigate varying degrees of self-confidence and comfort in front of the camera, and gets to know them on a deeply personal level. “You learn so much by taking photographs of people. You learn everything that they don’t like about themselves and everything they like about themselves. People confide in me, and I see a lot about how they feel about themselves by the way that they react and just are in front of the camera.” She often finds her subjects have distorted ideas of what it is to look beautiful, and she suspects the misrepresentation of beauty on television and in magazines is partly to blame. “Women should feel confident and beautiful, and often they’re made to feel less beautiful and less worthy in the media,” she says. “I want to help women see that they’re enough right now, in who they are.” Her interest in how women are perceived in the media and contempo-
rary society has blossomed into an idea that will be the focus of her final thesis project. Over the course of the semester Youssef will explore the expression of Muslim women through portraiture. Striving to take the pictures of 50 women, she will combine her own roots and upbringing with the inspiration and skills picked up during her time at Ryerson to showcase their beauty and grace. Asalah and Rayhanah Youssef are her first models. “I think there is more to be done for women in the world that we live in, and my eyes have been opened to the discrimination Muslim women face in the media,” she says. “I’m excited to hear all these questions I have answered by them about their perspectives living in Canada as Muslim women…this is the next step for me.” She descends the stairs back to the main floor of the Image Arts building, walking through a room crowded with people and tables of food and drink. They have gathered for a photography event and many call out to Youssef by name. She lingers to talk with some, waving to others in passing. But she should go home, she says, she’s been here all day.
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www.aliayoussef.com Models (left to right): Sophia, Stephanie, Asalah, Taylor Photography 2016
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all at once In three short minutes, Iris Kim gives the audience a glimpse into the life of Christy, a passionate, yet lost university student. Over the course of the short film, Christy looks for a new career path and jumps from one set of interests to another. But as a result, she finds herself becoming discouraged and increasingly afraid of rejection. Kim considers this issue a common experience among her peers, as university is often a time defined by uncertainty. During the creation of the film, Kim felt like she was teaching herself a lesson and addressing her own struggles of seeking perfection in her work. Kim collaborated with fellow Media Production students Nicole Landry, Maxine Grossman, Michelle Hanitijo and Sabrina Iacobucci to make her thoughts come to life. She thinks that FCAD has created an environment where her mind could wander and where she could work hard with other talented people.
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Iris Kim 2nd year Media Production All At Once Video 2016
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THE HUMAN SERIES
The Sad Series
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Lucy Pelletier 1st year Creative Industries The Human Series Photographic poetry 2016
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H L ’ I C D S CHILD’S PLAY
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Sabrina Calandra 2nd Photography Photo series 2016
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Sabrina Calandra combines pastel colors and everyday children’s toys in a colorful, yet monochromatic series of photographs that convey the innocence of a child’s playful spirit. To create this effect, she painted toys in a single shade and played with the light surrounding them. Before attending Ryerson, her photography consisted predominantly of portraits and landscapes. FCAD opened her eyes to another world of photography, where restrictions do not exist and exploration is key.
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Laura Battaion, Caitlyn Bloch, Dahyung Kim, Maddie Legault, Nadine Mossalam 4th year Fashion Design Repose Fabric 2016
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REPOSE Repose is a menswear capsule collection created for a culminating assignment required in the third year of Ryerson’s Fashion Design program. Each piece was inspired by feelings of calmness and was made with a “contemporary comfort aesthetic” in mind. Following a ‘deconstruction/ reconstruction’ theme that concentrated on wearable and skillful pieces, Bloch describes Repose as perfect for travelling, working and even late night events. While each member of the group was responsible for the creation of one outfit, each also contributed their artistic input to the entire collection. These students make use of a variety of tools and a mix of different textures, including crisp whites and sheer fabrics, to showcase relaxed silhouettes with movement and dimension. The mix of lightweight fabrics, such as gauze, linen and organza, with heavier weight materials like denim, join together in a forward-thinking line that exudes both tranquility and poise.
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WORDS PHOTOS LIDIA ABRAHA ANKIT SINGH
bri hoy
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stitching that she’s currently working on. Embroidery requires a lot of stillness and focus, and it’s a task that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Hoy, a beanie-wearing, soft-spoken artist, doesn’t seem to mind that at all. Although she started out with the film and fashion modules in Creative Industries, Hoy has become much more interested in curation, her career and the vibrant student community at Ryerson. “I really like that connection and being able to find a common ground,” says Hoy. “It’s just nice to find that commonality with people that just walk in and are interested in art and the community.” Hoy reminisces about the time she connected to a lady she met in an art gallery. Once the two started talking about the art, they continued to chat about other things and she eventually invited Hoy to her Christmas party. Hoy says that experience made her realize how art makes it so much easier to connect with people. Her experience working with independent artists and art studios is where she’s made most of these connections. “When I first moved to Toronto, I was really into the art galleries and going to the Art Gallery of Ontario,” says Hoy. “But now I can see that there’s a huge sense of removal from the paintings you can’t touch and that you have no idea who the artist is, other than their name or what year it was made.” This makes the art less meaningful, according to Hoy. “If you move into the current independent artist community that’s happening here in Toronto, there’s so much overlap and so many connec-
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A delicate art that requires steady hands, embroidery takes great patience and care. It’s a traditional craft that fourth-year Creative Industries student Brianna Hoy, however, is giving new meaning. Hoy started embroidering at a young age, and continues to use it as a creative outlet. “It’s super therapeutic to just sit there [and embroider],” says Hoy, “And anyone can do it, so I felt like it would be easy enough that people wouldn’t get frustrated with it. Even when you get things wrong it’d be easy to fix. So I thought that flowers would be a nice place to start, which is where Bloom in a Room came from.” Hoy is referring to a workshop she held at Graven Feather studios in June of last year, where she taught beginner stitches to anyone and everyone. The workshops are still running and Hoy says that she’s been able to learn a lot from the experience. She’s also been able to build connections with people she never would have met if it weren’t for Bloom in a Room. “The workshops have been the greatest outreach I’ve been able to do and meet a lot of people through,” says Hoy. “Even as a personal achievement, I really enjoyed sitting in the gallery on days where it’s just me and the art. People walk in and they’re really interested in everything and they’re really open to chatting, and I like that a lot.” Hoy’s artwork showcases her diverse social interests and talent. Her work can be found on Instagram under the name @basic.stitch, which features pieces ranging from feminist-inspired work to embroidery on different mediums, including some flowered underwear
tions you can make. There’s just tons of people that you meet and that are happy to talk about their work and are interested in your work too.” Hoy says that art and community go hand in hand. Even on a small scale, she says that art can help bring communities together. “I feel like art in general is good for the [individual] and society on a global scale. Even having accessible workshops that aren’t very expensive [is important].” Hoy puts a lot of emphasis on the need for people to have a creative outlet. She says that you don’t have to necessarily call yourself an artist to make something. Art is needed to keep the being whole. “You can just take one hour of your day to learn a skill that doesn’t cost any money and is fun… being able to physically do something with your hands is good too,” says Hoy. The Creative Industries program at Ryerson gives students the chance to learn about the different types of creative fields such as art, film and fashion while also understanding the way these industries work. “It’s helped me a lot in the way I think about things,” Hoy says. “I feel like I’m now able to understand the ecosystems of how industries work, in a way. Like the way everything is truly overlapping and interconnected in different ways, and it’s like that in almost any industry that you look at.” Hoy says Creative Industries helped her land her first internship at Graven Feather. The independent art studio that lies deep in Toronto’s Junction Triangle emphasizes community outreach. She says her program equipped her with the proper tools, allowing her to achieve her goals. Hoy notes that very few schools could offer this. “There’s a lot of resources available to us that I haven’t even fully tapped into,” says Hoy. “What I’ve learned in class has definitely given me more con-
fidence. In Creative Industries, we have the opportunity to hear from guest speakers, attend panels and we get to talk to people who are actually in the industry.” Hoy mentions the connections her program has given to her and to her peers as well. “It’s hard to be that kind of isolated genius artist when everyone needs the support of those resources and the collaboration of like-minded people.” Hoy also appreciates the hands-on experience she’s been able to get from her program. “I don’t know if it’s because we used to be a polytechnical institute, but I feel like we learn a lot of practical stuff,” says Hoy. “And being in Toronto, it’s really easy to feel like [what you’re learning] is a real thing. It gives me the confidence to go out there and put myself out there. Even though I’m just a student, I know I can do this and I have the skills I need.” Hoy currently works at Artscape and Graven Feather, organizations that both work to make spaces for independent artists in Toronto. One of the things she likes most about her workplaces is that they perfectly encompass everything her program has prepared her for. Both organizations host fundraisers and galas, which subsidize funding for artists. It’s a wish come true for these artists, too, because these spaces are also open to them for studio time. “It’s like a corporate atmosphere, but then again [Artscape and Graven Feather] are like a social enterprise where they work a non-profit and work really hard to make it easy for artists to live and work, and create,” says Hoy. Hoy says what she likes most about her program is that it allows her to be in the art industry without having to be a full-time artist. “I want to work for artists and help them create things, but I, myself, don’t want to be that artist,” says Hoy. “I feel like Creative Industries can be on the fully corporate side, or the fully
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art side. But there’s some happy medium in the middle where you can do both.” She says that Ryerson’s downtown location and the resources her program provides, has made her realize how she can work in the corporate and art world. Hoy says that she was originally planning on going to Guelph for Commerce, but looking back she’s glad she didn’t. “I even thought about going to Ryerson for [another program] Image Arts,” says Hoy, “And I was considering different programs...then I saw the mixture of both business and arts [with Creative Industries].” The intersection of art and commerce is not only Creative Industries’ defining factor, amongst Canadian post-secondary programs. Students like Hoy exemplifies this mesh by actively creating art while learning about the business of art.
FE AT UR E | CR E AT I V E I N D US T R I E S
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@basic.stitch. YAS QUEEN! Embroidery on remnants 2016 Grow Embroidery on denim 2016
FE AT UR E | CR E AT I V E I N D US T R I E S
Ride or Die (or don’t) Embroidery in denim vest 2016
Tit for Tit Sew on embroidery patches 2017 30
One Eye Sees The Other Eye Feels Embroidery on denim 2017
An Ode II Embroidery on denim 2016 31
EloĂŻse Ptito-Echeverria 4th year Fashion Design Inner World Embroidered, hand-painted, reverse-appliquĂŠd muslin on velvet 2015
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inner world
In the summer of 2015, Ptito-Echeverria was exploring her South American roots and reexamining the shape and significance of the traditional Huipil garment. Inner World came to be after she fell in love with the idea of the Huipil as a canvas to branch off of creatively. Inspiration for Inner World also came from the music of Colombian artist Lido Pimienta. On the back of the garment, Ptito-Echeverria hand-embroidered the lyrics “Soló tu alma te salva (Only your soul will save you),” which she regards as Pimienta’s “invaluable message” to her. While this piece was made outside of school, Ptito-Echeverria says that “The piece could only have existed after the many things I learned through the Faculty of Communication and Design.” She cites Assistant Professor Colleen Lynch’s textile design class as a particular source of inspiration, during which time she created an entire textile collection based on the inner worlds of Yayoi Kusama’s garden paintings. Ptito-Echeverria says, “Through my textile work for the class project, I explored the inner worlds that reside in the depths of each and every one of us in order to escape our often unfulfilled, monotonous realities...my designs sought to transform the repetitiveness of our collective fears and ruminations into joyful, dreamy repeats. Ultimately, this piece was a continuation of this very idea and theme; our inner worlds can truly serve as our salvation. Only our souls can save us.”
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fauve
Defined by the manic, vivid colours and spirit of the Fauvist painting period, Fauve is a sartorial outlet where Eloïse Ptito-Echeverria can experiment with her life-long love of colour, embroidery and textile. The Fauve label specializes in bringing wearable art garments to life through a combination of both historical and emerging textile practices. All fabrics are based on Eloïse’s own watercolour paintings and motifs, artfully composed into intricate patterns, digitally printed in Montréal and finally cut and sewn in Toronto. Fauve was founded in the summer of 2015 after receiving the Ontario Summer Company grant affiliated with Ryerson University. This funding allowed her the extraordinary opportunity to launch her own textile-focused label, design and print her very own textiles for the first time and eventually sell her designs in Queen Street boutiques. FCAD also provided Ptito-Echeverria the opportunity to learn how to design her own textiles in a more hand-rendered, organic manner alongside teacher Colleen Lynch. This has proven to be an invaluable tool for her to effectively express her inner world in a sartorial, wearable and tangible way. Fauve can be found at Coal Miner’s Daughter, and custom orders can be placed through Instagram at @la.fauve.
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EloĂŻse Ptito-Echeverria 4th year Fashion Design Fauve Clothing label 2015
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food & feminism JESSICA HUYNH + ELAINA PAWELKA
Food & Feminism is an exhibition proposal for NPF 567, a course taken by Creative Industries students specializing in Curatorial Practices. The idea arose over a discussion about food, ritualism and feminism. As Huynh and Pawelka sifted through female stereotypes, they realized that food holds a huge role in pushing feminism forward. After coming across the “housewife in the kitchen” stereotype, they recognized the positive and negative impressions food has on feminism. Although food is nourishing, Huynh says it has a negative effect on a woman “as she (the woman) consciously deprives herself from certain foods to maintain a slim figure.” FCAD has challenged the way Huynh and Pawelka approach curation, now viewing it from an intersectional perspective. Interacting with their peers and instructors within the Faculty has allowed them to delve into the political and social issues in art, including feminism and representation. This project has allowed them to create an exhibition that fuses their passion for art with a contemporary perspective.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT Historically, a woman’s role in the nuclear family has often been limited to her domestic responsibilities. The housewife trope confines her to duties as a mother and wife. As a result, much of her time is balanced between preparing meals and performing day-to-day chores. Alternatively, the modern woman has taken great strides to transcend the realms of her historic domain, moving beyond her static role in “the kitchen.” However, like most working women, she has not fully escaped the traditional feminine world. There is still an expectation for her to maintain the household and “nourish” her family. In this way, food becomes the nemesis of her individuality and she denies her true self. By disrupting “the kitchen,” the space transforms into a backdrop used for resistance and change. Food, as a result, inherently plays a larger role in feminism. It is used to convey female sexuality and feminine energy. Consequently, the modern woman is redefining her identity through food.
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SEMIOTICS OF THE KITCHEN, 1975
FRUIT ART VIDEOS, 2016
O SWEET SPONTANEOUS EARTH, I’M ACTUALLY NOT OBSESSED WITH YOU ANYMORE, 2016
Oil on Canvas, Chloe Wise New York based artist Chloe Wise is an exuberant Internet sensation. A reoccurring theme found in Wise’s work is her comedic incorporation of food sculptures and symbolism. Here, Wise cleverly plays off Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe, an historically controversial painting for its depiction of an unapologetic nude woman having a picnic with a group of clothed men. Wise paints herself looking at the viewer, holding an eggplant in one hand and resting the other on a chair draped in a picnic blanket. The eggplant presumptuously represents the male genital, a digital iconography widely understood today. Wise uses food to personify her sexuality: the feminine energy. She reinforces women as an autonomous, sexual beings. The male ‘eggplant’ is in her hands reverses the male gaze and power dynamic.
Video, Stephanie Sarley Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Stephanie Sarley always knew she wanted to be an artist. Interested in the “psychology of kink,” her most wellknown works use vagina imagery to propel her message. Fruit Art Videos, first uploaded on Instagram in 2015, gained widespread attention for its fruit eroticism. Sarley hopes for more representation of women in the arts. “Be the art you want to change. That’s what drives me. Being a women artist in this world.”
Short Film, Martha Rosler Martha Rosler is an American artist whose works span video, photography, text, installation and performance. Semiotics of the Kitchen is a performance piece that parodies the television format of a typical cooking show popularized by Julia Child in the 1960s. Dressed as a housewife, Rosler names kitchen tools from A-Z in a deadpan manner while demonstrating their uses unproductively and sometimes violently. She is telling the viewer not only how they are to prepare food products but also how they are to perform gender. Rosler states, “When the woman speaks, she names her own oppression,” implying she is the subject of her own story, refusing to be identified by the kitchen objects and therefore taking hold of her own representation.
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CREATIVE PROPOSAL
a r t s c y p l
a p e o u n g a c e
Nancy Chu / Margot Hadaya / Stephanie Martin Elaina Nguyen / Erika Nonis / Claudia Yung Students in Ryerson’s Creative Industries program have collaborated to create a theoretical framework of suggestions to improve Toronto’s Artscape Youngplace, a space where people can develop and improve creative, artistic and expressive talent. While Artscape Youngplace has been successful in fostering creativity in the artistic community around Shaw Street since its establishment in 2013, the centre still faces significant obstacles when providing artists in the community with space, goods and services. This report thoroughly analyzes the challenges posed, while offering creative, achievable and budget-friendly solutions to the following three problems:
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2. BRANDING 3. DAILY PROGRAMMING
front desk and receptionist
To improve the public experience and their understanding of the organization when they come into the building, we propose implementing a clear reception and front desk space right in front of the main entrance doors so that it is the first thing visitors see upon walking in. The reception desk team can be composed of one part-time worker and a team of 7-8 Artscape volunteers who rotate shifts on an ongoing basis, with each working 4-5 hours per week. The volunteer opportunity could prove as an entry into a paid part time summer job.
online scheduling & booking software
Online scheduling or booking software may be employed to augment the organizational aspect of rental spaces. The software is meant to be controlled directly by the receptionist at any time throughout the day. There are multiple software systems available today for free; however, two specific suggestions are Setmore and Frontdesk. While mainly designed for web users, these two options also provide an app feature, allowing users to connect on the go. Through visually presenting what activities are being scheduled on a 24-hour basis, both essentially provide the same concept by allowing the receptionist to have full control over bookings and make any further adjustments to avoid conflict.
mobile app development
In further attempts to tackle the first issue, a mobile app can be developed to help visitors navigate the space and gain more information about what it has to offer.
memo system
The memo will either notify the residencies within 24 hours or as soon as the receptionist is aware that there will be a potential conflict of interest.
redesign signage
We propose that the design be changed around every six months to enable different artists a chance to showcase their artwork.
activity ideas
With regular morning and evening programs in place already, Artscape faces deadzone hours, especially between the hours of 11am - 2pm. To fill these hours, they can implement senior activity programming in partnership with various senior homes nearby.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
1. ADMINSTRATION & RECEPTION
HER PRETTY BIRD
Her Pretty Bird is a handmade jewelry company in Toronto, where Micheil Rothwell works as the creative director. With this role in a small company, Rothwell is responsible for the overall look of each image used for advertising and social media. He is in charge of styling the models’ hair, makeup and wardrobe for each of his images. Though these shots are simply taken against a wall in his bedroom, Rothwell aims to create photos that are of high studio quality. This collection of photographs he compiled represents the cultural and style diversity in Toronto, executed with the skills he has acquired from Ryerson. Her Pretty Bird is not directly related to FCAD, however, Rothwell says the Faculty holds a great influence on his photos. The skills he has gained have allowed him to become professional with his work. Rothwell says the relationships he has made within the Faculty inspire him to stay creative.
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Micheil Rothwell 3rd Year Professional Communication Her Pretty Bird Photography 2016 41
UNPACKED
KEVIN NGUYEN
Unpacked is a sculpture made as a critique of the unstandardized and disorganized modes of shipping and transporting art from place to place. Students taking FPN 546: Curation and Exhibition are expected to curate their own art show. For his contribution, Kevin Nguyen uses various shipping containers and packing materials to draw attention to the art world’s chaotic and problematic packing procedures when moving art. The piece also juxtaposes the desire to rush against the need for security. Nguyen plans to build upon this experience and grow as a creator, in hopes of curating more exhibitions in the future.
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Kevin Nguyen 3rd year Creative Industries Unpacked Sculpture: boxes, bubble wrap, shipping labels, bed cart, framed artwork 2016
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WO RDS P H OTOS HA RL EEN SIDHU P E GA H P E I VA N D I
clara eaton
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Fourth-year Performance Dance student Clara Eaton started dancing at the age of two. Not long after, she was taking dance classes and practicing at the studio six days a week. Eaton wasn’t a natural-born dancer—she remembers wondering at the age of seven why everyone but her was winning awards. Fast forward to today, and Eaton’s numerous trophies and medals sit in the front window of her mother’s house in Brantford, Ont. Eaton took on the role of a choreographer at the Academy of Dance in Brantford during the gap year she took before starting university. Having grown up at the studio, shifting gears from student to choreographer was almost second nature to Eaton. During her first year teaching, she was responsible for choreographing 11 solo acts, a couple of duets and trios and a junior group of 12 dancers, which she admits was challenging. Eaton took a break from competing and teaching fulltime when she moved to Toronto for her first year at Ryerson but stayed true to her passion of competitive dance by joining Ryerson Dance Pak in 2013. As Ryerson’s official competitive dance team, the student group led her to her current gig as a teacher at Turning Pointe Academy in Toronto, a dance studio quite larger than the Brantford studio which she still continues to teach drop-in classes at. Eaton is one of 35 teachers at the academy, which teaches thousands of youth. “I started teaching the recreational kids in my second year and I’ve stayed there ever since, and now I’m teaching the competition kids and choreographing their competitive numbers from groups to solos,” she says. For Eaton, working with young dancers is fun. At Turning Pointe Academy she worked with youth between the ages of five and seventeen. She has also had opportunities to teach kids at Dance Masters of America conventions in the U.S. Eaton teaches young dancers aged six to ten: ballet, tap and jazz
classes in a three hour session, which is usually followed up with a fun combination dance to a popular song by an artist like Meghan Trainor. Her rigorous schedule at Ryerson has limited the amount of time she can dedicate to teaching. Her weekly five day routine stretches from sunrise to sunset, beginning with two or three dance classes, followed by academic classes like anatomy, production or singing in the evening, and dance rehearsal in upper years for up to two hours. “Usually we finish at ten p.m. each night and then we get up and do it all over again,” she says. Oct. 7, 2016, was the day many Ryerson students were celebrating the beginning of fall reading week, but the same can’t be said for fourth-year performance dance students. It was their final night at 44 Gerrard St., Ryerson’s theatre building, before Ryerson’s School of Performance would relocate to the basement of the Student Learning Centre. Eaton recalls lying on the floor of the building’s dance studio alongside her peers, talking about their toughest days at school and the days they hadn’t wanted to step foot into the building. But frankly that night, not one of them wanted to leave. The 22-year-old is a big fan of collaborations and she says she’s gotten to know students in different disciplines because of Ryerson’s tight-knit community. “I’ve done a lot of solo video collaborations with a few different film students. I’ve done dance photography and headshots with photography students and I’ve collaborated with business students making my business cards,” she explains. In October of last year, Eaton worked on the short dance film, “Let It All Go,” in collaboration with her friend Luke Villemaire, a film student at Ryerson whom she met through the Ryerson residence where she’s been working for the past three years. The two minute film begins as Eaton enters an empty dance studio and lays on the floor before bolting upright after Birdy sings the line, “I’ve been sleepless at night,” from the song “Let It All Go” by her and Rhodes. What follows are a series of movements, slower when the melody demands and quicker when the chorus arrives, that capture the mood and vulnerability of the song. Directed by Villemaire and choreographed and performed by Eaton, the project was put together in a few hours because of the immediate resources available at Ryerson. Working together also let the two teach each other a few things about their specialities. “I learn a lot about how to be in front of a camera, what works, what doesn’t and how to edit together because what looks good to him from a film point of view might not look good in my eyes from a dance point of view,” Eaton says. When Eaton had to direct and choreograph her first film
for a film class last year, she felt more confident with the medium, having worked with directors like Villemaire in the past. In her film titled, “UNTOUCHED,” a young woman dances in a busy public space. Eaton wanted to explore the idea of doing something that is socially acceptable in one place and not in another. “I wanted to see what would happen if we took something that was totally normal to us that we see every single day and we put it in a place where it wouldn’t necessarily be on a regular basis,” she says. Some people in the film don’t acknowledge the dancing, while others drop their belongings and watch the performance. When asked, the dancer said she felt more comfortable dancing in public where there is no judgement unlike in a studio where expectations are imposed on dancers. Eaton recently shot a music video with Toronto rock band Uforia for the song “Wake Me,” in which she plays a girl haunted by a demon in her dreams. The scenes in the video cut back and forth from Eaton alone to Eaton with the torturing demon. The video itself isn’t a dance video, Eaton says. Rather, it’s about movements inspired by emotion. “There was no memorizing of steps involved, it was more like, ‘Let’s just show up and do it.’” Channeling abstract movements wasn’t new ground for Eaton; she has trained at Ryerson with creative movement and creative process classes. “It’s not necessarily choreography or steps we’re learning. It’s, say, how your body would naturally react if your body was shocked,” she says. During the summer of 2016, Eaton went to New York City with Seventeen Magazine where hearing trend forecasters talk about a new wave of gender-neutral fashion inspired her final fourth-year project. The project’s title, “XX(XY)” derives from the male and female chromosomes. “It’s about being gender-neutral and kind of un-gendering yourself to go with what your true identity is,” she says. For the project, Eaton will put on a ten minute dance show for the annual New Voices Festival, a festival showcasing new works by graduating students within the Ryerson Theatre School, at the Ryerson Theatre in the beginning of April. She will be producing original choreography and organizing everything from lighting to stage management and photography. Eaton’s enlisted fourth-year fashion design student Laura Hosenberger to design an entire gender-neutral collection for the performance. Through the show she hopes to explore the meaning of dancing as a girl and dancing as a guy, and ultimately how that defines movement quality. During the same trip to New York, her new insight into apparel consumption encouraged Eaton to apply to be a brand ambassador for Balance Lifestyle & Co., a non-profit organization with an ethical apparel line. Eaton is now a brand am-
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bassador for two brands, the other being Dancewear Centre, a dance apparel and shoe company which she has also on occasion modelled for. Eaton is no stranger to posing in front of a camera. She has done athletic, dance and portrait shoots with Sony, Portraits NYC and multiple freelance photographers in New York. “In New York it’s kind of similar to what we do at Ryerson: you get the pictures for yourself and they get it for their portfolio so everyone wins,” she says. Last summer, Eaton got a chance to shoot with Kevin Richardson, a photographer based in New York City and creator of the soon-to-be published photography project Dance As Art. At her shoot, Eaton had a chance to connect with inspiring dancers, including a girl who was both a bodybuilder and dancer, and a ballerina from Toronto who eventually moved to Hungary to work for the Hungarian National Ballet Company. When Eaton hears people say that a dance degree is limiting career-wise, she isn’t worried. “I have a million options....I can tour the world, I can dance on a cruise ship, I can be on Broadway.”
www.youtube.com/user/missclaradancer UNTOUCHED Dancer and choreographer: Dedra McDermott Video 2016
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STONE COLD
Sagi Kahane-Rapport, Mikael M. Melo 3rd Year Media Production Stone Cold Dance music video 2015
“Stone Cold” is a dance music video that was produced, lead and co-directed by Mikael M. Melo. This piece is a collaborative effort involving the work of 13 students in FCAD. The combination of these students’ different skills allowed Melo to create a piece reflecting his personal experiences of letting others go and learning to be happy about it. With these feelings inspiring the concept of his piece, Melo captures two dancers who highlight an atmosphere of letting go.
CAST Clara Eaton Braelyn Guppy Dayton Hill Gavin Massey CREW Michael Carlucci Emily Eymundson Dominik Haake Alan Jiefan Law Shane Nachi Robbins Trey Robinson Izabella Sowka Taylor Yates 49
p i e c e s o f m e DANIELLE VAN WERKHOVEN Danielle van Werkhoven, a poet and photographer, has been creating a book of poems accompanied by her own photos. She says, “This book is about love and the people that fill your life. It is about loss and the people that leave. It is about the pain of heartbreak and the way that you recover from the things that have hurt you.� Being a part of the Photography program has allowed van Werkhoven to flourish as her own person. She hopes to publish the complete book by summer 2017.
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I never want the memories of you to become hazy. I want them vividly imprinted in my mind until I can't take the thought of you ever again.
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But even my imperfections are beautiful to you, and the idea that you'll return to me someday makes me believe in love.
I can feel your fingers drawing shapes on my skin, counting my freckles, analyzing the indents and imperfections.
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"It's okay that that I'm not as important to you as you became to me."
Danielle van Werkhoven 3rd year Photography Pieces of Me Poetry/photography 2016
RISE UP & RESIST: WOMEN’S MARCH TORONTO
Katii Capern 4th year Creative Industries Photojournalism 2017
“On Jan. 21, 2017, on every continent, we marched together. In Toronto, we came by the thousands— around the world, by the millions. We marched for our mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. We marched for those who marched before us. We marched against injustice. We marched, outraged and energetic, in a spirit of solidarity. We marched with the collective belief that women’s rights are human rights.” Katii Capern, a photographer and aspiring activist, took these photos at the Toronto Women’s March on Jan. 21, 2017 to tell her story and the story of women all over the world. The photos reflect a combination of what she’s learned as a student in FCAD: how to learn, unlearn, relearn and expand her creative skills and her understanding of justice.
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Gabriella Francis 2nd year Professional Communication Video 2017
resilience
“Resilience” is a passion project created by Gabriella Francis to showcase the strength of women and the female body. Francis collaborated with dancer, True Skalde, to create a short video that represents the struggles a woman may face in her life and how she can overcome them. Francis believes that the female body is “one of the purest forms of art” that is “designed for museums but built for war.” This project was inspired by and created as a response to the recent U.S. election and Women’s March. Francis aspires to empower women through this piece. Francis came to recognize the varied forms of communication through her time in the Professional Communication program, and was then inspired to communicate an important message through dance.
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FE AT UR E | R TA S CH OOL OF M E D I A
WOR DS P H OTOS L IDI A ABRAHA P E GA H P E I VA N D I
leah gugliotta
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When can you call yourself a creative person? Leah Gugliotta, a second-year RTA School of Media (RTA) student at Ryerson, is trying to figure that out. Using her talent she is thriving as a young filmmaker. Her love for filmmaking started out at a very young age and the resources provided by RTA has helped her develop that passion even further. “I love all of aspects of [filming], and Ryerson has definitely helped give us a piece of everything so that we can figure out what to specialize in. So Ryerson definitely lit that fire up and helped me see how much I loved it,” says Gugliotta. Gugliotta said that she was able to explore the ins and outs of filmmaking in her single-cam course. This first-year level course gives media production students an introduction to the technical and aesthetic elements of electronic field production. As an end of term project for the single-cam course, Gugliotta produced a short film called “CHIP.” The suspenseful film was inspired by the movie Inception, one of Gugliotta’s favourite movies. “CHIP” tells the story of a woman who is trying to escape from a villain but it appears that her dreams are muddled with reality. “I’m more into the less conventional stories, the less archetypical movies. I like the ones that kind of probe questions for the audience,” says Gugliotta. Gugliotta explains that “CHIP” is a piece that she feels is open to interpretation. There’s no right or wrong way to interpret the story, as long as it leaves you on the edge of your seat. “Even though everyone can tell a different story, it’s all revealed
at the end… I love watching a story unravel.” This style in storytelling is very evident in “CHIP” and many of the other short films posted on her personal YouTube channel. In her films “The Rouge” and “The Day Off,” she shows how stories can be told through the lens rather than dialogue. Both films depict serene scenes of nature, with characters played by her friends. They’re very nature-centered and simple, and allow the audience to better appreciate the way they were filmed and edited together. Gugliotta has more than a few short films that showcase her skills. She also shares a successful video blog with her sister called “Leah & Rayah,” which has over 16,000 subscribers. Their videos range from fun DIY’s and games to videos of trips to the beach and daily outings. Despite the modest fame she’s achieved through her vlog, Gugliotta makes it clear that she doesn’t want her success to stop there. When we met, her tone was genuine and awe inspiring. Gugliotta is a budding young artist, and there’s much more to this young aspiring filmmaker than her large social following. “I do find myself gravitating towards pictures rather than dialogue,” said Gugliotta. “When there’s no dialogue I feel like there’s more freedom for the audience to interpret things however they want. Sometimes, I’ll find one song and then try and tell a story through that song… I like to let the song kind of carry the movie.” She describes her usual filming techniques, and how she likes to pull in and out of focus, or zoom into something small and then zoom out to show the larger picture. Unlike the typical style of vlogging these days, Gugliotta is very interested in letting actions and scenery speak for itself. “Compared to a usual sit down video that you usually see nowadays,” says Gugliotta, “I like to vlog in the sense that I like to show you what I’m seeing, since everyone sees the world in a different way.” Vlogging has helped her put that skill into filmmaking. It’s helped her to see that filming is about putting things into perspective. “With short films, you can grasp so much even if there’s no dialogue.” But that’s not the only skill she’s gained from vlogging. Gugliotta explains that vlogging has also helped her reach a new level of confidence as a filmmaker. “I definitely think that vlogging and filmmaking intertwine for me now because I will go and get that shot if I really want it,” she says. “When you’re vlogging, you’re doing your own thing, and sometimes you’re
in public so it’s a little hard, whereas when you’re doing a scripted film you have to get that shot.” This is something many artistic people have trouble with, and even though Gugliotta has come a long way, identifying herself as a creative is something that she’s still working on. “When you think of a videographer, you normally think about a professional, and I’m definitely not a professional. Before, I used to be hesitant about bringing my camera, and then I would always regret it later. It can be really nerve-wracking sometimes, but in the end you get over that little awkwardness and you realize that you made something that other people can view as well.” Gugliotta thinks that labelling herself as a filmmaker has been the most troublesome part for her. “You don’t want people judging you, and expecting you to make amazing content. But at the end of the day you just gotta do what makes you happy.” She describes her introspective mindset as the reason behind her passion for different perspectives. It motivates her to see the world through others eyes—or, in Gugliotta’s case, her camera lens. “Everyone views the world differently. Art is very subjective and it’s cool to see people’s view and how they see the world. There’s no right or wrong to art so it’s definitely cool to see everyone’s perspective,” says Gugliotta. It’s more about the creating that makes her want to be a creative. She wishes to make content for others to see and draw inspiration from, much like how she draws inspiration from others. “It inspires me to see other people’s work,” says Gugliotta. “It’s not that I want everyone to see my work, I just want to create it and have it out there, so that people can see it and I can go back and see it… because you draw inspiration from other people and vice versa.” Gugliotta has high hopes for her future, but she admits that she’s still learning. “[I’ve learned] not to shoot the obvious stuff. Not being afraid to go out of your comfort zone and go and get that shot,” Her time at Ryerson has also helped her to envision her future as a videographer. “Ryerson has helped me see that there’s so much available to us. I see that I’m not limited to that one camera, and that I can use so many other things to better tell a story,” says Gugliotta.
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The resources that her program provides is what she’s most satisfied with. “Ryerson has not only provided resources but it has also provided so much knowledge, as cheesy as that sounds. Editing is my favorite thing to do and within the first ten minutes of my editing class I already learned three new things.” In depth, she explains how these classes help in production, post-production and every other phase of making a film. The equipment and what they make accessible to students is also good for students who don’t have the money to get all the different types of equipment that you’ll find in Ryerson’s Equipment Distribution Centre (EDC). When asked about how the Faculty of Communication and Design has helped her develop her skills in filming, Gugliotta was ready with praise. “Ryerson has definitely helped me get that peek into what the real world is like, which has helped me see where I want to go and what exactly I want to do.” Gugliotta says that the various resources and rigorous coursework provided by Ryerson has helped her reach her full potential as a filmmaker, allowing her to continue growing and evolving as a creative.
www.youtube.com/leahgooges The Rouge, CHIP, Day Off Video 2016
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Mitchell Houlahan 2nd year Graphic Communications Management Cinema 4D, Photoshop 2017
ELECTRONIC EXPERIMENT
Noah Lalonde 1st year Film Studies Contrasting Beauty Photography 2016
Karoline Mazzarella 2nd year Fashion Design Space Cadet Watercolour paper, newspaper, magazine paper, fabric, and pencil crayons 2016
Casey Pace 1st year Creative Industries Outfit #1 Pen and ink 2016
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Shihab Mian 1st year New Media Visit Canada Digital art 2016
Chloe Hazard 1st year Media Production Ghosted Photography 2016
Andrea Vahrusev 1st year Media Production Equality for all nipples Adobe Illustrator 2016
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Emma Kulcsar 4th year Interior Design Product design 2015
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RESTRUCTURING OF HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
“Restructuring of Healthcare Organization” was written for CMN 315: Issues in Communication and the Contemporary Workplace, a class on organizational culture and communication. Burrett wrote this analysis in response to an organizational case study by Paul J.A. Robinson and Dennis Tourish on a European health care organization. Her analysis focuses on discussing a pressing communication issue within the organization, along with identifying the issue’s causes and suggesting a possible solution. The issue consisted of employees feeling that they were in a negative work environment because their managers did not communicate information about big decisions. Burrett identifies problems within the management team as the primary cause of the problem. The senior managers were overworked and therefore did not have enough time to communicate their decisions to lower employees. The two possible solutions that Burrett suggested were to create a “high-involvement” workplace or to implement “mandatory role-hierarchy delegation.” The first option would allow employees to receive more training while becoming more hands on. The second solution gives managers the ability to assign different people as project managers to delegate tasks. Burrett suggested the second course of action as better suited because it would allow the workload in the company to be spread without affecting the hierarchy. This project allowed Burrett to recognize the creativity and skills required to produce communication solutions for these institutions. The report has inspired her to further delve into this research sector to “find innovative and creative solutions for issues destroying an organization.” FCAD has shaped Burrett’s identity as a professional communicator, by providing her with assignments that drive her passion for problem-solving. Laura Burrett 3rd Year Professional Communication Case study analysis 2016
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VOICE VISION Voice Vision is an installation project that Tina Cui created for her 4th year Interior Design class. Cui worked on the project throughout an entire semester, over the course of four months. The goal behind this project was to increase public awareness and knowledge about the Evergreen Brick Works. This would, in turn, bring the community back to the Kilns building and connect it to Evergreen as a whole. Cui’s ideas came to life through this installation, whose shape mimics the tunnel kilns used to produce bricks. Additionally, there is a changing light effect that showcases the production process. While visitors are viewing the installation, audio plays in the background of recordings from different areas within the Evergreen community.
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Tina Cui 4th year Interior Design Voice Vision Foam-core board, LED light, mirror effect sheet 2016
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WORDS PHOTOS AMY VAN DEN BERG ANKIT SINGH
salmaan farooqui
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When Salmaan Farooqui scored his first gig writing for the St. Catharine’s Standard he had some idea he would be breaking into the often-weird and colourful world of journalism, but Mickey the lobster came as a bit of a surprise. Mickey was found abandoned in a St. Catharine’s restaurant parking lot in what locals think was an April Fools Day prank in 2014. Farooqui, only 17 years old at the time, was sent to cover it. He was still in high school and had persuaded himself into a co-op with the local daily newspaper, writing mostly small stories and the occasional column, but he never thought that Mickey would turn out to be such a famous lobster. The crustacean became a national news story shortly after his rescue, when the Lincoln County Humane Society found a volunteer to fly him back to his homeland: the Atlantic Ocean. Farooqui found himself at the heart of the story as national newspapers like The Globe and Mail started arriving in St. Catharine’s with a goal to sate their reader’s appetite for a fun and (slightly) inspiring tale. “It was an outrageous story…and they wanted it as soon as possible so I had like 20 minutes to write it,” he said. The next day it was in every newspaper across the country, and so emerged Farooqui’s first national story. Coincidentally, his next national article a couple years later at the Calgary Herald was about a protected woodpecker that legally couldn’t be removed from a homeowner’s attic. “I’ve been really lucky in the animal beat,” he jokes. Pulling up on Spadina on a sleek road bike, hair flying about in a whirl of organized chaos, today Farooqui is the image of a laid-back writer who knows what he’s doing…well, mostly. Now a grown-up third year Journalism student at Ryerson, he is rarely serious and invariably disinclined to toot his own horn. He equalizes himself with other journalists large and small, and believes that practical experience remains an important part of a young journo’s development and break into the industry. “You have to come to terms with the fact that maybe your writing will just be shit at first but it doesn’t really matter,” he says with a wry smile, “You learn.” Inspired from the beginning by travel and being able to
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move around with a job where you get to experience every kind of lifestyle and person, Farooqui has always set his sights for bigger things. For the next three years post-lobster, Farooqui has been working towards his goal of graduating from Ryerson and documenting the larger world. Simultaneously studying journalism while bouncing around internships, Farooqui made waves wherever he ended up, which was anywhere that would take him. First writing a couple articles for The Eyeopener, Farooqui also freelanced for Vice and Torontoist, and scored an internship this past summer at the Calgary Herald. He currently works in the Radio Room at the Toronto Star and has a 10-week internship lined up at The Canadian Press for April. He is a writer who only needs a subject, and has dabbled in breaking news, investigative, political, crime and feature writing. One of his favourite experiences was with a freelance piece for Vice about bike couriers and his terrifying high-speed experience trying to keep up with one and not be hit. A cyclist himself, Farooqui followed his subject, Shaw, on a death-defying zip through traffic, potholes and a myriad of pissed-off drivers to get important cargo (documents, architecture scrolls, etc.) across the city. “The whole thing was so much fun, I just spent four hours trying to keep up with his bike,” he said, looking half crazed with the memory. “Pretty much, it was the best day I’ve ever had.” And it was a piece to be proud of. It was current as the streets of Toronto become ever more threatening towards cyclists, and interesting as he poetically satisfied the curiosity of a readership who seek vicarious thrills through Vice’s notoriously odd medley of stories. “That’s the cool thing about journalism!” he said. “If you think of something you really enjoy and find a way to make it into a story you’re just able to do that for a day and that was the work that you got paid for… it’s the most liberating feeling in the world.” “If you find a weird angle you can really write about anything,” he adds, laughing. It wasn’t an easy pitch, though, and it taught him a lesson on perseverance. Confident that his idea was a winner, he e-mailed Vice each day for two weeks before they replied and agreed to run it. But Farooqui says that’s just how it works, and part of any aspiring writer’s struggle. “Editor’s inboxes are so jammed... if they see it they might forget to reply, and if they forget to reply they’re likely not remember the next day.
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So you just have to keep sending it so they know you’re serious.” His experience at the Calgary Herald further proved his determination and a knack for going the whole way for a story. After writing a brief story on gender equality in the Calgary Police Service, Farooqui expectedly received a tip on the real underbelly of the force. After a few more came in, he got permission from his editor and mentor Tony Seskus to pursue the story. By the end of the summer he had published his own investigative piece on an internal workplace review that revealed sexual assault, bullying and intimidation at the Calgary Police Service. “That was a lot of fun having the opportunity to work on a story like that,” he said. “It felt important and the sources knew it was important [too].” The piece contained information from anonymous sources including leaked documents and was a rare opportunity for an intern. Farooqui says he owes much of the story’s success to Seskus, who gave him the freedom and scope to explore the issue. “He’s probably the best editor I’ll ever work with…he was really good at being a mentor but also not treating you like an intern.” Returning back to Ryerson in the fall, Farooqui started at the Star interning in the radio room reporting on crime, where he finds himself today. Despite his versatile resume, Farooqui knows exactly what kind of writer he is. “I don’t think of myself as a strong writer as far as feature writing goes,” he said. “I’m more of a hard news guy. I was always someone who was into the daily news cycle. I love the whole writing three articles a day with 400 words. Churning out news isn’t everyone’s favourite thing but it’s something I’m good at, and you can make it fun.” After being a journalistic chameleon for the past few years, through a sort of process of elimination, Farooqui has developed a preference for political science and business writing. “I love working on politics; I really, really love it. It’s really ‘newsy’ but it feels important and it really is,” he said. “Politics and business is also really good if I want to travel, which is why I got into it to begin with. It’s also so interchangeable for each country.” But it’s taken a while to get to this point of knowing what he wants. He says it can sometimes be scary starting out as a relatively inexperienced journalist, but that every experience and internship is a
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stepping-stone to collect contacts and technique. And with confidence and friends by his side, Farooqui makes reporting look easy. And that, he says, is because it is. “I’ve become really relaxed about journalism,” he said. “Because at the end of the day a lot of it is luck.” “You just have to put yourself in a position where you can get lucky,” he said. “You kind of have to slog through stuff until you get there” He recalls all of his learning curves, chuckling especially at a particularly painful interview that he did for a story for the St. Catharine’s Standard while still in high school. After the interview, his editor got a call saying they think somebody was pretending to be a journalist at the St. Catharine’s Standard. “It must have been because my interview was so bad. I was mortified when my editor told me. I probably came off as an idiot, now I just laugh at it.” Farooqui believes it’s these little hiccups that are inevitable and part of the learning process, and the key is not to take it too seriously, especially as a student. “That’s the biggest blessing about doing a degree in journalism, because you just get a lot of time where you don’t have to worry about making a living from it. You just have to use it to set yourself up and make all those stupid mistakes while you can.” And with a year and a half to go, not even graduation makes him nervous. Having already travelled around South America and bits of Australia, Farooqui will be heading to Africa this summer where he will backpack his way from Egypt to South Africa. But the real light at the end of the tunnel is his plans to head off to Japan after graduation to spend a year snowboarding in the mountains. Then? Who knows. “The best thing about being a journalist is that a doctor might know what it’s like to be a doctor and a teacher knows what it’s like to be a teacher. But as a journalist you get to experience all these different environments,” he said. “You get to talk to people who get excited about things you never even knew about.”
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2016 KID This is a selection from a series of photographs called 2016 KID, a documentation of Larry Heng’s photographic journey throughout 2016. Heng took up photography in late 2015 as a means of artistic expression and an emotional outlet. “Photography is the one thing that I am proud of and confident about, and it has impacted my life like nothing else,” he said. Heng incorporates his own photographic skills, as well as skills learned in his schooling and says he is more inspired to create and pursue his ideas because of photography.
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Larry Heng 1st year Journalism Selections from 2016 KID Photography 2016
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THE HUSTLE OF AMERICA’S HEARTLAND The Hustle of America’s Heartland was created to highlight the underlying beauty of the cities of Detroit, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois. Antoine Plenderleith collaborated with Olivier Smith, a student at the University of Toronto, in order to showcase that the stereotypes painting these cities as dangerous are misleading and “completely false.” Plenderleith’s approach was to capture real photographs of locations in these cities that were an accurate representation of the area, not over glorified at all. These photos are accompanied by small descriptions detailing what is in the picture and how it relates to its respective city. FCAD has had a large impact on Plenderleith, as he has studied in both the Performance Arts and now Professional Communication programs. He has been driven to utilize and uncover talents by learning about different forms of communicating his ideas. Mediums such as acting, writing, new media, design and photography have furthered him in his professional path and enabled him to work alongside industry professionals, through the support of the Faculty.
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Antoine Plenderleith, Olivier Smith 2nd year Professional Communications, Political Science (University of Toronto) The Hustle of America’s Heartland Photovoice project 2017
After three generations of living in Michigan, my grandfather moved his family to Boston following the completion of his residency at this school in 1960. No later than seven years after that, my great-grandfather left as well, following the uproar of the 1967 Detroit Race Riots. When I expressed my desire to explore Midwest of the United States, most people did not understand where my interest stemmed from. Even in Ann Arbor, when I told the locals that I was going to spend some time in Detroit, the common response was either “why” or “please, be safe.” Though this region of the United States has been harshly impacted by globalization, it still has a beautiful history and architecture, not to mention some the proudest people I have ever met.
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The word “abandoned” should not be taken lightly when it comes to many of Detroit’s neighborhoods. In residential areas near the downtown core, houses like this one can be commonly found. Although many are due to be torn down, some are available to buy for next to nothing. A bartender I met proudly told me about her plans to renovate a house she recently purchased for $25,000. Some may wonder why anyone would ever want to live in a deserted neighborhood. However, these houses are a part of Detroit’s “beautiful ugly.” What some call a wasteland, others call a land of opportunity. As a matter of fact, there are a surprising number of young people who aspire to one day buy a house just like this one.
Those who speak of Detroit’s “beautiful ugly” do not mean that the city is a pretty sight. The city’s unemployment rate is double that of the country. Neighborhoods like Brightmoor are still among the most dangerous in the United States. Many others are mostly deserted and mostly demolished. To see its beauty, one must look at Detroit’s history, its character, its surprisingly proud and vibrant culture. From this perspective, there is much to see. A man still living in the house next-door stepped out onto his porch to check on us. “I remember a time where you two couldn’t have stood there without getting shot,” he said. “Does anyone still live here?” “Dogs,” he answered. But not all of Detroit is like this. 78
Though there may be a correlation between gun violence and the percentage of African-Americans in a neighborhood, most people fail to recognize that the underlying cause for this circumstance: these regions of the city are stricken heavily by poverty due to neglecting city officials. With crumbling schools and a minimal number of jobs, individuals revert to crime due to a sense of hopelessness, When analyzing cases such as the three mentioned above, the issue becomes that outsiders subconsciously create false assumptions about places as a whole. Despite this year’s record breaking shooting numbers in Chicago and Detroit’s state of financial declaration in 2013, it is still not uncommon for residents to greet tourists on the street, wish each other a safe trip home late at night and even “dab” on customers a fast food restaurant. As my week in the American Midwest approaches its end, I have come to the realization that despite the negative reputations that are often attributed to the cities of Chicago and Detroit, the communal sentiment in these cities is among the strongest I have ever witnessed.
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Sandro Mastromatteo 4th year Graphic Communications Management California Song 2016
LISTEN | WWW.SANDROMASTRO.COM
early bird / Vicky Wang 1st year Creative Industries Make Believe Song 2017
LISTEN | WWW.SOUNDCLOUD.COM/THEEARLYBIRDSINGS
Alex McMurray 4th year Creative Industries Digital Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation Song 2016
LISTEN | WWW.SOUNDCLOUD.COM/A-MERK
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s o n i c e v o l u t i o n AUSTIN POMEROY
Sonic Evolution is a SpiritLive radio show-turned-podcast that just wrapped up its second season. The podcast takes an in-depth look at the music, life, history and evolution of a different musician or band every week. Austin Pomeroy profiles well-known greats like Michael Jackson, Coldplay and John Mayer, as well as artists like Austrian DJ Parov Stelar and Canadian rapper Shad. He focuses his show on musicians that have undergone significant changes in their signature sound, hence the title Sonic Evolution. A passionate music fan and aspiring radio host, Pomeroy uses the skills he’s learned in the Media Production program to research, write, air, produce and edit the podcast entirely on his own. Using Ryerson’s new Allan Slaight Radio Institute, Pomeroy spends over 20 hours a week on this personal project. He hopes the music will bring inspiration to listeners just as it has for him. LISTEN | WWW.PODCASTS.COM/SONIC-EVOLUTION-5AA03EB0D
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SpiritLive Show Breakdown Host: Austin Pomeroy November 23rd, 2016 Sonic Evolution – Season 2, Episode 8 “ANDY MINEO” 10:00:00 ………………………………………………… Sonic Evolution opening stinger 10:00:40 ………………… Talk: Host introduction, show explanation, Artist of the Week • Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sonic Evolution, season 2, episode 8. • This is the grand finale, the last show before the new year. • My name is Austin and I’m excited to present to you: Andy Mineo. • I wanted to end the season off with a bang, so who better than a white Italian dude who spits fire and has a fun time while doing it. • He’s been one of my favourites for a while now, so I’m psyched to play you some of his tunes. • Here’s what you need to know: • Andrew Aaron Mineo was raised by his mother in Syracuse, New York. • He was a troubled kid who grew up with anger in his heart, but he found his identity in hip hop as he headed into his teenage years. • Him and his buddy Ryan would breakdance on scraps of cardboard on the sidewalk and write rhymes.
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10:43:01 …………………………………………………….... Talk: Conclusion/Wrap-up • Thank you ladies and gentlemen, for joining me today and this whole season. • It’s been quite the ride and I’m looking forward to the new year. • I’ve got a whole new season for you, with all new artists. • It’s gonna be something else; I can tell you that. • I hope you learned something neat about my man Andy Mineo today, and I hope you discovered some new tunes to bring a little flavour to your life. • I’ve got one more song for you today, and it was released just about a month ago. • It’s called Candy Rain and it is a single commemorating Andy’s 2 years of marriage to his wife Christina. • The two got hitched in late August of 2014 and this song is a celebration of their time together. • It’s got a 90s R&B vibe, sounds a little like Drake and it’s overall kinda groovy. • Have a listen, catch you later, previous episodes are posted online so take a look to tide yourself over until season 3. • Live life to the fullest. • Listen to some music. • Peace. 10:45:57 ……………………………………………………………… Play: “Candy Rain” 10:50:00 ……………………………………………………………... Return to Auto-Play
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Austin Pomeroy 3rd year Media Production Sonic Evolution Podcast/radio show 2016
Haley Wilsdon 2nd year Photography Labour Screen printed text on photographic print 2016
Inspired by non-traditional processes, Haley Wilsdon created this piece in her photography production class to complete a text and image assignment. The goal of the assignment was to create a piece that effectively integrates text to enhance the overall message of the image. The image was created using a combination of photography, scanning, digital editing and screen printing. This piece comes in three separate prints, which are layered together to create the final image. The piece illustrates the disconnect between the labour that goes into making a being attractive and the satisfaction of seeing the finished product.
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RYERSON MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY
The Ryerson Musical Theatre Company was founded by 4th year Creative Industries student Robyn Hoja. She saw a need for a musical theatre club in the Ryerson community and decided to start one herself. The company had a very successful first show with the production of Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2016. Their second production, The Drowsy Chaperone, ran from March 8-11, 2017. ROBYN HOJA: “As soon as I accepted my offer to Ryerson University for Creative Industries, I couldn’t wait to join the musical theatre extracurricular that my new school offered. However, once arriving, I soon found out that this student group did not exist. I knew that I couldn’t be alone in hoping for a musical theatre extracurricular; nearly everyone I had talked to mentioned being a part of their high school pit band, or painted sets for their shows or shone in the ensemble. There was a clear want and need for this to exist, so I decided to put the wheels into motion and get RMTC off the ground.”
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“I think we all were overwhelmed with just how many people wanted to be involved, especially just in year one. We saw over 100 auditions, over 60 interviews for production team roles, over 40 for crew, and those numbers have grown in our second year.”
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE | 2015-2016
“Knowing how many individuals had put so much passion and hard work into the set, the lighting, the costumes, the choreography, the harmonies and so much more–it was magical.”
“I would be lying if I said I didn't cry every show night and every cast member and crew member will also attest to this–I even won an award for it at our awards gala. It really was surreal listening to the orchestra play the overture as the curtain rose on our opening tableau.”
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Photos: Cindy Long
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE | 2016-2017
“Year one was a lot of learning, which led to a lot of changes for year two. We have added a ton of positions to our production team that we were desperately missing last year, that have made the world of difference. We have also expanded our executive team to include a lot of new positions which has proved incredibly useful and worthwhile. We are always searching for more ways to involve students who have a passion for theatre but may not be able to be a part of the cast.”
“A lot of the success of RMTC stems from the collaboration of students from all programs across Ryerson. It’s really fascinating.”
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WORDS PHOTOS HARLEEN SIDHU ANKIT SINGH
justine houseley
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ic in mind made her feel like she wasn’t designing honestly. During her third year at Ryerson, she started to recognize the natural process she followed when designing. Her design process throws the pressure of being an original designer out the window and instead focuses on precedent-based problem solving. “Everything’s been done,” she says. Instead of focusing on the originality of a design, Houseley finds a problem, rules out all existing solutions to figure out why they didn’t work, and then drafts her design. Finding a solution from a problem will naturally make a design unique, she says. The first time Houseley put this process to work was for the Umbra competition in collaboration with Ryerson in April of 2016, for which she designed a teapot. “There’s no teapot that deals with arthritis or motor issues,” she says, adding that drinking tea is a universal ritual. Her teapot, titled Camellia, was designed to reduce wrist tension when pouring tea. “I want to do something that stands for a purpose or betters people’s lives, and not only specific people,” she says. The round glass teapot has a short spout and features a steel handle, a stainless steel tea infuser and a silicone
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In the twelfth grade, when asked who her favourite designer was for the Ryerson School of Interior Design (RSID) entrance interview, Justine Houseley responded with the most prestigious name in design she knew: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Ask her now, in her fourth year of the program, and she’ll say she has no favourite, but American architect and interior designer Frank Lloyd Wright comes pretty close. It’s Wright’s sense of eccentric design that Houseley can relate to. Having moved to Toronto last year, Houseley and her two roommates call blue linoleum floors, white walls, cheesy leafy curtains and a total of 20 faux sheepskin rugs covering old couches their eclectic and eccentric home. On a frigid December morning, Houseley arrives at a Balzac’s minutes from her townhouse. Wearing a casual black hoodie, sweatpants and boots to meet me for an interview, she apologizes immediately with a smile: “I was just cleaning my house.” Sitting upright in the café’s rattan French bistro chair, she explains how she gradually overcame the pressure to conform to popular design aesthetics. Minimalism remains the popular style of choice, but Houseley admits that designing with an aesthet-
rubber lid. A professional glassblower blew the prototype body of the teapot out of regular glass, while the intended design was for a double-walled glass body that users can touch while the tea is hot. Houseley’s idea wasn’t met with much interest by Umbra’s CEO at first. “’Umbra doesn’t need a teapot,’ is what he initially said,” recalls Houseley. But the teapot eventually won her second place in the competition. She plans to take glassblowing classes after graduating and create a second prototype from double-paned basilica glass, a lighter more durable glass. This 21-year-old is only getting started. She’s dreaming of a multi-disciplinary design firm that houses multiple design disciplines like architecture, industrial, graphic and even fashion design for her future practice. “Brands go to all these different firms to complete projects, but why not just go to one?” Houseley says. Though different from traditional firms, this idea doesn’t come without its own set of hurdles. “It’s going to take time to get there because there are so many stigmas between disciplines,” says Houseley. With a portfolio of various design projects ranging from product and interior design, to website design and branding, Houseley’s work is just as multi-disciplinary as her philosophy. Houseley is one of five siblings who were born and raised in suburban Pickering, Ont., an old but charming city she compares to the song “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire. Houseley’s mother, an interior designer and RSID grad from the ‘80s, greatly influenced her decision to pick design over music. “My mom had been talking to me about RSID for so long I think I had known I wanted to go there since elementary school,” she says. At Dunbarton High School she was heavily involved in extracurricular activities like musical theatre and had her own band called Mykonos. To this day she still dreams of Broadway, but for now gets her fix by singing folk songs at coffee shops with her roommates.
From countless sleepless nights in the RSID studio to designing spaces alongside industry leaders for clients, Houseley has a versatile approach to design, having dabbled in architecture, interior, industrial, product and graphic design. Her sources of inspiration range from books, podcasts and Pinterest to reflections on her own life and on those around her. “I think it’s really important to not just look at interior spaces and architecture, but look at fashion and graphics.” Houseley is now a graphics executive for the 2017 RSID year end show, after having been a member of the RSID course union in her first and second year. She’s working with new design disciplines like website design and branding but says the experience has ultimately taught her how to work as part of a professional team at Design Agency, a Toronto-based design firm. In February of 2016, Houseley’s first project as an intern at Design Agency was to design the bathroom of the new Danforth location of the restaurant chain Nando’s. She designed the space according to plans but went beyond by adding a veneered concrete wall edged with a feature pattern made from wood tiles, which was eventually used throughout the restaurant. “I was very hungry to do more creative work,” she admits. For the restaurant’s entrance she also designed a repetitive four by four ft. interior wood tiling pattern that divides into an eight by eight inch grid that further breaks down into triangles and geometric shapes with spots of colour that appear like exposed wood. Houseley says the tile design was symbolic of the inspiration behind the rest of the entrance design. Since Nando’s is a restaurant chain originating in South Africa, the project’s inspiration was the region’s colourful houses. “Houses in South Africa are extremely colourful but they still have that iconic look of a house,” says Houseley. Due for completion in early 2017, Houseley says she’ll definitely be visiting the space when it opens.
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“I’m used to things not really being made after I design something because that’s the nature of school, so it was the first awe-inspiring moment of seeing someone take what I had pitched and move forward with it to become a reality.” Coincidentally, Houseley’s first studio project at Ryerson in first year was to design a bathroom. “Step one at Ryerson was the bathroom, and it’s just funny that step one at Design Agency was the bathroom.” Reminiscing about her time at RSID, Houseley explains how time constraints in class forced her to turn to self-teaching―what she now says is a crucial skill to have in the design industry. “Understanding actual finishes rather than Googling just concrete is important,” she says. Houseley has also previously interned for Circle Design Inc. and Stephenson Design Associates, where she was limited to smaller tasks like cap revisions and rendering sketches. Houseley’s ambitious attitude is what persuaded her to design a makerspace―a resource-filled space for creators―for a Faculty of Communication and Design student residence competition over winter break in her third year. She and a friend competed against each other and designed their own submissions for the competition. Titled “intermission,” Houseley’s final design was a meditative space that encouraged students to de-stress and return to tasks with a productive attitude. Although the space allowed for personalized activities, Houseley and her friend only came to realize that both their designs weren’t actually makerspaces when they tried to submit the projects. The committee told them, “’That’s not a makerspace, that’s an un-makerspace,’” recalls Houseley with a laugh. Every designer needs a break to unwind from time to time. For Houseley that means plenty of soul and jazz music, video games like World of Warcraft and good company. She says sometimes it’s important to put yourself first and your work second: “Make time to go out and make time to have fun.”
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Justine Houseley 4th year Interior Design Camellia Product Design 2015
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Photos: Rachel Kirstein Camellia is a genus of flowers that are primarily used to brew tea. With a wide range of species, the plant has developed a variety of different teas enjoyed on a global scale. The teapot is ergonomically designed to reduce wrist tension when pouring a cup of tea, and showcases the individual’s taste by allowing the tea to be displayed through its transparent body. The product was produced for a collaborative studio class between RSID and Umbra.
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PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE Portraits of People is a book published by Erik Babinski. It contains a total of 42 portraits shot on film and 96 pages of stories published in his endeavour to depict himself through images of others. Babinski had wanted to work on this project for several years before he found a way to create it for a school project. The process of taking these photographs and collecting them in a book began with his desire to find his own identity. He hoped to discover new things about himself through the process of capturing the personalities of others in a single shot.
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Erik Babinski 4th year New Media Selections from Portraits of People Photography 2016
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8mm series
ALEK BÉLANGER
8mm Series is a collection of videos Alek Bélanger put together with his iPhone 6 and an app called “8mm,” which allows users to create clips with vintage filters. By using his iPhone 6, he was able to capture genuine and heartfelt moments that he says could not have been caught with a bigger camera. Once he created 20 films with the app, Bélanger began to post and create one video a day. In his first year, Bélanger was able to study 16mm film, which is when he began to appreciate the “retro look.” This project was inspired by the Film Studies program, as well as the friends he made within it.
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A 2n lek 8m d Y BĂŠ Vi m ear lan 20 deo Ser Fil ger 16 se ies m rie (se Stu s aso di n es on e)
HEY YOU: TO MY 14-YEAR-OLD SELF
carina grodek
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..the day you’re no longer afraid of being yourself
You tried to be happy
Carina Grodek 1st year Media Production Hey You: To My 14-Year-Old Self Short film 2016
I know you can’t wait
Carina Grodek came out publicly on Jan. 1, 2016. One year later, she posted a short video on YouTube. The video is a letter she wrote to her 14-year-old self, written four years later. Making videos is one of her favourite pastimes and she shot most of the footage in one day. With the help of FCAD’s Production: Intermediate Audio course, Grodek learned what she calls “the beauty of sound” and was able to use her new knowledge to make the final product of “Hey You.” She says, “it’s pretty crazy to think that I’m comfortable enough with myself that I can bring up my sexuality in a conversation. It’s even crazier to think that it’s already been a year.”
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..feel free, you know?
EloĂŻse Ptito-Echeverria 4th year Fashion Design Fauve Girls and their Inner Worlds Childrenswear illustration watercolour, gouache, ink, found materials on paper. 2015
EloĂŻse Ptito-Echeverria 4th year Fashion Design Parasite Portrait Series Embroidered threads, found materials, watercolour, gouache, pencil crayon, ink on paper 2016
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Carmen Lew 3rd year Fashion Communication Nudie Ladies Pencil crayon, fineliner pen 2016
Clea Christakos-Gee 2nd year Photography Selection from What Fits Collage 2016
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Quinton Bradshaw, Ashlee Redmond 2nd Year Media Production I Love You, Michael Cera Photo series, personal essay 2016
Quinton Bradshaw created I Love You, Michael Cera with her friend and “fellow Michael Cera enthusiast,” Ashlee Redmond in the summer of 2016. I Love You, Michael Cera is an earnest and playful letter to the actor, accompanied by photographs of both Bradshaw and Redmond recreating pictures of him. Meeting fellow creatives in FCAD has helped Bradshaw break out of “creatively lazy” spells and motivates her to continuously develop her own skills.
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DEAR MICHAEL CERA, I remember the night I first met you. It was 2011, and my family had just picked up a DVD copy of Juno from the bargain bin at our local Best Buy. That particular Saturday evening in January, I was relishing in the thrill of a rare night at home alone. After preparing myself a delicious meal of frozen pizza and carrot sticks, I popped Juno into the DVD player and settled onto the couch. (I may be embellishing a little here. I mean, this is six years ago. Did I really dine on frozen pizza with a side of carrot sticks? Was it for sure January? It seems plausible, but who the heck knows! What I do know for sure is that I am establishing the setting, and that, Michael, is called GREAT WRITING. But I digress.) I pressed play. And then...there you were. Dashing through parks, past houses, and up streets, barely breaking a sweat thanks to the superior wicking action of your bright yellow sweatbands, you jogged across the screen and straight into my heart. Since then, I’ve been an avid fan. You’re in a funny vine? I watch it. Someone shares a funny Michael Cera meme on Facebook? I like it. You release an album of quirky piano jams on bandcamp? I play it on repeat. (I don’t download it though, because I’m on a student budget here, Michael.) I’ve learned a lot from you over the years. In Juno you taught me to not care what people think, and that if you play your cards right you can get Ellen Page to kiss you, even if you’re just a scrawny track athlete who loves “breakfast for supper.” In Scott Pilgrim you taught me that persistence pays off, and that the power of love will get you a really cool sword. In Superbad you taught me that you should follow your dreams, even if it means getting pushed in front of a cop car, and in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist you taught me to listen to your heart and to always be careful who you let drive your car. I’ve been ruminating on this for a while, and I think the reason that I’m such a big fan of your work is that you of give me hope. I mean, despite being a goofy-looking dude from Brampton, you’re a bona-fide celeb. AND you do it without compromising your integrity, your personality, or your truly unique sense of style! You’re an inspiration to the rest of us goofy-looking Canadians who would also quite like to one day hit the big-time, and do it with integrity. I think of you as a man of the people, Michael, and I like to think there’s a little Michael Cera in all of us. Please never stop doing what you’re doing. Thank you for being you. I love you, Michael Cera. Fondest regards,
QUINTON BRADSHAW
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a study in wood
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Amanda Ross created 3 for a furniture design class in the School of Interior Design. This furniture design class allows interior design students to work on a smaller scale, and by doing so, they further their knowledge of design and fabrication. The number 3 shows up repeatedly in the design and concept. There are three legs, three joinery techniques, three main goals for the concept and the taper of the legs starts a third of the way from the top of the stool. This stool has three conceptual aims, all of which center on the aesthetic contrast between the round seat and the angular legs. The three techniques were for the joinery, the join between the legs and the seat.
PHOTO S: ANK IT S IN G H
Amanda Ross 3rd Year Interior Design 3 Ash wood 2016
Loblolly House, Sight Line Model was created in Design Dynamics III, a class taken in the second year of the Interior Design program. Students are assigned a building to study and Liz Mollon was assigned the Loblolly House, created by KieranTimberlake Architects. To visualize the conceptual and spatial ideas of the project physically, she used piano wire to represent a person’s line of sight. Plexiglass was used to both recreate the glass walls of the house and highlight the sight lines that extend beyond the interior of the structure. Mollon attended multiple workshops offered by FCAD to develop her creation process and carry out her vision for this project. To showcase her skills, she is working with the Faculty on a materiality installation project for the Interior Design Year End Show.
Liz Mollon 2nd Year Interior Design Loblolly House, Sight Line Model Plexiglass, piano wires, balsa wood, wooden dowels 2016 106
Pearl Kraft puts a new spin on the traditional Jewish seder plates for her Design Dynamics course in first year. Seder plates traditionally consist of a large round plate with six smaller round bowls within, each containing a specific type of symbolic food that is eaten at designated times during the Passover meal. Instead, Kraft designed a set of six magnetic hexagonal bowls that can be put together in multiple arrangements or used individually. Because of their functionality, the bowls can be used to serve many different cultures and traditions. During the creation of this set, Kraft discovered that studying user experience is important no matter what the design is, and can therefore be applied to many different projects.
Pearl Kraft 2nd year Interior Design Transforming Traditions Basswood 2016
Lisa Manganaan 2nd year Interior Design Tea Time Woodwork 2016
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S T YLING : RACHEL KIR ST EIN
Lisa Manganaan was inspired by traditional Japanese tea ceremonies to create this innovative tea mug in an utensil-building project for IRD 200: Design Dynamics Studio II. Made out of basswood and finished with beeswax, this mug is designed to catch the last drops of tea that always seem to get away. The minimal, angled shape of the cup allows the tea to settle in one place at the bottom. Manganaan, a tea lover, machined and hand-carved this piece using university facilities.
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F EAT UR E | GR A P H I C COM M UN I CAT I ON S M A N AGE M E N T
WO RDS P H OTOS L I DIA ABRAHA R ACH E L K I R S T E I N
jessica rocha-da silva
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FE AT UR E | GR A P H I C COM M UN I CAT I ON M A N AGE M E N T
“The wood cover is going to bend at the spine,” Jessica Rocha-Da Silva says as she describes what her team has planned for this year’s graduation book. “You get to have this nice curving effect on it, and it’s really sweet.” Rocha-Da Silva has a very precise diction and is beautifully articulate when she talks about books. And no, not the story lines, but the actual binding of the books. The Graphic Communications Management’s graduation book (GCM Grad Book) team is one of the two organizations that Rocha-Da Silva is involved in as a GCM student. The second student group is RyeTAGA, an annual GCM journal production showcasing student and faculty research in the industry of the graphic arts. The Grad Book is a yearbook that contains the prospects and credentials of every graduating GCM student. The book is produced and distributed annually to job fairs and prospective employers within the graphics communications industries in Toronto. Rocha-Da Silva is an executive for this student group and as she flips through the pages of her almost-finished work, she describes to me the feel and the delicate binding that holds the book together. “A lot of trees probably had to suffer for this,” Rocha-Da Silva laughs, “But it makes the book look really nice.” GCM is one of the many well-known schools at Ryerson, being that it’s the only one of its kind in the province. Rocha-Da Silva has chosen the printing and binding concentration: a “hidden” creative industry. “You see all of the banners up here?” Rocha-Da Silva points to the various signs and posters in the Student Campus Centre, “all of these things around here, they have to be printed, right?” “You learn there’s a science to everything,” said Rocha-Da Silva as she discusses the complexities of her packaging course. She mentions how her program has made her more aware of the way things are packaged and designed. She says that she finds it hard to walk into a bookstore and not touch everything and be amazed with the way all of the books are designed and bound.
FE AT UR E | GR A P H I C COM M UN I CAT I ON S M A N AGE M E NT
Rocha-Da Silva is a student who has put all of GCM’s resources to full use. “These student groups help you learn a lot of things. As a student, you can go up to any teacher and ask them for help. I bother my professors like crazy, and they’re okay with it!” Besides her active involvement within her program, Rocha-Da Silva shows great talent in the printing and production aspects of GCM: she’s won six awards based on her involvement and talents in design and printing. One of the many awards was the Tag and Label Manufacturers’ Institute Scholarship, which is presented to senior students who are pursuing a career in the tag and label manufacturing industry. Another is the Specialty Graphic Imaging Foundation Scholarship, which is presented to a student for their success in academic, extracurricular and work pursuits. “I really like taking on someone’s job and taking it back to them fully completed.” says Rocha-Da Silva. “If someone puts a comic online and they talk to me saying they want to print it, I’ll be like, ‘Okay, give me a week.’ Then I come back to them, give them as many copies as they want, and they’re happy and I’m happy, and it’s all just great.” “It’s one of those hidden industries that you don’t even know about,” says Rocha-Da Silva. “The hardest part is when people ask me what I’m doing, and I look at them with a blank face, because I have no idea how to explain this to them.” Rocha-Da Silva says that a lot of people often get her program confused with graphic design, which is a common GCM problem according to her. “I have to tell them [that] it’s also business, management, communication and the arts. So then I just go, ‘It’s a little bit of everything,’ even though most of the time I just let them get away with graphics.” She possibly has this problem explaining her program to others because of the interdisciplinary aspect of GCM. “It’s cool ‘cause in first year they tell us, ‘This is not a design program.’ Then in second year it’s more like ‘This is not a design program?’ And then by third year we’re like, ‘This is not a design program; this is way more.’” Rocha-Da Silva mentions that the mandatory summer internship in third year is one of the great things offered in her program. That’s where she was able to land her job with DT Print Solutions, a printing shop located in downtown Toronto. Her internship with DT turned into a part-time job, where she
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currently works—another way GCM has helped put her foot in the industry and get started on her career, Rocha-Da Silva explains. She reflects on how most of the things she has learned at her job were already taught to her by her professors. She’s especially happy with the support she’s received from faculty, and how they’ve guided her throughout her time at Ryerson. “I cannot complain about the [GCM] faculty,” says Rocha-Da Silva, “They’re amazing.” Before being a student in GCM, Rocha-Da Silva was passionate about designing books. But now, Rocha-Da Silva believes that the school has given her more skills than she would have thought. “A friend of mine and I are working on making a graphic novel, something that I’ve always wanted to do and I now have the skills to do it,” said Rocha-Da Silva. The graphic novel is still under wraps, however. The novel currently comprises of fan comics where Rocha-Da Silva and her friend pull characters that they like and create storylines about them. “We just want to work on developing our skills further right now.” Rocha-Da Silva says that since she’s spent a lot of time at GCM focusing on her printing skills, she’s taking time now to focus on her art skills. “GCM teaches us to be creative in a print-based program, but they aren’t OCAD or Sheridan, where people can specialize in certain arts such as animation or illustration,” says Rocha-Da Silva. “However, art is a skill that develops over time. I had to stop drawing for a while to stay focus as a student in GCM.” Rocha-Da Silva actually spent some time at George Brown College studying Early Childhood Studies before she came to Ryerson. She heard about GCM from a friend and decided to apply after realizing that Early Childhood Studies wasn’t for her. “I am a strong believer in continuous learning. I can’t just sit here and not think of the next thing to learn. It drives me crazy!” Rocha-Da Silva continues, “Now in my final year I am finding just a bit of time to focus on [art] again but I’m three years behind in my skills. I do see myself working to perfect what I want to do. But everything takes time, and time is valuable.” With Rocha-Da Silva’s talent and bubbly personality, there’s no telling where she’ll go but she’s fully confident that GCM has equipped her with the skills and resources she needs to reach success.
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SUKU BALI
jonathan micay
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Jonathan Micay 2nd year Media Production Selections from Suku Bali Photography 2016
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Suku Bali is a collection of photos that document Jonathan Micay’s trip to Bali, Indonesia in May of 2016. Suku, meaning “tribe” or “people” in Indonesian, became the main focus of this collection. To document these moments with the people of Bali, Micay used what he says is the most useful tool a photographer has: a smile. With his smile and his camera, he was able to capture daily life in Bali, which he describes as “intangible,” telling the stories of individuals living in a popular tourist destination.
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THE B
andrea jo sic
IG CIT
Y
The subway rattled as it sped along the tracks. My eyes fluttered open and closed, giving in to exhaustion. I relaxed my head in an attempt to sleep and I entered a light dreamy state, the noise around me fading into a hum. The screech of the train at a stop caused me to jolt awake and I shifted awkwardly in my seat, unable to find the same comfort. I looked up and I saw a figure walking slowly down the aisle. I noticed he was another one of the many homeless people in Toronto, hand outstretched asking for money. I immediately began to overthink the situation. I wasn’t good with confrontations and my heart rate increased as the man continued to make his way down the subway in my direction. I tried to ignore the situation, telling myself it would be over in a matter of seconds if I paid no attention to him, but I was unsure of what to do when I was forced to interact with him. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the next stop. I was praying for the train to move faster so that the people getting on or off at the next stop eased the tension. I fidgeted with my phone, unlocking the useless, service-less device in an attempt to distract myself. I felt someone towering over me as I peered into my phone screen. I look up instinctively, first noticing the faded pants scattered with holes, then the several rags tucked into his belt, the large coat falling off of one shoulder, his scrawny, trembling hands, and finally, his face. Sunken cheekbones, dark circles hollowing the sockets of his eyes and patchy hair fading in an array of grey all made up what seemed to be a once-handsome face. I heard the raspy words escape his mouth and although it was something I learned to tune out, every word seemed to pierce my eardrums. “Spare some change, please?” I locked eyes with him and immediately wished I hadn’t. His outreached hand moved closer to my face. “Miss, please.” I had never had such a close encounter with somebody who was homeless, and in that split second we made eye contact, I recognized an unmistakable trait: humanity. I looked away and my eyes began to burn from the strain of not looking at him again. I briefly looked around the subway to see if anyone was reacting, but nobody even seemed to notice. I glanced towards the hand and then at his face once again, avoiding his eyes but still able to see the tears falling down his cheeks. I sat there in silence. “Please,” his voice now filled with desperation, making the weight of my credit cards feel almost heavy enough to make me fall out of my seat, pulling me further to shame. My face reddened as I felt guilty about not giving him the few coins that were in my wallet. I felt him linger several seconds longer then slump away to the next person. I watched the man weave through people until his figure disappeared in the crowding train. Regret quickly washed over me. I craned my neck to relocate the man and when I could not find him, I bolted out of the train at my stop and prayed I would be able to catch up to him. The platform flooded with people and made any one person I would have wanted to point out indistinguishable. Upon realizing I would never see the man again I slowed, my feet feeling heavy and my heart dejected. I was disappointed in myself for reacting the way I did. The look in his eyes contained both humiliation and misery, feelings not foreign to me. I thought about the reasons why it has become so easy to forget that although they are homeless, people like that man are not less than human. My mind lingered on him only for a couple of moments longer as I had to pick up speed and leave the station with crowds of people entering or exiting through the same turnstiles. I hurried out of the station and onto the streets, now distracted by the rate of the metropolis around me. I walked briskly and as I passed a bundled-up homeless man, I caught his sign only out of the corner of my eye. The cardboard sign read “Spare some change please. Anything helps.” signed with a smiley face. He was asleep. I kept walking.
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mapping toronto PLX 111: Imagining the Creative City is a course for 1st year Creative Industries students. In it, students learn how creativity is supported, manifested and maintained in an urban environment. As part of the course, 1st year students map out a neighbourhood in Toronto in order to present and better appreciate the occasionally overlooked creative elements of the area.
DISTILLERY DISTRICT Austin Falconer / Vanessa Gloux / Ken Hammond / Cassandra Lee Karen Lee / Vivian Phung / Joanne Srifah / Tong Tie This Distillery District Ghost Hunt map puts a spooky spin on Toronto’s creative hub: the Distillery District. The map has eight different stops in and around the District, each combining fact and fiction to create entertaining ghost stories grounded in history. Each of the accompanying descriptions reinforce the relation between old and new, whether through drawing attention to the neighborhood’s past life as an industrial space or through focusing on the coexistence of contemporary and historic aesthetics and materials in the built environment. Some stops include the Stirling Room and its secret tunnel to the Afterworld, the Balzac’s Coffee that was once a mysterious pump house and the ghost of James Worts, watching over the old distilleries of Gooderham and Worts.
HARBOURFRONT Eunique Brooks / Rachel DeCoste / Jordan Lee / Anastasia Lukoyanov Geanie Luu / Serena Nguyen / Jennifer Owen / Julie Wong Harbourfront Guide details the harbourfront’s green spaces and natural elements, as well as wheelchair accessibility options. The map includes short descriptions that provide history and context for each of the eight spots that represent Toronto’s Harbourfront. The map, for instance, draws attention to the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal and provides the reader with a more critical angle than the usual tourist map by discussing the financing issues associated with the need to redesign the terminal. Other notable stops include the innovative Harbourfront Centre and the Power Plant Gallery, both of which exemplify Toronto’s commitment to transforming old industrial spaces into creative spaces, as well as the Toronto Music Garden, a park that enhances quality of life by allowing residents to escape from the bustle of city life.
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BRYCE JULIEN
urban religion
Bryce Julien 2nd year Photography Urban Religion Film photography 6x12 Medium format pinhole camera 2016
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“Clothing Optional” was created for RTA 857: Documentary Production, a course designed so that students spend a whole semester pitching, developing and producing a short documentary. When we were first brainstorming ideas for our documentary, someone suggested making one about Oasis Aqualounge, a clothingoptional sex club just a few steps away from Ryerson. Many people (us included) had preconceived notions about it; it was seen as a grimy place where “wild” things happened, and the people who went there were sexually deviant in some way. It definitely wasn’t a safe topic that would be easy for us to do. But that’s why we were drawn to it. Documentaries aren’t meant to be comfortable. They’re meant to challenge and reveal and provoke. Although Oasis was very open to connecting us with their staff and visitors, as well as letting us film inside the club during nonoperational hours, we couldn’t film while it was open (for obvious reasons). We needed to tell an engaging story despite this obstacle, and so we decided to frame the documentary around our group members’ journey as she learns to explore and understand a space she is initially uncomfortable with. We hope that her journey reflects our audience’s own journey as they watch the documentary. Throughout the making of it, we were forced to reconsider our own perspectives about sex and society. We had many discussions among ourselves about the kinds of messages our documentary would put out and how we could respectfully present subject matter that can be controversial. In making the documentary, we, as the filmmakers, were presented with so many new perspectives that we hadn’t previously considered. We went through a significant learning process, and ultimately, we hope that “Clothing Optional” does the same for those who watch it.
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CLOTHING OPTIONAL
Rory Eccles / Graeme Leung / Cindy Long / Lauren Smith
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“This whole experience hasn’t completely changed me as a person, but it’s definitely shown me that sex is normal. Nudity is normal. And there’s nothing to be ashamed about those things. And it doesn’t really matter what your opinion is, what matters is that your opinion is yours. Don’t let society tell you what’s wrong or what’s weird about sex. You kind of have to look inside and explore why you have these opinions. You kind of have to figure it out for yourself.”
WATCH | WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=QTWMZGG_R0K
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PODCAST
n o t s e e n o n t v
Isabelle Docto / Danielle Lee / Oriena Vuong
Not Seen on TV is a monthly podcast on CJRU The Scope at Ryerson that focuses on Asian representation in Canadian media. As young Asian-Canadians, Isabelle Docto, Danielle Lee and Oriena Vuong noticed the need for better Asian representation. They were inspired to produce a podcast that would open discussions around issues of Asian inclusivity and diversity in popular culture. The idea stemmed from a project Lee created in late 2015. Docto, Lee and Vuong have learned to tell captivating stories on multimedia platforms through their Journalism courses and they believed podcasting was the best way for them to tell this particular story. LISTEN | WWW.SOUNDCLOUD.COM/SCOPEATRYERSON/SETS/NOT-SEEN-ON-TV
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FE AT UR E | P R OFE S S I ON A L COM M UN I CAT I ON
WO RDS P H OTOS HA RL EEN SIDHU P E GA H P E I VA N D I
graeme montgomery
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If fourth-year Professional Communication student Graeme Montgomery had to describe himself in three words he would say: driven, classic and fair. Having joined Ryerson Art+Design Magazine (RADmag)—a publication showcasing the creative work of Ryerson students—in his second year, Montgomery has worked his way up from graphic designer to event director, managing director and now editor in chief. “What I really love doing is leading a team and creating something artistic or creative. I’m not the most amazing photographer. I’m not the most amazing stylist. I know there are people better than me at that but I’m really good at creating a team and making it all happen,” says Montgomery. As the current editor in chief of RADmag, Montgomery stresses that creative collaboration comes before content. “It’s all about supporting the creatives within our team and within the Ryerson community,” he says. Not only is he in favour of supporting Ryerson students, but also budding creatives in industries like photography, makeup, hairstyling and styling. “Even though someone might not have a hundred editorials under their belt, they’re still producing amazing content that looks very professional,” he says. “It’s just been really rewarding to go from the initial emails to the initial contact with a student designer and say, ‘I love your collection, have you shot it yet? If you haven’t shot it please let me shoot it.’ all the way going to seeing it printed in our magazine and on bookshelves where you can buy it.” Montgomery is responsible for overseeing the production of issue six and seven of the bi-annual magazine. He recounts the launch party of issue six on January 26 of this year as his proudest moment at RADmag. The magazine partnered with Best Practice, an RTA School of Media podcast and online zine supporting female creatives in Toronto, Montreal and New York for a live panel podcast. The team’s aim of expanding the RADmag brand into Toronto was welcomed by hundreds of
students and creatives as they arrived at the launch venue, Free―a creator studio for #TheCreatorClass. For Montgomery, the entire experience has been surreal. “I think it’ll be even crazier when I am able to go to our stockists and see our magazine on a shelf and have my name in it,” he says. Montgomery grew up in Portland, Oregon, a city on the West Coast of the United States where he immersed himself within the local fashion scene by volunteering at fashion events. “I love fashion, I love the art behind it, I love the creative people behind it,” he says. As early as high school, he was handling guest relations and press for FashioNXT—Portland’s fashion week, ranked by Time magazine as the number one fashion week in the U.S. outside of New York Fashion Week. Over time he became familiar with the community of fashion insiders at shows and began handling VIP guest relations. Having helped produce multiple events over the years, Montgomery is no stranger to a well-orchestrated eventturned-crisis. “This past RADmag event that we threw, our speakers didn’t work and our DJ couldn’t set up,” he says. “Producing an event is a lot more work than people realize. There are so many logistics and things always go wrong. You have to rely on so many different people to get things done.” Montgomery says that instead of making a big deal of a bad situation, it’s important to weigh out the fastest and best solution, efficiency is key. To resolve the speaker situation at the RADmag event, the team resorted to Uber to get an extra set of speakers in. For the past year, Montgomery has been working with marketing and events promotion company No Name Events as an event promoter for F-Stop Bar. “It’s not something I want to do with my career necessarily because I think club culture isn’t the most amazing, but it’s been really fun as a university experience and it has a lot to do with marketing.” After an intense day on set or in school, Montgomery can always rely on “trashy reality” shows to de-stress. He says he’s most likely seen every episode of The Real Housewives television series. “I’m so happy that The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is back,” he says. To pamper himself, Montgomery enjoys cooking elaborate meals like risotto, kale salad, avocado toast and vegetable noodles made from his spiralizer. “I try to be healthy,” he admits with a chuckle.
Although one of Montgomery’s New Year’s resolutions for 2017 is to eat out less, it was precisely this activity that led him to discover his passion for hospitality. “I love that in the past, any restaurant with good food would succeed. But today with the Internet and social media, you have to have a very aesthetically branded company that has a good online presence,” he says. Having recently developed an interest in hospitality and restaurant branding, Montgomery looks up to establishments like Soho House, an exclusive club for people in creative industries that takes form as an A-list hotspot during the annual Toronto International Film Festival. “That is a company I would love to work for because their branding is so on point and they do such different things around the world.” With six years of graphic design experience, Montgomery has also worked on projects in branding, promotional design and web design. “I feel like I’ve always had a more minimal, clean approach to my design but I like playing with new colours and new layouts,” he says. Montgomery initially started working with graphic design in the tenth grade for his high school yearbook. The 360 page full colour yearbook was designed entirely using Adobe Suite and won national yearbook competitions annually. “In my grade 12 year, I was the layout editor of the yearbook, so I designed every single page and was able to come up with the concept for the yearbook which kind of was a great pre-cursor to RADmag,” he says. Though he admits he’s not a seasoned pro with formal training, his knowledge of graphic design has helped him when communicating with RADmag’s graphic designers and art director. “It’s an asset to be able to understand design and understand design concepts like page composition, the difference between an inch and a pica,” he says. Montgomery’s Instagram is both a portfolio piece and a glimpse into his aesthetic lifestyle. With an eye for composition and a knack for photography he shares food, travels and mood board-worthy shots on his Instagram feed. He says the personal growth of his style is reflected in the content he shares on social media as he aims for a classic, clean and structural look. He adds that Instagram is a community of its own, “I’m friends with people who have really contrasting aesthetics of creating. I definitely take a lot of inspiration from my friends and the content they’re creating but I try to make it my own.”
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FE AT UR E | P R OFE S S I ON A L COM M UN I CAT I ON
@gramegm Photography 2016
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“I look up to different people for different reasons,” says Montgomery. He speaks of his admiration of designer Tom Ford’s passion for routine and consistency in life before reciting the resume of Stefano Tonchi off the top of his head. Tonchi, the current editor in chief of W magazine has previously held titles such as editor in chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine and artistic director at J.Crew, all while having a family of his own: a husband and two kids, which Montgomery thinks is “awesome.” “I look up to anyone who’s able to express their creativity, be successful and have an ease of life about them.” “My advice almost always: never be afraid to reach out to someone that you want to work with or someone that you want help or advice from,” says Montgomery. He owes most of his career connections to taking risks and reaching out to people whether it’s to shoot someone whose aesthetic he admires or going to an event just to meet its producer. “I also find that in the creative field―especially in Toronto―it’s such a small community and it’s such a young community that everyone is open to collaborate.” In ten years’ time, Montgomery says that though he doesn’t know exactly what city he’ll be in, he plans on putting his dual-citizenship to good use. “I’m hoping to either be working at a really awesome creative content agency, marketing agency or doing internal communications for a company that I’ve fallen in love with.”
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heikigani: yoshitoshi JO CURTICAPEAN
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Jo Curticapean 3rd year Fashion Design Heikigani: Yoshitoshi India ink and watercolour on vellum 2016
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These are selections from a series of seven fashion paintings. Curticapean, a 3rd year Fashion Design student, finds inspiration in the classic Japanese art form “ukiyo-e,” or “pictures of the floating world.” These pieces were influenced by the early career of artist Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) and his allegorical war prints. Curticapean referenced Yoshitoshi’s art style within this piece, along with his use of curving lines and chaotic colours.
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vintage or vĂŞtements? EMMA-CHASE LAFLAMME
Emma-Chase Laflamme 2nd year Fashion Communication Fashion editorial 2016
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polish’d
WINTER 16/17
24 HOURS IN TORONTO ON NYE TREND ALERT: DUSTER EARRINGS ELISABETTA MARRELLA OF BREAD & CIRCUS
EMILY SKUBLICS + NAOMI BREARLEY polish’d is a magazine that was created for a final project in NNS 504, a fashion journalism class. Emily Skublics and Naomi Brearley found that current fashion magazines spoke to readers as though they only cared about their appearances. They wanted to eliminate this preconceived notion by creating a magazine that spoke to young women in Toronto—intellectuals, feminists and go-getters. They wrote stories they wished they could read in today’s magazines and made it look “pretty, because smart and pretty are not mutually exclusive.” As students in the Creative Industries program, Skublics and Brearley have had opportunities to learn about every aspect that went into the production of the project. As students in FCAD, they also learned how to collaborate—Image Arts student Emmett Charuk photographed the featured spread “Winter Warriors.” With skills they acquired through fashion, journalism, media and marketing classes, polish’d shaped into their own passion project.
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Text by Emily Skublics Photography by Emmett Charuk Styling by Naomi Brearley
Ryerson's coolest creatives model their take on how to battle this year's #polarvortex.
winter warriors Last year's mega-trend is revitalized this winter with new styling - asymmetry is key.
BLANKET STATEMENT
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M ODELS
ON MILLIE: MEC COAT OAK+FORT HAT
ON ZOYA: OAK+FORT COAT AND TOP
ON JOANNA: FRANK+OAK COAT AND TOP ARITZIA PANTS
ON BRONWYN: FRANK+OAK COAT OAK+FORT HAT AND PANTS
Coats worn over the shoulders are the coolest it-girl trick, especially when you're out with your crew.
SQUAD GOALS
SH ALL, Z OYA S HA BA N, MILLIE YAT ES
J OA NNA LU PKER , BRON WYN MA RP H OTOS E M M E T T CH A R UK
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Naomi Brearley, Emily Skublics 4th Year Creative Industries polish’d Magazine 2016
Transition your fall staple bomber (patches & pins included) into winter with a chunky knit turtleneck and beanie.
THE BOMB[ER].COM
ON BRONWYN (RIGHT): FRANK+OAK COATS OAK+FORT PANTS
ON JOANNA: FRANK+OAK COAT ARITZIA TOP OAK+FORT HAT
LAYER CAKE
Do what your momma told ya and layer. Mix & match a duster and bomber for max warmth and style.
Untitled TARA COLE
Product styling started as a hobby for Tara Cole when she began to showcase her work on Instagram three years ago. The idea of product styling as a career had not crossed her mind before, but after her first year in the Fashion Communication program, Cole took courses that began to shape this hobby into a potential profession. The program has allowed her to gain skills in photography and graphic design, which has helped her develop and curate her work. Cole says she is now able to represent herself in her photographs and use her newly learned skills to expand her projects.
Tara Cole 2nd Fashion Communication Untitled Photography, product styling 2016
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G N I Z : I L E A N I I R Z E A T G A A M M E TH s
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The 1960s brought about a seismic shift in the art world of North America. A growing emphasis on concept over object in artistic practices prompted Lucy Lippard and John Chandler to coin the term “dematerialization,” introducing the theoretical language of conceptual art (Lippard and Chandler). The dematerialization of the art object stood as a protest against the commodification of art and its artists in an increasingly hierarchical gallery system. New ways of art making needed new ways of art documentation, and thus, the artists’ magazine began its critical journey as an oppositional site for the exhibition of conceptual art. Following Lippard’s later acknowledgement of the potential inaccuracy of the term dematerialization (“a piece of paper or photograph is as much an object, or as “material” as a ton of lead” [Lippard 5]), this paper focuses closely on the material form of conceptual artists’ magazines to explore the question: how were the radical politics of dematerialization manifested in the material and aesthetic characteristics of these publications? Conceptual artists’ magazines not only offered accessibility to a broader public by circumventing traditional commercial art systems, they also offered a new level of tangible intimacy with artwork which opposed the austere and exclusively visual experience of the privatized gallery. The material form and aesthetics of artists’ magazines of this era were paradoxically integral in implementing Conceptual art’s dematerializing politics, and in turn offered an increased level of intimate interaction between artwork and individual, breeding a new private space for the experience of art.
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The nuanced interplay between issues of public and private in regard to the artists’ magazine is integral to this discussion. The conceptual artists’ periodical indeed offered an alternative space to an elitist and privatized commercial art system, and in turn offered increased accessibility to a more varied and public audience. So, the shift from private systems to a public sphere is evident in most assessments of the Conceptual art movement. There is a third shift in the interplay between private and public, however, which deserves equal attention. Not only did the Conceptual art magazine penetrate the public sphere, it also introduced a profoundly new private space reserved for the direct, one-on-one interaction between artwork and viewer. The physical function of the magazine – it must be held, touched, and rifled through to display its contents – creates an intimate relationship between the medium and the reader, stimulating the spectrum of human senses. The intangible distance established in the solely visual experience of looking at art in a gallery was collapsed by the intervention of the magazine into the experience of interacting with artwork. Dematerialization moved away from a visual bias in favour of a holistic approach to the corporeal senses, placing the material of the artwork itself in the audience’s hand. The way in which conceptual artists’ periodicals facilitated a distinct closeness between artwork and viewer will be explored through a careful consideration of the political and material characteristics of three artists’ magazines from this period: Aspen (1965 – 1971), 0 To 9 (1967-1969), and Art-Rite (1973 – 1978). These three magazines exemplify the diversity of the critical and formal approaches of artists’ publications from this period. Aspen magazine was an unbound, multi-sensory take on the artist periodical, containing disparate multimedia objects in its cardboard shell. 0 To 9, published by Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer, explored the aesthetics and materiality of language and temporality. Art-Rite, published out of a Manhattan apartment, had a DIY ethos and played with humour, attitude, and hand-made processes. All three bred unique connections between reader and artwork through their physical forms, introducing a novel private space where accessibility, tangibility, and intimacy were paramount. Aspen, published from 1965 to 1971 by Phyllis Johnson, signified the shift from the solely visual experience of art to a multi-sensory approach, a transformation which was paradigmatic of dematerialized art practices of the time. Born from the then burgeoning artistic and recreational scene of Aspen, Colorado, Aspen: The Magazine in a Box was “a three-dimensional publication housed in a cardboard box with all kinds of unbound contents, including flexi-disc records, films, souvenirs, and other objects” (Allen 43). In the first letter from the editor, Johnson describes how Aspen represented a return to the original meaning of the term magazine: “a storehouse, a cache, a ship laden with stores” (Johnson). This storehouse indeed existed as a portable museum of items, documents, and sounds, bringing a “miniature travelling gallery” (Allen 43) directly into the homes of its users. This format immediately collapsed the traditional distance between artwork and viewer, favouring a multi-spectrum sensory intervention into the readers’ personal space (‘reader’ here being used as a consciously limited term for the person interacting with the magazine: a process which involved much more than simply reading). Aspen provided direct access to not just documentations of artworks, but simulations or facsimiles of the burgeoning new media art forms
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themselves. As a 1970 advertisement for the magazine boasts, “ASPEN gives you the actual works of art! Exactly as the artists created them. In exactly the media he created them for” (“March 1970 Ad…”). These works of art included reversible movie flipbooks from Andy Warhol, a flexi-disc recording of Velvet Underground’s first release, Loop, and recordings by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and John Cage, among others. The ad goes on to acknowledge the expanded sensory experience that the magazine provides: “When a new issue arrives, you don’t just read it – you hear it, hang it, feel it, fly it, sniff it, taste it, fold it, wear it, shake it, even project it on your living room wall” (“March 1970 Ad…”). This multi-sensorial approach is best exemplified by Aspen 4, dubbed The McLuhan Issue, after Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan. Issue 4 materially illustrated McLuhan’s notion “that technology would “extend” the nervous system by activating the aural and tactile capacities of the human sensorium” (Allen 48). The magazine consciously disrupted the linearity of static print through its format. It printed McLuhan’s 1967 The Medium is the Massage on a two-sided fold out broadsheet, displaying the pages in a mosaic layout so that the reader could view the contents all at once and enter into the text at multiple starting and ending points. Beyond the contents themselves, the simple physical actions necessary to unravel and reveal the contents of Aspen necessitated a close physical intimacy between reader and work. Readers dictated the order and timeframe of their own personal experience, choosing where and when to enter into the material at hand. The act of simply unfolding a poster or listening to a phonograph recording created a corporeal connection unavailable in most public gallery settings. The unconventional and innovative physical form of Aspen magazine indeed exemplified the emphasis on accessibility that dematerialized practices aimed for, fostering a tactile, multi-sensory private space for the viewer to directly experience the work of conceptual artists and theorists. Continuing this trend but in a different format was 0 to 9, a periodical run by artists and poets Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer from 1967 to 1969 in lower Manhattan. 0 to 9 was an 81/2-by-11-inch mimeographed magazine bound by staples, which, above all, explored “language as a sculptural material” (Allen 71). The periodical extended from the increasingly intertwined practices of art and poetry, a growing convergence seen in the 1960s. Mayer explains that 0 to 9 was created to make space for this kind of work which previously found no home in traditional art systems: “Vito and I created 0 To 9 as an environment for our own work, which did not seem to exist anywhere else” (Mayer). The mere creation of the magazine itself is exemplary of the growing movement among conceptual artists to create and maintain alternative spaces as a protest against the commercial art world. 0 to 9 was produced inexpensively, using the easily accessible mimeograph: a lo-fi duplication process that preceded the photocopier. This affordable printing format not only allowed for the production and circulation of the magazine, it was additionally integral in complementing the artistic pursuits of the editors. The mimeographed pages materially represented Acconci and Mayer’s attempts to disrupt assumptions of the pristine nature of poetry and traditionally high-brow art forms. The crudeness of the format, “rife with smudges and blobs, incompletely formed letters, uneven ink distribution, and other flaws” (Allen 73) advanced the editors’ experiments with language. As Mayer
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describes, “We were trying to get far away from the idea, so promulgated, of the perfection of the poem with white space around it, set off from other things” (Mayer). This messy approach to poetry was meant to animate the static nature of printed language, invigorating the printed word and magazine layout with a clear sense of movement. Acconci explains this desire to enliven the stagnation of printed language and force it into action: “It was time when a lot of us were thinking poetry confined to a page wasn’t enough anymore—that we needed to go into action” (Wright). 0 to 9 manifested these pursuits using two key material methods: experimentation with the tactility of the magazine’s covers, and playfulness with the temporal possibilities of text distribution throughout the pages. The cover that best illustrates Acconci and Mayer’s formal representations of action is from Issue 5. This cover was a crumpled piece of paper that had been flattened and smoothed, revealing patterns of veins and folds unique to each individual copy (Figure 1). These traces were a tactile reference to and memory of an action performed directly on the material of the magazine. This process imbued each booklet with a dynamic performative quality, providing each viewer with a uniquely tactile experience, connecting them, through material, to the hand of the artist. The following cover, of Issue 6, played more towards the inherent temporality of the book codex: it was simply six blank pages. These pages forced the viewer to move through them, drawing attention to the physical qualities of the publication without the distraction of text or visuals. In her chapter on 0 to 9, Gwen Allen observes: “These final two covers emblematize Acconci’s understanding of the magazine not as a static, two-dimensional thing but as a vehicle and locus for action – something to be moved through and beyond (Allen 72). This approach was furthered by the typographical layouts of Acconci’s poetry. In Issue 3, for example, Acconci’s poem “ON” was scattered throughout the pages of the magazine “so that the reader must leaf through the entire publication in order to read it” (Allen 77). These playful but purposeful engagements with the materiality of the medium signalled to the reader a distinct sense of movement and time. The material qualities of 0 to 9, from its affordable printing process to its tactile experiments with the form of the magazine, brought the reader into direct, tangible engagement with the works contained within the pages. This is yet another artists’ periodical that was emblematic of the politics of dematerialization in the art world in the 1960s in its ability to breed an alternative and intimate space for the audience to access ephemeral artwork. A final example of an artists’ periodical that offered accessibility rather than exclusivity to its readers was the scrappy and unostentatious Art-Rite. Art-Rite was published by three recent college graduates, Walter Robinson, Edit deAk and Joshua Cohn, out of their downtown Manhattan apartment from 1973-1978. Bleeding well into the ‘70s, it existed as an after wave to the zenith of the Conceptual art movement, representing the transitory interim between the shifts in 1960s artistic politics and proto-punk developments. The three editors began the fledgling half-tabloid newsprint periodical with no previous publishing experience, exerting a youthful gusto that was “open, democratic, and fresh-faced” (Frankel 14). Art-Rite sought to circulate art criticism “that would be, like the bargain products in a dime store, accessible and unpretentious” (Allen 121). Robinson, deAk and Cohn embraced an egalitarian
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Works Cited: Allen, Gwen. Artists’ Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011. Print.| Frankel, David. “The Rite Stuff.” Artforum international. 01 2003: 114-118+.ProQuest. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. Web. | Johnson, Phyllis. “A Letter from Phyllis Johnson, 1970.” Found, UbuWeb, 2 Dec. 2016, Web. | Lippard, Lucy R. and John Chandler. “The Dematerialization of Art.” Conceptual Art: a Critical Anthology, edited by Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, MIT Press, 1999, 46-50. Print. | Lippard, Lucy R. Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972; a Cross-reference Book of Information on Some Esthetic Boundaries .. New York: Praeger, 1973. Print. |“March 1970 Advertisement.” Found, UbuWeb, 2 Dec. 2016, Web. | Mayer, Bernadette. “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Bernadette Mayer, Vito Acconci, and 0 to 9 Magazine, Walker Art Center Website, ed. Eric Lorberer, 7 Sep. 2012, Accessed 10 Dec. 2016. Web. | Wright, Karen. “Vito Acconci.” Interviewmagazine.com, 9 Aug. 2009. Accessed 7 Dec. 2016. Web.
ethos, and developed a supportive relationship with their audience by cultivating a “friendly, familiar tone, addressing their readers with affectionate salutations” (Allen 127) and adopting a sense of levity and humour towards the often sterile world of art criticism. The editors’ inclusive approach was found not only in their writing, but in the formal attributes of the magazine as well. The lo-fi, zine-like aesthetic of Art-Rite conveyed to its readers a distinct handmade quality. In fact, the covers of both issue 6 and issue 8 were, at least in part, hand-created. Designed by artist Dorothea Rockburne, issue 6’s hand-folded cover (Figure 2) was executed by the editors themselves. They had to “fold the bottom right-hand corner of every cover upward on a diagonal to divide a large, delicately outlined, but otherwise blank square into a pair of triangles” (Frankel 14). Issue 8, designed by Pat Steir, required the editors to hand stamp a triplet of primary-coloured roses using potato-prints on all six thousand copies (Figure 3). This personalized dedication to each single issue undoubtedly bred a close connection with the magazine’s readers: “These vivid unexpected glimpses of the handmade gave the magazine an intimate quality that was in contrast to the standardized impersonal character of mainstream media” (Allen 127). These personalized methods - in both their authorial voice and in their material choices – encouraged the reader to participate in the viewing and criticism of art at an equal, participatory level. Once again, the artists’ periodical acted as a critical tool for both the widespread public access to art and the creation of a private space for the individual to interact with artwork and criticism. All three of the above artists’ magazines, Aspen, 0 to 9, and Art-Rite, exemplify the print periodicals’ democratic ability in both form and function. Beyond allowing for the circulation of conceptual artworks and writings, they fostered a tangible connection to the viewer, collapsing the solely visual experience of the gallery in favour of multi-sensory and hands-on engagement. It should be noted that dematerialization was but one voice in a 1960s political and artistic climate dominated by other prevailing narratives, but the artists’ periodical helped solidify these alternative politics by offering oppositional sites for the creation and showcasing of Conceptual art. Whether Conceptualism was ultimately successful in its mandate to eschew commercialism and elitism in the art world (a retrospective Lucy Lippard later acknowledged the apparent failure of the movement [Lippard 263]), the novel employment of the magazine forwarded conceptual artists’ oppositional politics, allowing for the creation and preservation of an alternative narrative. Artists’ periodicals and their predecessors have clearly played essential roles in the developments and dissolutions of artistic movements. They have carved out spaces in public spheres and provided accessible communication to a wide range of communities. The artists’ magazine’s unique character lies in its potential as both a communication technology and as an artistic medium. They have been, and remain to be today, a significant site for experimentation, creativity, and innovative documentation.
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WORDS P H OTOS AMY VAN DEN BE R G R ACH E L K I R S T E I N
hyejin lee
“It didn’t really inspire me; I didn’t really learn anything. I
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After finishing her first semester at George Brown College, Hyejin Lee found herself broke, far from home, and without direction or any inkling of where her education and life were taking her. She landed in Vancouver more than five years ago and had made her way to Toronto to plant roots and discover herself through studying. But early in her Arts and Science diploma, her savings ran dry and she was at a loss for inspiration and funds to carry on. She told some friends about her decision to drop out of school to start saving money again or leave and go back home to Korea. The next day a friend approached her and put $1,000 cash into her hands – it was the difference she needed to pay for tuition. “That was not just money, that was a big hope and motivation that made me pursue my education,” smiling, she says: “I’ll never forget that…it still gives me goosebumps, it was so touching.” The money was pooled by many people who wanted her to continue studying, and it gave her the drive she needed to finish the semester. Lee scored the grades that admitted her into a Fashion and Business program at George Brown and eventually to the Fashion Design program at Ryerson. Now three years into the program Lee is successful and content. Things eventually turned out quite well for her. Looking confident and elegant in a knit sweater, jean skirt and faux jewels around her neck, she eases back in her chair, the image of a cool fashion student. Staring out of the cloudy café window, she talks about the times when she didn’t quite know what was going to happen, but knew it would be okay. This seems to be a common theme in her story. Arriving in Vancouver with $300 in her pocket, she busied herself for five years working service and retail jobs until she set her sights on a higher education. She had already completed a degree in psychology in Korea, but it hadn’t been enough to make her want to stay and build a life in her home country.
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literally went to university because everybody else went,” she says about her first degree. But Lee knew she wanted to do more. Ready to make a new start and determined to find a career that suited her, she enrolled at George Brown College and moved eastwards. “At this point I thought I should go back to school, I should learn more skills and knowledge so that way I can quit this kind of job and make myself a better life,” she said, the silver bangles on her wrist jingling as she puts down her coffee mug. “I knew that I liked to make things and that I kinda liked creative things but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.” Soon after deciding to continue at George Brown, she met John Kong, an engineer, and opened up a retail store that added to his existing bicycle shop in Roncesvalles. The income from the store would help fund her degree and developing passion for the fashion industry and design process. It was called Set Me Free. As a mature student and one who has jumped a few hurdles to get where she is, Lee navigated university knowing her skills and strengths. Although she always looks stylish and smart and has a creative mind, she is more businesswoman than artist, and doesn’t have time for extravagant runway fashions or overcomplicated designs. “Whenever I see clothes or dream of a design I think, ‘will it sell or will it not sell’? I can’t get that thought out of my mind, so when I design something it’s got to make sense; it’s got to have market value.” One of her talents is her eye for detail and precision, as well as unyielding perseverance. She is wonder woman with a needle and thread. She once had to create a historic feminine garment, and for reasons she now forgets, she decided to hand-embroider the entire thing. Lee quickly realized that one flower took her upwards of two hours, but she had made a commitment. For the next two weeks while battling other projects and running her store, she spent every spare minute attached to her needle and frame and only slept a couple hours a night to get the piece finished by the deadline. 146
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This patience and determination didn’t always come naturally, and today she laughs as she sips her coffee and remembers her first year in Ryerson’s Fashion Design program. “I used to get so stressed!” She says, giggling, her face lighting up her naturally calm and collected features. “Oh my God, first semester of first year I almost dropped out. I felt like everybody was slapping my face.” In her first couple years at Ryerson, Lee was adapting to studying in a second language as well as enduring the financial strains of paying international fees. All the while she was running her retail business and even found time to develop an interest in bodybuilding, which she hopes to compete in next year. “I don’t know how I made it work but somehow I made it work, right?” Despite the heavy course load and demanding nature of Ryerson’s Fashion Design program, Lee made it through that first part, and now excels. “I personally like the heavy workload because in the end it teaches me a lot and it makes me push myself, I’m always pushing my boundaries,” she said. Part of that drive comes from owning a business that sells clothing while having the opportunity to study the ideas and process behind the merchandise. “Once I started at Ryerson, the way they taught things like pattern drafting, fabric, design, and colour, really started to assemble together. So now when I buy and talk to my suppliers it comes back to me.” In the end, the ironically titled Set Me Free kept her grounded. It gave her the practical experience that complemented her studies and taught her useful skills to develop and run her business. “Before when I bought things I only bought them because they looked nice and they would sell, but now [suppliers] know they can’t mess with me because I can tell and if it’s not made nicely I won’t buy it.” But in keeping to her laissez-faire style of moving through life, Lee doesn’t have any plans of continuing in retail. After years of 24-hour work, she and Kong closed their store in January and are taking a well-deserved breather.
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“Sometimes we have to stop things to make good changes, and I may think later ‘maybe I shouldn’t have closed it,’” she said with a smirk. “But if you never change anything you’ll just be stuck there forever.” As she sets off to Amsterdam for a semester abroad only a week after closing, all she wants for the future is space and freedom to pursue new adventures and ambitions. “I don’t think I will come back to this kind of [throwaway] retail style; I just kinda feel like I’m not doing anything positive. I make money, but in the end too many things go to waste.” And waste is a major part of this decision. “Once I started going to school and once I got involved in the business I started to see how things go to waste so easily. It slowly started to kick around in my mind and once I came to Ryerson it got into my head.” Her concerns lie in the dangers of consumerism and the mass purchasing of garments that have been made in poor conditions and with harmful chemicals. But, she says, with competitive pricing and economic considerations, it’s nearly impossible for her to buy from anywhere else. She sees herself as a participant of a system that discredits the fashion industry and benefits few. “I will do something in fashion, but I also realized when I closed the store, that retail right now in this society is a lot of waste and I’m kind of promoting a lot of that wasteful behaviour.” Instead, she has her sights set on eventually doing her MA in Fashion at Ryerson, or even her MBA at University of Toronto. Regardless of the path she takes, Lee, equipped with her tiny relentless needle-wielding fingers and an unwavering faith in the future, knows she will always land on her feet.
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Stephania Stefanakou Mentor: Husain Nizami 5th year Fashion Communication 3D Printing in Fashion 3D Printing and Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPEs) 2016
Model: Hannah Stinson Photos: Pegah Peivandi
3D PRINTING IN FASHION This piece by Stephania Stefanakou stemmed from a thesis project completed in her fourth year of the Fashion Communication program. She has continued to work on 3D printing fashion through Ryerson’s Design Fabrication Zone and her instructor and mentor, Husain Nizami. Her work focuses on issues surrounding female consumers in the wearable technology industry. Stefanakou utilized two different frameworks in her research for her thesis: “A Conceptual Framework for Apparel Design” by Lamb and Kallal (1992) and “Enclothed Cognition” by Adam and Galinsky (2012). These frameworks allowed her to focus her research and products towards the individual aspects that come together to create successful designs that are well received by consumers. Her two pieces showcased in this image are a cropped shirt and a shape-shifting skirt. The shirt was 3D-printed using a flexible material called FilaFlex, which mimics the feel and comfort of regular fabric. The skirt consists of nitinol wire, which is a shape memory alloy, causing it to alter its shape according to the surrounding environment changes. Ultimately, Stefanakou has revealed through her research and creations what the future of wearable technology could be and how it can begin to appeal to the needs of female consumers. 150
decaying ASHLEY STEWART
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Ashley Stewart 1st year New Media Decaying Sculpture 2016
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Decaying was created in memory of my late grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. As a symbol and gift to her, I created a sculpture of a 3D brain to represent the impact Alzheimer’s disease wrought on her mind. Alzheimer’s disease is a terminal illness—you can delay the process of losing your memory, but eventually it will catch up with you. Similarly, once you pick flowers from the ground, you can prolong their life by feeding and watering them, but eventually they will die, too. My photographs chart how my lively, vibrant grandmother faded into a silent and quiet woman. I created a 3D model of a brain and placed fresh flowers in the crevices, then photographed the piece day by day to chart its gradual decay. This decay symbolizes the way Alzheimer’s disease gradually took hold of my grandmother’s mind. Although Decaying was a personal project, FCAD has inspired me to push the limits of my practice. Being surrounded by creators and visionaries in my classes, who similarly venture out of their own artistic practices, encouraged me to do the same. In creating this piece, I wanted to explore and do something I had never done before. Using a 3D printer was challenging, in that I had to design my own 3D brain whereas I usually stick to painting, drawing or writing when creating art. FCAD has shown me how I can enhance my work and create more with different mediums in a variety of outlets.
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Co-Curators Daphne Chan + Paulina Gusciora Logistics Lead Vanessa Gloux
Editor In Chief Serena Kwok
Marketing Lead Magda Prusaczyk
Creative Director Rachel Kirstein
Art Director Lucy Wowk
Graphic Designer Kasi McAuley
Photographers Julie Mai Pegah Peivandi Ankit Singh
Feature Writers Lidia Abraha Harleen Sidhu Amy van den Berg
Marketing Associates Franco Cesario Eitab Dabbous Sarah Pazzano
Layout Artists Chara Ho Japnaam Kaur Jessica Song Marielle Tolentino
Abstract Writers Josh Cameron Raizel Harjosubroto Sukaina Jamil Josie Mills
Digital Content Manager Emily Eymundson
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