Debut: Showcasing works by Material Art & Design 2021 graduating students from OCAD University
On display in the Craft Ontario windows at 1106 Queen Street W until July 10th.
Craft Ontario is thrilled to showcase the work of OCADU Material Art and Design graduating students from the class of 2021.
On display in the Craft Ontario windows now until July 10th, Debut is a collection of thesis work in jewellery, textiles, and ceramics. These works are the result of a year-long thesis project that the students complete in their final year of their degree.
The creativity, uniqueness and high calibre of the final projects are all the more impressive considering the context of this past year. The students completed the final year and a half of their programs virtually, and created the majority of these works at home or with limited studio access.
We look forward to welcoming you back into the shop when permitted. Please stay tuned for reopening information and how to book your visit. For now we hope you'll take a stroll past our shop and view these incredible pieces by emerging artists in our front vitrine!
The following works are on display:
West Window
Mami Wata by Aichoucha Haidara
This collection of customizable clothing and jewellery is inspired by the water spirit “Mami Wata.” The concepts of duality and transformation associated with Mami Wata lead me to create a series of seven garments, two of which are reversible bodices with each side carrying its own meaning. The garments are designed to be adaptable and be appealing to Africans and the African diaspora alike using traditional African making methods such as beading, embroidery and strip weaving. The key materials are plain white and striped cotton fabric – the latter was woven using red, white and yellow cotton yarns – sewn together to create the garments.
Materials and techniques: hand-woven cotton cloth and manufactured cotton
The Dancing God by Anthia Barboutsis
The Dancing God set is about a step into joy and liberation. The set expresses the idea of dancing as a form of release and merriment for both the self and others. The work plays with designs from traditional Indian jewellery, and themes of an auspicious celebration, gift giving, and dancing, incorporating materials such as sterling silver, gold and pearls.
Materials and techniques: 14k gold; sterling silver; Swarovski pearls; weaving; knitting; pearl knotting
Memories, Identity, and the Senses by Camila Garzon
"My work takes the viewer on a journey through a collection of personal memories by utilizing sensory experiences, family photos, and an overall look into my world between two cultures. The glasses represent my personal lens of how I view the world. The colours and etching represent two important Colombian symbols, the flag and sombrero vueltiao, while the lenses display photos of me with my family. "
Materials and techniques: glasses; laser etched acrylic, clear film, brass; candy ring: melted Colombian lollipops passionfruit and mango flavour, cast and fabricated sterling silver
Helicopter Parenting by Ellene Fu
"This series explores the importance of freedom gained after helicopter parenting I experienced in childhood. The fundamental design elements are birds and ball-joint dolls. “Bird Sister” was my nickname given by my best friend who supported me when my parents failed to provide security. While the organic, realistic bird body parts act as a metaphor for the results of helicopter parenting, geometric, non-realistic ones stand for my effort to adapt to a new life. Related to power, control and mass production, doll body parts represent pressure and manipulation from parents. Bird and doll body parts are arranged in a repetitive assemblage to express non-stoppable stressful moments."
Materials and techniques: sterling silver; polymer clay; fabric
Concrete Container by John Xu
"Frame and concrete build invisible cages around us. The environment we lived in is crucial for the shaping of our memories, subconscious behaviours and understanding of the world. This project is originated from my memories about the different houses I have lived in. Concrete Container #1 Brooch gains inspiration from the first house I lived after I was born and Concrete Container #3 Ring was inspired by the third house in my life."
Materials: 3D printed LCD resin; concrete
Sino-Narrative Toywellery by Melody Juthamongkol
Rabbit Lantern and Knucklebones are created within the series Sino-Narrative Toywellery. Rabbit Lantern, a toy cart that illuminates the Mid-Autumn streets, commemorates the sacrifice of The Jade Rabbit. The set consists of a ring and a pinky distal accessory (with removable mini candle). Knucklebones (Chinese Jacks) is inspired by the Chinese Zodiac origin – The Great Race. The set consists of twelve hairclips and a storage pouch, which functions as a hair bun cover and bean bag.
Materials and techniques: Rabbit Lantern – reticulated and depletion gilded sterling, emerald cubic zirconia, jade bead and red polyester cord; Knucklebones – depletion gilded sterling and handsewn silk pouch with rice weighted lining
Read My Corpse by Si Chen
"I have always been obsessed with things that people cringe at, like human corpses. I dismember, dismantle and reconstitute corpses in my mind and form a picture of death with beauty. I, therefore, wanted to share this daunting aesthetic with you in the form of jewellery."
Materials and techniques: copper; enamel; ceramics; fabrication; patina
The Seven Deadly Sins – Envy & Hydnellum peckii by Sia Zhang
"My jewellery collection explores the relationship between plants and the seven deadly sins. People and plants alike are struggling in a complex society. People may show negative human traits in the process of living, growing and surviving. Although their secrets and intelligence are often ignored, plants can mirror negative human nature in their own way. The discomfort felt when wearing these works is an important aspect of this collection. The wearer is prompted to communicate with the jewellery that reminds them of their sins."
Materials and techniques: sterling silver; pearls; hand carving wax and casting
Basic Emotion – Joy by Yucan Liang aka. Emily
Joy is one of the basic emotions encoded into our genes. Emotions come from our brains and transfer to our whole body to have different reactions through the nervous system. We will first be stimulated by something we see or felt. This stimulation (red round-tip cones) will evoke the emotion – joy (warm colour). After a few seconds, the emotion will transfer to mood and last longer. The necklace represents ‘what joy is’ and the ring expresses ‘how we experience joy.’
Materials and techniques: heat-shrink plastic sheet forming; uv resin coating; silver acrylic paint
Diffraction 1 by Yuki Wong
My work focuses on the interpretation of the behaviour of light, such as, reflection, refraction and diffraction. The idea is to enable people to understand and see the behaviour of light through my jewellery. Diffraction 1 is a brooch that shows a narrative of diffraction, in which linear elements represents the light wave while gemstone (2mm cubic zirconia) characterizes the light source from the left side slowly moving to the right side. After the light passes through the slit, the light wave bends and spreads out.
Materials: sterling silver; cubic zirconia; depletion gilding
Food Lottery by Ziyi Wang
Why doesn't food we buy look like what it is presented in the pictures? This project is inspired by our everyday experience, where we encounter situations in which the actual products differ from their illustrations in advertisements. What we actually get can leave us feeling extremely disappointed like losing a food lottery. Based on this experience, a series of wearable jewellery in forms of food in unexpected conditions is developed and presented in a blind box.
Materials and techniques: magnet; plastic; sterling silver; gold plating
East Window
Bhartiya Sanskriti by Kaushika Nayyar
"Bhartiya Sanskriti is a collection of digital fabric prints inspired by personal experiences of being a third-culture kid living outside India and seeking to understand my changing relationship with my heritage. The collection includes a series of 12 bold and colourful prints with bindis (circular forms) and lines from the Indian map as my main motifs. Through this work, I am able to channel the anxieties of missing out on my own ethnic culture while I lived in five different countries."
Materials and techniques: Adobe Photoshop; digitally printing on cotton sateen, cotton hemp, cotton lawn and silk habotai
Untitled by Leah Liu
"Stones remind me of the passage of time. A stone’s irregular form and imperfect surface show what it has undergone through time. Inspired by the wabi-sabi aesthetic that appreciates the imperfection and impermanence of things, this knotted sculpture represents stacked stones and their transient and imperfect nature. The primary material of my sculpture is paper band which is hand-knotted in a repetitive action resembling how stones are formed naturally and irregularly. My work aims to amplify the beauty I see in nature by creating a seemingly random but expressive and unconventional form."
Material and technique: paper band; knotting
Topsy Turvy by Moraa Stump
The subject matter explored in this piece is the terror in everyday life, in what is usually understood as a safe space, the home. Using materials collected in the home, patched and sewn, metaphors of domesticity and comfort juxtapose the pervasive terror encroaching on marginalized people’s sense of safety at the hands of institutional discrimination. The topsy-turvy doll form is used to represent the dualities in these themes, as well as how ingrained these roles are culturally, learned in part through childhood and play.
Materials and techniques: protest banners; nylon tartan bags; kangas; nylon tarp; burlap and canvas shopping bags; leftover screen-printed canvas; old denim overalls and jeans; machine and hand stitched
Untitled_3 by Nathan Whitefield
"My work explores my relationship with my own body and body dysmorphia. A thick turtleneck, something I would wear to hide my body, is created with openings that expose aspects of myself I am uncomfortable with. Juxtaposing the usual use of such a thick sweater, the work reveals how someone with body dysmorphia may be focusing on aspects of themselves throughout the day no matter what they are wearing."
Materials and techniques: knitted monofilament and merino wool
Ocean Waves by Summer Lee
Ocean Wave is an installation that provides sensory touch, sound and sight effects of ocean waves. Knitted textile panels made of two different yarn and colours using oversized needles are suspended in a gallery space to emulate ocean waves. Tie-dyeing the panels with food colouring creates a symphony of colours similarly to refraction on water surface. Intended to be a ‘touchable’ ocean, the installation is considered a healing artwork that can cheer up the viewers after working all day long.
Materials and techniques: 100% Peruvian Highland wool yarn, acrylic, nylon, polyamide, cotton, polyester, knitting, dyeing
Thesis advisors: Nithikul Nimkulrat, Dorie Millerson, Ken Vickerson, Annie Tung
Exhibition curated and installed by Nithikul Nimkulrat and Liz Durden