NOSTALGIA — WOO Fall 2022 Issue

nostalgia

t able of contents

familiar yet unfamiliar Cheryl Wong let’s talk women Natasha A. Ismail Kowo oh i know this! Anoushka Rawal deplete Natalie Janzen i love your music (series) Novalynn Diguistini everything stays Aretha Pereira twilight Malvika Garlyal overactive imagination Kendra Heer a conversation with time Kelly Hardi retirement home Fatemehsadat Pourseyed lost in paradise Jenny Luo fuzzy Jordyn Julianna gibsons Jesse McIver underwater Victoria Chirciu spotless minds Jihu Kim paradise means drifting in an eternal dream Vy Le i thought i was a night owl Gabriel Saenz forever daydream Tannaz Saatchi ghosties Chloe Groth home Samaah Siddiqui my room Sayde Koetke an o to my name Anoushka Nair damo, lupa’t kongkreto Keeyan Suazo

ruminating remnants Hayley Ng sticks in the river Thea Kehler teddy picnic Andrea Bollen wilderness beneath Melody Gwon the ocean to sin forever Parumveer Walia memory maker Ella Emsheimer mia in aviemore Harriet Forster my dream of nezha Lenny Yang if summer is biting into unripened fruit, then fall is the ripening Ella White poster 6 (starman) Kalina Lashkova faded Kelly Hardi the worst thing Amy Longo the panofsky method Ian Wojtowicz editorialCheryl Wong the sweetness of love Parumveer Walia take me home Ann Siddall the golden crystallized Shamsa Malek milky teeth hers and mine Alyssa Thompson menoufia: sintris Nada Salama nostalgia Benjamin Jossinet wonderland Bethany Pardoe

50 survival guide faces of emily carr

class of nostalgia

directors media team

Madeleine Salomons Editor-in-Chief

Luiza Coulaud Creative Director

Aretha Pereira Editorial Director Charlie Mahoney-Volk Media Director

Brandon Chan Ella Funk Jade Sawotin

Jordan Beaumont Joshua Louie Malvika Garlyal

Natalie Janzen

Sarah Hong Valerie Ivashchenko

editorial team design team

Anoushka Nair Cheryl Wong Ella White Kelly Hardi

Parumveer Walia Vy Le

Graciella Rosary Isaac Hatfield Jasmine Wong

Kalina Lashkova Katie Gu Lucy Fournier

Melody Gwon

LETTERS FROM THE DIRECTORS

Madeleine Salomons

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

I joined Woo in the fall of 2019, during my first week at Emily Carr. I was delightfully green, hopelessly lonely, and wanted nothing more than to be a part of something. It feels jarring to think that four years have passed, and that so much has changed.

Woo is the one thing that has been constant—I feel incredibly privileged to have gotten to know every person who has been a part of it, and am endlessly thankful for everything I have learned from them.

This publication’s theme of nostalgia seems particularly fitting, looking back on those four years. It’s impossible to not be nostalgic for what was. But as much as we long for the past, we must also look to the future. Here’s to all the years behind us—and all the years yet to come.

Luiza Coulaud

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

How does nostalgia affect one’s identity? How do memories inflict on how we build ourselves as people? What are our core memories? All of these are questions that I asked myself during the process of building this issue. Our deepest memories have an effect on how we see the world nowadays, the experiences we have lived led us up to this moment. Nostalgia can mean a number of different things to different people.

I hope this issue of WOO will help you reconnect to those memories. The little moments that brought you here. The happiest memories you have, the best moments you’ve lived, and all that reminds you of that. Remembering where we came from, the people that accompanied us through that, the thoughts we’ve had, the experiences we lived.

A huge thank you to the entire team to making this idea come to life, a special thanks to the design team & Madeleine for persevering with the very specific notes, and working with someone that is such a perfectionist. This would not have been possible without you all. that is such a perfectionist. This would not have

familiar yet unfamiliar

We met again this summer. We both grew up in our own ways the past decade. We are our own product of time.

Yet against all changes, It felt right to be home, a place of origin and comfort, So pure and precious.

It was exciting to be lost in familiarity.

HKG Summer 2022.

let’s talk women (2022)

My undergrad thesis at OCAD University focused on editorial and typography practices. I created a series of posters depicting various women in various fields, such as sports, and entertainment. There are many inspirational women of colour around the world, and my year-long thesis could not possibly cover them all. Consider this the first instalment of the poster series. Women of colour, especially in this day and age, play an important role. Women of colour are frequently the inspiration behind every significant matter or issue; they are the front-liners. Women of colour have been fighting for equal pay and recognition. We see the world in black and white but we never notice the greyscale.

oh i know this!

The idea is to bring back the memories that we as adults relive when we visit any arcade and then we often tend to say "OH I KNOW THIS" when I was a kid I used to play that game a lot.

deplete(2022)

isn’t it funny how we used to swing until our hands bleed laugh until our stomachs twist skip until our knees keel wouldn’t it be nice if we let ourselves indulge in the lives we grew up once imagining we would be free to deplete ourselves happily

An anklet of blue and white beads bound in a pattern of x’s

woven together in the Great Rift Valley beside a river on a mat. Generosity demonstrates how loops capture spheres building architecture on plastic, their hands steady movements magic.

A string held up to eyes ask with mine Is this okay?

Gently burns the edges against the wrist to see how it lays. Too big. And yet a new idea whispered softly with juvenile urgency, push. Soreness takes a seat correctly against eager skin. Constructing a definition marking time’s momentary grace permanently in place.

verything

Malvika Garlyal

twilight

(2022)

This triptych is about the chronic feeling of loneliness and how it affects the relationship with myself and others. It represents my urge to cling to these relationships because I am afraid of losing them. Twilight by Elliott Smith was a huge inspiration for the work because the lyrics correspond to my ideas about the ephemerality of happiness and fulfilment

in my life; my stars will inevitably become mere memories in the future. While it depicts my insecurities, it is also a reference to all the people I’ve known in the past, and the memories I’ve made with them that have come to an end as a result of our stars “dying.”

Kendra Heer

Nostalgic childhood nights would often lead to my imagination running wild. A whimsical monster greets the little girl from behind the bed! This illustration features elements of my childhood, including favourite books and movies, special stuffies, dust bunnies, a glass of water in case of nightmares that my mother would leave for me in my room, and of course an overactive imagination.

o veractive imagination

a conversation with time

If the chapters of time had a conversation How do you think it would go?

Would The Past mock and tease The Present? Would The Present tremble at the sight of The Future? Would The Future hold onto The Past?

Or would they look at each other in awe? Admiring what they each are filled with: An array of memories and feelings That are familiar yet foreign

I would imagine for them to perhaps realize That they each are constantly changing The Present changes into The Past The Future changes into The Present And The Past changes into a memory

“You have potential to become a memory” The Future would whisper to The Present “To become a scene that is so vivid, whole and salient, and yearned for.

To capture a feeling of bliss, familiarity, warmth, and longed for.

To provide comfort when I become too much.”

Kelly Hardi

SECOND YEAR ILLUSTRATION

@VICTORIAKELLYH

Pressure. That is what The Present would feel, right?

Because after all, The Present is relied on the most To give it their all in preparation for The Future, in fear they could fade into The Past without becoming a memory

But I would like for The Future and The Past to look after The Present most to cherish their potential as a core piece of The Past and as a glimpse of hope for The Future

“I am me, because of you.” The Present would look at The Past And turn to The Future “And I am me, to become you. But I am not me, without any of you.”

Silence. A comfortable silence. A moment of epiphany happening understanding they each are not so distant and in fact make each other whole.

Fatemehsadat Pourseyed

retirement home

A dumpster full of old TVs. Is this a retirement home? Is this what happens to all of us? Is it going to be a part of us? Is this a future or a nostalgic memory? What is this?

lost in paradise

MIXED MEDIA: WATERCOLOURS, INK, PENCIL CRAYON & PROCREATE 9X12

“Lost in Paradise” emerged as a personal reflection on my childhood spaces. For context, I spent the entirety of my formative years in Kerrisdale (an older neighbourhood situated in the westside of Vancouver), and went to school there for 18 years. Upon transitioning to university in late 2018, I felt an intense longing for the familiar spaces I had left behind. Coupled with the growing pains of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, my memories of Kerrisdale became something I was fiercely protective of. Due to unforeseen circumstances that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was not able to visit until mid-2020. By the time I returned to Kerrisdale, bits and pieces of it no longer aligned with my memory of the place.

The ghostly figures in the illustration represent the forgotten footpaths and memories of places I remember that no longer exist. It’s been many years now, but the Arbutus Corridor (pictured in the illustration) was once home to many plots of community gardens that lined the once abandoned railway tracks. People who lived in the area tended to it, and teachers from the nearby elementary school would often take their students on outdoor excursions to tend to the growing brambles of snow-peas and cherry tomatoes. From the expanse of trees painted in sixteen shades of green and a makeshift shed for tools, all was swaddled under the canopy of the perennially blue sky. Alas, it had a sad ending. The

gardens were eventually paved over when a decade old dispute between the CP Railway and the city came to a head, resulting in resuming train operations in the area and that was the end of it. What used to be vegetation, is now buried six feet under concrete.

There was a disturbance in my memories of the places I held close to my heart and the fact there was no longer physical embodiments of them. The contrasts of where the streets were once lined with businesses run by generations of warm, disjointed families and vintage shops manned by kind old ladies with butterscotch candies tucked inside their pockets. It’s here, where the memories of my formative years are neatly packaged in shades of peach reminiscent of early mornings. As the years pass and the longer I stay away from Kerrisdale each time, new visits feels like a jarring hook to my side. I start to wonder if Father Time has gotten the better of me, for I can longer recall these places with precision.

fuzzy

A remembrance of the fuzzy dog stickers i loved as a kid.

My parents used to own a small property in Gibsons, BC and we would go there a couple times a year. They sold it about 10 years ago and I have not been back to that island since then. Every so often I think about it and wish I could go back.

u nderwater

Victoria Chirciu FOUNDATION @ICHILLUSTRATION

This oil on canvas series explores dynamic human figures on the theme of flowers, underwater.

spotless (2021) minds

Serial paintings about fear, aimlessness, anxiety, immature sexuality, unsolved mysteries, good memories, bad memories, and neutral memories from childhood.

Jihu Kim

VISUAL ARTS

THIRD

YEAR

3D ANIMATION

@VEE__LNG

paradise means drifting in an eternal dream Vy Le

She thought she had gone blind when she opened her eyes, but darkness was just the nurse turning off the hallway lights.

She heard the click clacks of her heels, tired and numb and further and further away until it echoed only silence.

“I would get a pair of high heels too, when I get better” she thought,“But then it would be expensive, and I don’t get to go out much either.”

And she decided then, some hypothetical shoes were not worth buying.

She thought of the bathroom tiles in Dad’s apartment: how dull they were Water seeped through stained concrete joints, tiles were

cracked and unaligned “It would be too expensive”, Dad would say, “and we don’t need pretty tiles anyways.”

And she thought, “At least it could provide safety of a home” so her feet hesitantly touched the ground, and the tingling felt nice like how you sleep at night feet poking out of the blanket, socks on, gasping for that cold air flooding your tiny bedroom through the rear window you have left open and you hear clatters of the keys when your neighbour comes home late from a party and you smell raindrops lingering on the dying leaves of your favourite starfruit tree

and you see the moon and the moon sees you and you don’t feel so lonely anymore.

“What does it feel to be lonely?” she murmured She walked gingerly to the bathroom, crinkled feet lost in the floor tiles “I must have forgotten.”

She remembered that Grandma used to always forget:

• that she wasn’t allergic to crawfish, and that her beef sandwich had gotten cold

• forget the leftovers in the fridge, mostly lemon chicken soup perhaps

• forget which way was left and which way was right

• forget to buy winter jackets; but she liked the cold of snowflakes melting in her hands.

Grandma forgot to lock the door

Forgot to brush her teeth

Forgot to eat Forgot to sleep Forgot to dream. How come Grandma had never told her about the old skin and the hair loss and the oblivion of aging souls eventually eating away one’s will to live?

She lathered her hands with the flower-shaped soap bar Her fingers met each other, and intertwined Water from the sink washed away the grimes and dirt she thought she had seen under her fingerbeds “Ridiculous, how can grimes and dirt get under one’s fingerbeds?”

Bubbles held rainbows like how ocean holds weary fishing boats

Softly and tenderly Until big waves flushed them down the drain.

She couldn’t remember what bubbles and rainbows and oceans were like, Or the image of his face, one that on every synapse of her mind was once engraved Her heart ached.

She sat alone on the bathroom floor, blood dripping down her arm from where the IV needle should be tears dampening her wrinkles, fell on the scars of her wrist.

She heard the nurse calling for her name, her heels click clack click clack But she just wished to see the stars and the moon and the dark night sky again to lay next to him on soft green grass, white daisy-freckled nose to nose and toes to toes remembering this body.

“What does it feel to be lonely?” she thought. And her heart stopped.

What does it feel to be lonely?

i thought i was a night owl

I made this illustration after learning that I had ADHD. It made me remember the times I stayed up late, assuming I was just a "night owl." Feeling the most focused at night when there’s no noise pollution to get distracted; the most motivated the night before the date due; and the most productive because I genuinely cannot fall asleep. For 21 years, I was used to that lifestyle and believed it was simply a small "quirk" of mine. However, as I got older, I came to the realization it was the root of a mental condition with which I, along with many other students who consider themselves night owls, have to deal every night.

@PHOTOSBYTANNAZ

f orever daydream

ghosties

Two ghosts floating together, in front of a greyscale garden. They’re just vibing. They’re hanging out :)

The exquisite feeling of thinking about your old home, the home you used to live in everyday but never got used to.

home

Where you irksomely did the dishes and lied wistful waiting for your food to heat up and the heater to do its job.

That old home of yours is like a dusty, withered book whose aroma you wish to sniff everyday.

(DO YOU MISS YOUR HOME TOO?)

my room

Digital piece depicting my childhood bedroom with text talking about my feelings of having two homes.

an O to my name

Anoushka Nair

SECOND YEAR INTERACTION DESIGN

@AAN_8864

Do you remember the first time you ever said your name? Or reacted to it? I, for one, never really cared for my name– in the literal sense. But, as life has it, one of my core memories centers around my name, or rather my relation to it.

It all starts with a simple question…

“Whose paper is this?!”

A calm autumn afternoon, an exasperated professor and a blank piece of paper– three things that surrounded a 4 year old girl, during one of her last days of kindergarten.

Ohh, I want to go home, thought the girl. She never really liked to be the center of attention, especially since she could now feel the teacher, along with everyone else in the class, staring at her.

“You, young girl, please come here”, said the professor. The girl, however, immediately ducked her head behind her friend’s back, so she wasn’t in the teacher’s line of sight.

“You know I’m speaking to you, miss–please don’t waste our time and come here!”, demanded the teacher.

Home, I want homee, thought the girl again. Beckoned to the front of class, she starts making her way to the teacher, knowing all too well what she was about to hear.

“Again?”

Oh noo, please no. Giving her best shot at a puppy face, the girl looks up at her teacher. The teacher, however, was not having any of it. “I’ve told you many times, I cannot know if this is your paper, if you don’t write..”

please don’t say it “..your..”

Please no “..name!!”

Name, this name, this stupid namee, always this name, sighed the girl. You see, like many others in her class, she had managed to perfect the art of the alphabet. However, it was this thing called a name, a word that apparently belonged to her, that she wanted nothing to do with. Especially since she couldn’t really bring herself to..spell it.

You see, this word–it was just so difficult. Eight letters, not one similar to the other, except for the ‘A’ at the two ends. It’s not like the girl hadn’t tried; she would often begin with a confident ‘A’, sometimes even follow it with an unsure ‘N’, but that’s where it would become blurry.

This word, why is it mine?! I don’t want any word for me, thought the young girl.

“Hello miss, I’m talking to you– why haven’t you written your name again?”, the teacher pulls her back from her thoughts. “You know what, by Monday, I want you to spell your name out in front of the entire class, and write it on your next paper–have I made myself clear?!”, bellowed the teacher.

Not speaking in front of everyone– no way!

The girl had decided– she would learn her name this weekend. Bringing out a bag of Eclairs and a sheet with her word written on it, she set foot on her mission.

It was Saturday, the day before her birthday and two before her deadline. She paced on top of a black tiled alcove, situated in the living room of her house. She had only memorised four letters of her word and none of them were in a particular order. Eventually, as the day went by, the sun rose from the west–She had remembered the seven letters of her word, all in a proper manner. I did it, thought the girl. The idea of rewarding herself with an eclair every time she got her name right, surprisingly worked! However, it was then brought to her attention that her word has eight letters, not seven…

An ‘O’ looked her right in the face, almost mocking her for celebration. She had forgotten all about it, having known that the letter was never pronounced, for some reason. So, too happy to care, she decided to not include it. No one would even notice, beamed the girl.

Just then, her dad came back home and embraced her in a long hug, evidently noticing the good mood she was in. “I know it– I know my name!”, she went around screaming in the house. Her amused dad then said, “Let’s hear it then, what is your name?”

She screamed every letter of her word, awaiting the applause she knew her dad would reward her with. However, what followed was complete silence. Confused, her dad then stated, “What about the ‘O’ gundu? You forgot the ‘O’ in your name!”.

After explaining it’s irrelevance to her dad, she was sat down and told, “The O in your name is very important,

never forget it. You may never say it, but it makes up your name– it completes you.”

Still confused by its importance, the girl simply decided to remember it by the end of the day.

Soon, the day she would write her name, finally came. As she walked in class, on that sunny Monday morning, all eyes were on her; and for the first time, she didn’t mind. Papers were distributed and the class promptly focused on their assignments.

Gradually, as the day went by– the teacher began distributing papers and the girl proudly awaited her turn. It came soon, as everyone noticed the big smile on the teacher’s face, as she called the girl to the front of the class.

“Well done! You finally did it..but I see I’m not the only one who liked your name written on the sheets!”, laughed the teacher.

What does she mean, thought the girl, peeking into her paper on the table. Instantly regretting her decision, the girl started thinking of ways to hide her face again.

On her paper, under every question, were plastered eight letters….with overly emphasised O’s .

How could she have not noticed this before? In the excitement of knowing her name, she had ended up writing it in every space of the page, even the date section! The entire class laughed, and slowly, the girl found herself laughing at her innocence too.

“I’m giving you an A+ for this paper– not because you’ve answered every question, but because you’ve learned something important. And I must say, you even managed to remember your Os!!”

Walking back home, the girl found herself reciting her new favourite word.

Her word – A N O U S H K A

damo, lupa’t kongkreto grass,soilandconcrete

I started to forget some aspects of my childhood as portions of my childhood home began to change and be covered with concrete – as if my mind and my home were connected. The original structure and appearance of the house where I once lived will only exist in my memories now. Creating this piece is an attempt to preserve my home, reconstructing the house I once remembered while accepting the ever-changing aspect of everything, especially things close to heart.

I created a digital collage with images of the house I grew up in the Philippines from Google Maps with different timelines (Apr 2015, Jun 2016, Mar 2019, and May 2022). The photos include portions that I still remember, the state of the house when we left, and it slowly shifts as objects change configurations and location and as portions of the lot were covered in concrete . Even though it is not entirely recognizable, it is still the house I grew up in. The

first house I felt at home. The use of analytic cubist style is an opportunity to show different perspectives and different timelines of a certain being, object, place or phenomena – an attempt of documenting change itself. As I looked at our verdant front lawn while it was being excavated and covered with concrete, I realized that the memory-filled grass is gone. I tried to grasp on the memories I have with it and with the flood of time, memories are slowly getting washed away.

Now, as I look at the painting, some of my memories start to surface and leave me feeling nostalgic. Even though in the future where my family and I could not recognize the house we once lived in, we at least have a relic of how it once looked and felt. Change is something inevitable and even though change occurs at different rates, it always results in an epiphany – a realization that nothing will remain the same.

teddy picnic

I started at ECU in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic, filled with uncertainties. I messaged on an online group to see if anyone had an old teddy that wanted to go on an adventure. Someone replied that 50 yr old Teddy was free the next day, so I went to pick Teddy up the next morning promising to return Teddy before dark. I took Teddy to a pointy hilltop in mossy SNIDCEL, smoke in the air from the fires in the US.

WHAT MOVIES MAKE YOU FEEL NOSTALGIC?

What movies give you the feeling of living in the past through the present? What movies feel strangely familiar yet so far away?

The secret world of arrietty :-) @allison.kiernan

Fantasia 2000 (1999)! And Amélie (2001) @lacking_teeth

any Back to the Future and the Wizards of Waverly Place the movie @rafarodrigg

home alone and polar express @gunpreetheir

The parent trap (1998) & the princess diaries (2001) @kashvi_sanghvi

Pixar Cars will always hold a special place in my heart.

@_tianawong

woo survival guide

The Woo Survival Guide is an expanded archive of responses to prompts featured on our social media. This guide hopes to share casual advice that is relevant to students, creatives, and Vancouverites. This issue, our prompts allowed our community to reflect on what is nostalgic to them—to find more, visit us on Instagram @woopublication!

oo survival guide

turkey + noodle soup after thanksgiving and Christmas :)))

@iamspilledtea

ironically meatloaf and mashed potatoes made by my mom @orangerines_ Ukrainian Borscht :) @amesketches

ca kho (vietnamese caramelized fish cooked with fish sauce) @venus.grande_

Rajma chawal (red kidney bean curry and rice, it’s an indian staple dish), i miss my mom’s cooking :-( @bird_with_aspirations

the smell of warm chicken congee @kao_lexis

WHAT MEALS MAKE YOU FEEL NOSTALGIC?

What meals give you a familiar scent that takes you back to your family kitchen? What meals bring comfort and fill you with joy?

I don’t think I ever saw art as a career until I got older. Most of my life I figured that art was just a hobby and that I’d never do it well enough to actually make any use of it or that was even possible. I kind of always assumed I would go into sciences but I realized as I got older, the one thing that I had was a predetermined skill– art.

When I was a small child, my dad would show me Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films. The hand painted backgrounds especially prompted me to take up watercolor before I was in kindergarten. There are probably even pictures of me at 3 years old with a set of watercolors. Those films have also stayed with me to this day and that’s the earliest memory I have of art that struck me.

Here at Emily Carr, I’ve only started to narrow down the concept of style and the elements of design, which is something I did not necessarily take into consideration before. I wasn’t really able to describe and refine the style that I have worked with until I got into this school. I wouldn’t have been able to say my style is sort of a figurative style that was heavily influenced by the Fauvists, which for the record, I don’t like [the Fauvists] at all! It just so happens that I share some stylistic similarities. Art history is also something that was completely absent from my knowledge of art until I got here. It was all practical knowledge that I had taken in highschool.

When I think about nostalgia, I mostly think about summer time. When I was a child, I very rarely saw my extended family because I was living abroad and it would take 2 days or 30 hours of plane travel to see them. So it was always a precious memory when I was able to see them in July and August. That part of summer time was when everything was just slowing down and getting ready to wind down to Fall. It’s probably peak nostalgia for me as it was really warm out and all the cousins and I would be chasing each other with sticks and things. It’s the freedom, love and support that I would associate with my family and those times that sticks with me. When you’re a child, everything seems so golden, foggy and hindsight.

I operate more on moments, feelings, snapshots than actual scenes, people and depictions. With my art, I tend to go back to themes from dreams and story books I had as a kid, or daydreams about what I would do one day or what I might do if I had other circumstances. I would say a lot of nostalgia comes through my work, I tend to think about an inner child’s wishes.

When I think about nostalgia, I mostly think about summer time.

emily carr

SECOND YEAR ILLUSTRATION

faces of emily carr Kate Turner

wilderness beneath the ocean

Melody Gwon

THIRD YEAR COMMUNICATION DESIGN BEHANCE.NET/ARTISTLODY

As long as I could manipulate memory, I wanted to blur the images that came to mind. Too precious to erase, but too dazzling to face, each time. Every moment in life, whether I like it or not, is a work of art. There are ones I can relate to, others that are profound because the colors are so unique, and more that are noisy because the composition is just complicated. Every time I faced new moments, I did not want to be trapped in the past, so I just wanted to adjust the opacity of all my memories of you. The funny thing is, I see you fully now. My darkness and light are like wilderness beneath the ocean, which eventually led me to open my heart to the great unknown.

ruminating

remnants

(2021)

This box of prints came about through an exploration of other dry point prints I had created over the summer. I loved how the dyed paper and patterns from the dry point worked together to create a story and act like maps of my neighbourhood, so I expanded on that idea

and developed a set of prints that documented the different greenery, patterns and marks I noticed while taking walks. Each of the prints included in this box can be folded, overlapped, or stacked to tell a unique story every time.

sticks in the river

Thea

Kehler

To my love Jule,

This poetry of penance feels heavier on the pen each time I write.

The performance of denial That rejects me us and you, me feels weightier, Each time.

Your memory floats, and keeps me by.

My love, I write from under the bridge, where they wrought the last War The sound of iron clad boots gonging on the bridges of Germond, the one where they last declared us illegal, Jule, Writing feels like poetry And poetry feels like dance, So how is it so that the fates let pen and paper pay the penance that was always reserved for us?

This land is a wasteland and it reeks too much of the belief that we are poison and love is like rot to a system that will otherwise undo onto itself That to love is to care is to crumble is to hate That to love is to forego the fates that this nation builds for us.

Jules, I still don’t know Why the gentle swaying of our bodies proved too lurid and lewd for this regime,

When I’ve only ever felt this beating

When I’ve swayed under that tree with you.

to sin forever

To my dear Simone,

The air feels rancid, don’t it? Like it lost the life it lived with, as it loses the life it gives on

My Simone, I am near the gates of Ganghuti, Its rot reminding me of the garish grazes you lovingly undid And undo Until our two bodies stay furiously beating in this prayer, repeating Each Sunday

Each Sunday, —Till they reached the bridges of Germond.

My sweet angel I simmer in the sound of the tree that we swayed under And swayed till we could sway no more Simone,

What are we here for, if it is not to love?

My dear,

I drown in mirth this Monday mire till the midday morn

And remember the mandy malted milk

We sipped till we were silly and giddy, and you had that goof about yourself.

My angel, I sit sipping our mandy malted milk, That you liked that you said you never would.

This lonesome moor and the silent moonlight, It makes me want to dance. But only with you.

I know it’s night there.

Bless the shadows, Jule, that get to play with you May they wrap you in the love I am too far to give, Because this land has untold our truths.

My sweet angel, Heaven feels but a bitter promise

But I promise

I will dance with you,

And sway till we can’t sway no more. Far away,

So if loving you is weak Then I’ll win weakly all my battles

Because if loving is a sin, Then Jule

We were made to be sinners.

And for you— I’ll sin forever.

Parumveer Walia

Only with you. I yearn to hold you gentle,

From the bridges at Germond.

So if loving you is impure, I’ll renounce my purity for the world

Because if loving is a sin, Then Simone

m makeremory

Ella Emsheimer SECOND YEAR ILLUSTRATION

This piece is a reflection upon some of the memories that inform my work. Many of my most precious experiences come from the times I’ve traveled abroad. As an autistic person, the way that I view time is fractured into stages and often attached to concrete objects, like clothing or architecture. While creating this piece, my ideas were informed by my attempts to mentally hold onto the images that I associate with certain memories, while the loss that I feel when those memories, start to fade. The sense of nostalgia that I get when looking back on those experiences is not a desire to return to them, but a desperation to retain my most precious memories in vivid detail.

Harriet Forster

mia in aviemore (2022)

This was taken on a trip I took with my friends to the North of Scotland in January. I was thinking a lot about memory and land. Often I find whenever it gets cold, I become interested in folk stories and dreamscapes, particularly old British tales. This image represents nostalgia to me both in the form of my friend, the trip, and the place which was an interesting dreamy time but also a deeper connection to the historic folklore and culture of that country.

my dream of nezha

A comic I made in March 2022 about my dream of Nezha appearing to me in my old Catholic school. It was a magical, spiritual experience that awakened a lot of repressed memories and recent tragedies that I had tried to forget. However, with Nezha’s help I was guided to the future. The comic is influenced by the art styles of “Nezha Conquers the Dragon King” and Soviet animation, which are art that have deeply touched me throughout my life and have driven my passion for creating art. I also used materials associated with childhood, like stickers and crayon-like textures as I wanted to create art that was the essence of my feelings about childhood: the joy in being in awe of the world that is inseparable from the pains of living in it.

if summer is biting into unripened fruit, then fall is the ripening.

Watching my reflection dip in and out with the street lights on the long ride home, book tucked in between my knees, in some sort of melancholy, some sort of asking, a question, and I miss the way you loved me when you didn’t know me, nervously instead of ardently.

I spend summer standing next to you, the heat swelters, we wander your campus, we sleep, our first night together is chopping peppers for the curry we are going to make.

My mother and father’s first house, is tinged in terracotta in my memory, is crayon covered wall, is child kazoo noise, is jarred salmon from Gitxaala over white rice, is two girls with dark black hair. Sleeping against the back window, is a dog doused in sunlight.

The summer air still has notes of coolness in my youth, my aunt has a hand on my upper arm pulling at the skin there, taking me away from the new house as my parents bring in the furniture from the old house a set of blue couches a scraped table a low set white bed frame.

Our current home is chocolate brown brick, pasted together of cake and frosting. In midsummer, our garden grows thickly, blooming with the blush of fruits strawberries, and small blueberries, crushable between the tips of two fingers. Only to be destroyed, my father, whose hands crafted the boxes, and my mother whose hands planted.

In my grandparents’ age, we decide it’s easier if they are to move into our small brown house, and so the garden goes, to extend the space, My grandparents are to get rid of the things they don’t need, to try to let go of the things they still want, boxes upon boxes of stained photos, carved Japanese dolls. To age in safety.

I feel the older I get, the less I know My father’s father tells my mother that in Smal’gax, there are words that don’t exist in English. There is a communication in all its silence, and there is a silence.

Can this be a home where the floor holds the shape and memory of all our footsteps?

On the last evening of summer we sit together in your emptied apartment, all the boxes loaded into a new home. I sink in your mattress, I await the ripening, the fruits of our labour. The love is stuck in the walls of your old home. And how you love me when you know me, it is like the sun illuminating the moon.

Kalina Lashkova

I remember my first introduction to David Bowie was through the movie “Labyrinth” (1986). I was fully oblivious to his music career as a kid, he was only The Goblin King in my mind.

I periodically come back to this movie, regardless of how many times I’ve seen it. Not because of the storyline, but because of the appreciation I have for its production and the comfort of watching something so familiar. Somehow I can’t grow tired of it, feeling as though I’m seeing it for the first time again and again.

poster six (starman)

Recently, I’ve been revisiting his music more so—The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust [in specific].

I feel a great sense of nostalgia experiencing those first moments again from a different perspective; one with more mindfulness for the curation of these characters that emerge from each Bowie era.

This poster series that I’ve been compiling is an ongoing personal project to take note of current fixations, states of being, and moments I want to remember looking back to.

@VICTORIAKELLYH

We long for authenticity. We long for connection. We long for each other. It is not something we may often admit, may be ashamed of and realise it's something we deeply miss only when it's gone.

the worst thing

Life is easier when you're a kid. But not always.

Ian Wojtowicz

the panofsky method

I have studied art and design in many different places: intensively throughout early childhood like most people, and in primary and secondary school where I learned drawing, painting, ceramics, photography, graphic design, publishing, and drafting. In university and graduate school I studied contemporary sculpture, public art, critical design, new media art, data visualization, writing, and performance art. Both my parents were also architects for most of their lives, and spending time with them is a continuous lesson in design aesthetics and the practical intricacies of the built environment. My formal

academic studies in fine art were saturated with feedback and advice from some of the most highly recognized artists in Canada, USA, Poland, Lithuania, Spain, and France.

Such a rich and privileged education has rendered me a little artistically bloated. I am going through an editing process, refining what I’ve learned so I can focus and give back.

One lesson, taught to me by painter Nancy Duff, persists. She structured critique sessions that are,

bar none, the most transformative approach to evaluating art I have ever encountered.

Art school is one of the few places in academia where students’ homework is regularly subjected to the live public judgements of their peers. Their work is put on display for feedback, interpretation, evaluation (and sometimes humuliating ridicule) of their teachers, and other students. It’s nerve-wracking. It’s stressful. If critiques aren’t well structured, they can demolish students instead of building them up.

Duff reminded us to separate artists from their work. Her variant of the Panofsky Method splits critiques into two distinct readings: formal and symbolic. Using the first portion of the method, students take turns simply describing what they see. They use neutral, dispassionate, literal terms like “red,” or “shiny,” and formal material descriptions

like “made of metal and wood,” or “partially painted,” etc. Spending a portion of a critique session in this mode reveals to the artist how different people see and focus on different parts of their work. It also helps all the students slow down, absorb the artwork, and see details they hadn’t noticed through the eyes of others.

In the second part of the method, students are encouraged to start reading into the artwork by looking for metaphors, symbols, intention, and meaning. Holding off until now to look for an artwork’s “message,” students can learn how many different ways there are of seeing the same thing. This collective, multi-viewpoint reading of an artwork’s content is a strong introduction to the value of postmodern thinking and the beautiful variety of perspectives that different people bring to the world.

The critique session is then turned over to the artist, who until that point is encouraged to stay silent. Now, they can respond to comments, explain their intentions, expand on ideas, or reply in any other way. This turn-taking affords the artist the opportunity to hear valuable cold readings and interpretations of their work. Artists don’t usually stand in a gallery with their artwork to see how it is being interpreted, so these kinds of feedback sessions offer a rare opportunity to hear what a diverse sample of others think of their work. It’s a kind of a usability test of their creation.

After the artist speaks, the remaining time is a freeform discussion amongst all present. The artworks that generate the most dynamic conversation are usually the most successfully executed works, ones that touch a subject-matter nerve, or the ones that fail with gusto.

Whatever grade an artist’s work receives, this approach offers a productive feedback process as they develop their (highly subjective) craft.

It’s nerve-wracking.

It’s stressful. If critiques aren’t well structured, they can demolish students instead of building them up.

to myself a year ago

Cheryl Wong FOURTH YEAR COMM DESIGN

It was back in fall 2021, when I first heard the phrase “nostalgia is dangerous” during a talk by Canadian writer/ critic, Amy Fung.

That moment stuck with me. It has since been something I cannot stop thinking about.

Well over a year, and I am obsessed with the concept of memory.

M E M O R Y.

M E M O R Y. M E M O R Y.

“What is the function of memories?”, I constantly ask myself.

. . .

I never understood why reminiscing about the past causes harm. Why would one not want to remember where they came from? Why would it be bad to look back on your life? What is this ‘hatred’ towards the old times?

What are we, as ‘unique individuals’, if we do not own our histories? What are we, as ‘experienced persons’, if we do not learn from our past? What are we as ‘human beings’ if we are a bunch of empty shells without memories?

We have always been told to acknowledge our origin, our history, and our experiences, good and bad. To protect our identity is to protect the stories from the past. Traditions, cultures, learnings.

For months, I’ve been trying to work out the reasoning for Fung’s words. Every now and then I would catch myself thinking about a pleasant childhood moment, only to be interrupted by a voice reminding me, Nostalgia is dangerous. Nostalgia is dangerous. Nostalgia is dangerous. Why? Why? Why?

It haunts me, in a critical way. Many days I have been circling around this thought.

Over. And Over. And Over. Again.

Reading articles and essays, scribbling in scraps and sketchbooks, getting lost in my own thoughts under many full moons.

But please, put this burden on me.

I am always excited to be challenged conceptually.

I am desperately waiting for an argument I am satisfied with.

It is not until the summer of 2022, when I encountered a book about the beauty of vintage places and objects of Hong Kong,「香港 老美」 , that something finally clicked.

One quote in the introduction reads:

「如果你喜歡現在，便不會留戀過去」

“If you like the present, then [you] would not linger and long for the past”.

That moment stuck with me.

Exactly like how Fung’s words did.

It was a reality check for me personally.

A rush of thought then drowned my brain:

What is it that you miss about the past? Are you longing for the past because you are unsatisfied with the present? But you are becoming the person you wanted to be from five years ago, so why are you feeling this way?

Why are you not satisfied?

When will you ever be satisfied?

Why do you love your past more than your present,

When time moves on a lateral scale towards the future?

Time moves forward, nostalgia moves backwards.

Reminiscing the past can remind us of our history. We learn from our experience and can only get wiser through time.

Nostalgia is healthy, but only in small quantities.

It gives us an identity, a life, and should pave a future.

To remember does not mean to linger.

Just like how to ‘move on’ does not mean to forget.

We bring memories into our times, to grow older and wiser.

Nostalgia is beautiful, delicate, exquisite.

But only when it is embedded in our lives the right way.

There will always be a special place in our hearts where we can store precious memories, to be revisited but never to stay.

. . .

To myself a year ago,

Because you will never be satisfied. Nostalgia is dangerous.

Fall 2022.

Dear readers,

Here is a list of questions to ask yourself. Review them to your liking. I hope you can treasure the feeling of nostalgia in your own unique way, cherish your memories, and inspire your future.

Why do you long for the past? What is it that you long for? A person? A Place? An object? A feeling?

Do you simply just want to relive a happy moment from the past? Or are you not satisfied with your present?

Are you uncomfortable with yourself in the current?

But are you where you dreamed to be from five years ago?

Ask yourself again, are you satisfied with your current?

Is your sense of nostalgia a good thing? If so, to what degree is it healthy? When is it too much? When is it bad? Dangerous?

Do you know your own limits? Establish these limits.

Nostalgia CAN be dangerous.

I wish you with my whole heart, That you find a special place for nostalgia. A place where you can appreciate and embrace your memories, To be satisfied today and tomorrow, til the end of time.

Yours truly, CWong.

the sweetness of love

take me home

Ann Siddall

Birds are a really big thing in my family - both for cultural and spiritual reasons. We believe birds to be holders of spirits. A bird feather on the ground could be a symbol of acknowledgement. As flocks fly above your head, it is then known that spirits are watching over you and keeping you safe. I never had much inter-

est in them, until I moved away for university - and now I find myself observing them upon every encounter, fascinated. They’re very pretty creatures, and I often imagine them scooping me from the ground and carrying me home.

GOUACHE & COLOURED PENCIL ON CANVAS

the golden crystalized milky teeth

“Nostalgia is my favourite feeling as a multidisciplinary artist and designer, particularly with these earrings I handmade, nostalgia played a big role.

I am half hispanic and half arab, my mothers side is from El Salvador (a country located in Central America). I remember when I was young and my milky teeth would fall out, she would always remind me of her tradition. She would tell me how in El Salvador people would take milky teeth and gold plate them into earrings for little girls, and so these simple baby teeth would look like little gold nuggets.

Ever since my mother taught me that tradition, I would also think of mermaids, imagining that this is something they would wear because I believed my teeth were sea shells and pearls which were then formed into teeth.

In my piece, I wanted to contemporize the look of these earrings in a fashionable way by exaggerating the size of the milky tooth, organically twisting the wires, recycling broken jewelry chains, dipping them into gold paint and adding Swarovski crystals. I also used a sea shell as a mold to play on my childhood imagination of my teeth being shells which were then formed into teeth.”

hers and mine

“This artists’ book is a collection of my mother’s journals and mine. Hers are from the mid to late 1970s, after her immigration to California fleeing violence in Guatemala. They are all in Spanish, casually describing her daily life, her friends, newfound religious beliefs, and adjustment to American culture. Between each of her pages, I have included my own writing where I reflect upon my childhood and when I began to understand the weight behind my family’s history as refugees.

menoufia: sintris

This series is based on images from my family photo album. While I hold these photos dear, I do not recall the moments photographed and was not alive and present for most of them. However, it is the events and people in these photos that directly led to the life I live today and the person I am. In this series titled after my hometown in Egypt, I explore the heritage and culture of my family and how it relates to me today.

nostalgia

Benjamin Jossinet

FOURTH YEAR VISUAL ARTS

@BENJJOSS

Nostalgia has always played a role in not only my art practice but in my general life, when I heard the theme for this edition of Woo I became excited. I began to look through my work from this year and chose the most fitting photographs of what I consider to be nostalgic to me.

wonderland

MIXED MEDIA

“I often miss the passion and excitement I had towards new activities during my childhood, and so as an artist, I seek to reignite that part of myself that was so awestruck with the world by incorporating processes that involves my inner child. Loosely inspired by the novel “”Alice in Wonderland”” by Lewis Carroll, this piece explores a child-like sense of wonder. Made from a variety of materials and found objects, the tactile nature of this artwork invites the viewers to consider their own inner child. It incorporates materials such as felt, fake fur, beads, acrylic paint, and a dissected Furbythat are reminiscent of childhood toys and crafts. The bright colours and chaotic arrangement reference an arts-and-crafts creation. A viewer may relate to the whimsical subject matter as much as they may relate to the processes of the work.

colophon

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