VISION works by OCAD U’s 2020 Photography graduates
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CONTENTS Editors’ Statements Professors’ Statement Alex Lo Miniatures
Jingwen Cao The Day We Were Here
Malik Dieleman Environmental Portraits
Leo Shek Urban Landscapes
Ana Luisa Bernardez Cuerpos de Agua
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Andrew Wu Concert Photography
Holly Newport Fine Art Portraits
Sebastian Rodrigez Y Vasti Estela / Wake
Mike Lau The Resistance
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Moment
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EDITORS’ STATEMENTS While a formal grad show cannot take place as planned for OCAD U’s 2020 graduates, we are looking forward to alternate opportunities to display our work, connect with art communities, and grow as independent creators. This publication seeks to highlight the work of several students from both Directed Studio and Thesis classes, as an additional way for 2020 graduates to be recognized. We acknowledge the Photography grads who did not participate in this project, many of whom were not able to complete their final works in the fully developed forms they had planned. Thank you for the memories. We may not have the clearest sight of the road ahead, but we still have vision. Malik Dieleman 2020 is a special year for everyone. We even graduated in a different way. Sometimes life can be difficult and different. However, these difficulties challenge us and remind us to cherish every second of our lives. We always find our way in the end. The sun sets and then rises, no matter what, life continues.
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photo by Alex Lo
Jingwen Cao
PROFESSORS’ STATEMENT It is always a pleasure to work with our fourth year photography students. The energy and enthusiasm they bring to their graduating portfolio and thesis projects makes for an exciting collective process and one that we sincerely hope launches them on to a career in their chosen profession. It is inspiring for us, as faculty, to work with them as they strive to do their best work and prepare for the world after OCAD University. Each year, Directed Studio and Thesis classes bring varied mixes of interests and career directions and the range of work created is a testament to our wonderfully diverse student population. The team effort shown throughout, and particularly at group critiques, demonstrated how this year’s group cared for each other and supported each individual’s unique growth. Creative futures are built on making connections and engaged relationships and we hope that this team of graduates will continue to support each other in the years to come.
photo by Malik Dieleman
Congratulations to you all. Professor Peter Sramek Professor Barbara Astman Professor Meerah Singh Professor April Hickox
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ALEX LO alexander-lo.com @alexaander_lo alexlopsp@gmail.com +1 (647-532-4228)
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Alexander Lo is a Toronto-based miniature photographer who has always had a special appreciation for toys and games. He has a passion for creating bright vivid handcrafted sets that welcome and immerse all who enter his colourful tiny world. His work focuses on re-creating relatable and memorable scenarios from everyday life experiences. He loves how working with miniatures allows him to manipulate the viewer’s perspective and show them a different angle.
MINIATURES My images are heavily based upon my love for cinema and toys, specifically scenes that I imagined when playing as a child. The playful nature of mixing together random figurines and toys into an impossible scenario was the foundation of my work. I wanted to create something that twisted reality just enough to draw you in, but was also grounded and relatable.
What encouraged me to continue going forward with this difficult subject was my love for getting hands on. There’s something quite special about the physicality of creating and manipulating scenery to fit your exact needs. In today’s digital age there isn’t much tactile feedback, being able to control every tiny little aspect was and still is my favourite part.
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JINGWEN CAO caojingwen.com @mmmenough jwc.cao@gmail.com
Jingwen Cao is a photo-based artist. Her work focuses on the inner emotion of urban people. She used to study at the Communication University of China and the Beijing Film Academy. She recently graduated from OCAD U with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography. These years in OCAD U are very special to me. I am glad that I made this decision four years ago to pursue my dream in this university. ocad helps me to find my direction of art, introduces me to lovely classmates and provides me opportunities to work with amaing professors that a student could ever asked for.
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THE DAY WE WERE HERE My work focus on providing fragments of everyday life. Sites and locations that are part of the fabric of the city but we do not see in our hast to move past that moment. Through my lens, I want to emphasize that happiness and sadness are equal.. People always argue happiness is better
because it reminds them about all the joy and laughter, yet I believe sadness should not be treated as an “inferior good” compared to happiness. When I started to treat them equally, I find a place in between which I called “neutral zone”, and that is the idea behind most of my works. 9
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MALIK DIELEMAN malikdieleman.com @malikdieleman_artist malikdieleman@gmail.com
Malik is a Toronto-based photographer and multidisciplinary artist. His work includes photography, videography, illustration, and graphic design. In 2019, he was the recipient of Project 31’s photography scholarship. In 2020, He graduated from OCAD U with a BFA in Photography. Having grown up in France, Senegal, and Canada, Malik carries with him a complex multi-cultural identity. His work reflects on themes of belonging, identity, and faith. During his final year at OCAD, Malik’s work explored the intersection of environment and identity within portraiture. If he’s not creating something, Malik will most likely be petting his cat, exercising, or watching reality TV.
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ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS I have always been drawn to the interaction between human and place. How does the experience of a location influence ones identity? This series of portraits explores this relationship by capturing subjects within environments significant to them in one way or another: a home, a workplace, a cityscape, etc. With an intimate and stylized approach, I invite viewers into the lives of a diverse group.
The nature of this project required collaboration between photographer and subject. Location, styling, and method of shooting came together to represent both the spaces and the people. I learned how to better direct and pose subjects, while leaving enough room for spontaneous ideas, inspired by each surrounding environment. This project stretched my technical and creative shooting abilities, ultimately producing a series of unique image narratives.
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LEO SHEK “I Create, I Capture, I Express, I Deliver�
leoshek.com @leos86 leoshek2000@gmail.com
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Leo Shek is a photographer born and raised in Hong Kong and now based Toronto, specializing in architectural, interior and urban photography. He earned a BFA from OCAD in 2020. Leo discovered his passion for photographing the urban landscape and architecture in Toronto, Hong Kong and around the world during his travels. Through video and photography, Leo always explores his vision of how architectural design impacts the way we interact with spaces.
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ANA LUISA BERNARDEZ
www.anabernardez.com @analuisa.studio @analuisaaaaaa
Ana Luisa Bernárdez Notz is a Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist and DJ residing in Toronto since 2015. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from OCAD University 2020, and was recently a mentee in Sur Gallery’s 2019-2020 Mentorship Program. Ana’s work has been shown in Toronto, Halifax, Berlin and Caracas, as well as included in various online and print publications from Canada and the USA. Currently, her explorations are rooted in the Venezuelan migrant crisis and collective sentiments of loss and longing. Her most recent projects look into bodyland ties that are ruptured, paused and transformed due to migration and lack of physical proximity, focusing on her own experience being away from the landscapes she grew up frequenting. As a DJ, she acknowledges the power of music for creating safe spaces that honour migrant joy, diversity and resistance. She currently co-hosts Cuarenteca, an online latinx party born out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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CUERPOS DE AGUA ~ BODIES OF WATER “Cuerpos de Agua ~ Bodies of Water” explores these body-land relationships, focusing on my experience as an uprooted body. The installation, adapted to digital media during the COVID-19 pandemic, encompasses video performance, sound, photography and textiles, and examines what my body has gone through and how its ties to a specific territory are transformed by migration. Having grown up in Venezuela, the landscape in which I feel most at home is the Venezuelan-Caribbean coastline and the liminal space of its beaches. When I am away from it, the tie that binds my body with the land is not broken, but rather transformed and reconfigured. I point to this figure-ground connection through both the physicality of the work and the specific environment in which it was created: on one hand, the VHS tapes and stills, as well as the video performance, depict this space. On the other
hand, the photogram cyanotypes are the material result of interactions between my body, photographic chemicals and the sun, ocean, salt and sand. Every time I visit, the landscape and I give something to each other; exposing and washing the photogram cyanotypes at the beach materialized that exchange. Producing work when I visit Venezuela, and then making sense of it when I return to Canada, is a way to cope with displacement’s effects on my sense of belonging. Through their encounter with the work, my hope is that viewers can also be transported to the lands that make their bodies feel grounded. The images in this publication include some final pieces, as well as process work. To see the full installation, visit anabernardez.com.
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ANDREW WU andrew-wu.format.com @andrewwuphoto andrewwuphoto@gmail.com
Andrew Wu is a music photographer based in Toronto, Canada. His work focuses on capturing and documenting special moments of performers during concerts and various events. His photos have been featured in music publications Spill Magazine, Imprint Entertainment, and Patchchord News. In 2020, he completed his BFA in photography at OCAD U. Andrew is a massive fan of music, as he enjoys a variety of genres such as pop, alternative, rock, hardcore, and metal. Andrew hopes his work brings a positive outlook to the public and reminisce the timeless moments in his images.
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top: Born Ruffians @ Danforth Music Hall, December 14, 2019 bottom: Lawrence Taylor of While She Sleeps @ Hard Luck Bar, February 29, 2020 25
TWRP @ The Opera House, January 12, 2020
HOLLY NEWPORT hollynewport.com @newport.holly hollynewportphoto@gmail.com
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Holly Newport is an Toronto based lens artist who combines both her interest in capturing people as well as incorporating her own fine art style. Her fascination with landscape and everyday people merge together as inspiration for her colourful fine art portraits. Holly also captures landscape photographs on film formats such as 120mm, 4x5 and 8x10 in her spare time. This well rounded artist won the Headwater Arts award in 2017 and is excited about what opportunities will be presented to her now that she’s received her BFA in photography from OCAD U.
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SEBASTIAN RODRIGEZ Y VASTI
@_sebasrodriguez zapesrv@hotmail.com
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As a Venezuelan artist who recently moved to Toronto, my work currently deals with migration, positionality and the influence of language. Through a variety of media, including video, installation, performance, VR and text, I explore the impact of mass migration on myself and those around me, and also study the processes through which my own work is made.
ESTELA / WAKE “Estela/Wake� is a project that explores the ways in which the relationship among my family members has been affected by migration: my sister, brother and I reside in different countries, and my parents are still in Venezuela. Among the works that make up this project are a multimedia installation, a video/poetry performance and a series of bronze sculptures.
in portrait frames, most of which were taken by me, and one frame containing a video performance of me staring at another portrait frame. It focuses and meditates on the action of observing and using these objects, given the importance of their role in the life of other migrants I know, and myself.
The installation focuses on objects of remembrance, in this case portrait frames, and the way in which we use them. It consists of an arrangement of family pictures
above: the installation right: close up of frame with the video 33
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The bronze portrait frames are yet another exploration of these objects. Given the way they are made, no photographs can be placed in them, therefore denying their main purpose. Instead, they act as monuments for the act of remembering itself, and mean to acknowledge its importance independently of a particular memory. I made these with the intention of giving them away as gifts to friends and members of my community, for them to place alongside their existing portrait frames. Thanks to the bronze alloy used to make them, the frames are almost indestructible, and will certainly outlive any of their owners with minimal changes in appearance. Hopefully, they will find a chance to pass them on to others.
Finally, the video consists of a voice over of me reciting poems that are also part of the “Estela/Wake” project, accompanied by images of my family that are relevant to the themes of the poem, interwoven with footage of the Kuwait oil fires from Werner Herzog’s documentary Lessons of Darkness, which helps me reference the idea that Venezuela’s large oil reserves are partly guilty for the issues that led many people to leave the country. The poem itself explores some of the issues that, as I’ve mentioned, were born from my family’s migrant experience: guilt, suspicion, grief, uncertainty. Things that appeared as soon as we left, and are part of our day-to-day interactions until this very day.
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MIKE LAU mikelauphoto.com @mikelauphoto mikelauphoto@gmail.com
Mike Lau is a Hong Kong-born photo artist based in Toronto. He is a graduate of OCAD University with BFA in photography. His work covers documentary, self-portrait, architecture and experimental. His creation involves politics, history, culture and environment. He enjoys working on different topics with different media. He works from studio to outdoor, analog to digital, still to conceptual. By working in different subject matter, he keeps discovering the unknown, in order to explore the world surrounding him.
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THE RESISTANCE 2019 was a year of social unrest and conflicts. Hong Kong, where I was born, has been facing the largest political turmoil since the 1997 handover from the UK to People's Republic of China. It stemmed from a controversial law amendment: The Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019. Instead of engaging in dialogue with the general public, the government decided to suppress protests in an excessive and unlawful way. Police forces were, and still are, authorized and allowed to suppress protests by brutal beatings, improper operation of riot control weapons, and even live round shootings. Protesters were forced to fight back by returning ignited tear gas and throwing rocks. Molotov cocktails,
a weapon that has never been used in Hong Kong in history, finally appeared on the street. Meanwhile, similar social crises also arose in other parts of the world, such as Ecuador, Indonesia, Iraq, Peru and Venezuela. When the power of a government cannot be effectively regulated and bound by the public, it almost always results in the authorities’ unbalanced and/ or absolute power, and their tendency to ignore demands and suppress protests from the opposition, without their getting any kind of reprimand. What oppositions were facing is not just the rising limitation of freedom of expression, more than that is the increasing risk of their own safety. Many of them were forced to choose either stepping down or fighting back.
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“The Resistance” is a series to send my support and pay tribute to the protesters who stand out to fight against social injustice, political corruption and violent suppression of peaceful protests. The challenges protesters faced on the street were shown using different medium and art forms. The self-portrait series “Progress of Resistance” shows a transformation of protest along with a growing suppression from government, from peacefully marching with sign and banner, to resisting and fighting back by throwing rocks and molotov cocktails. The butoh dance “Cell of Silent Screams” illustrated the protester's pain and helplessness under suppression and the rising limitation of their freedom of expression, also their shouts at social injustice. The cut out “Shadow of Smoke” was a documentary photo-based image which recorded a scene of protest that took place in Hong Kong last August. It
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showed how protesters reacted under tear gas by extinguishing the canister or throwing it back. The installation “After a Battle” displayed numerous tubes - an imitation of tear gas and rubber bullet shell. It represented the huge number of tear gas deployed to disperse protesters. Tear gas is a basic weapon for suppressing protest. I hope my piece can draw the public's attention, to make them more aware of political topics not just in their countries but worldwide. Facing tyranny, protesters decided to step forward rather than compromise. Millions of people are still living in fear under a lack of freedom, injustice, poverty, corruption and bullets on the Earth. I wish, by looking through my piece, my audience knows the right side to stand on, when one day they unfortunately face the same situation.
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GURVEER KATHURIA tog.format.com @tog.gallery tog.gallery@gmail.com
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Gurveer Kathuria is a Toronto based concert photographer, who has worked with music groups such as Waycool Collective and No Tourists. He has also documented artists like Young M.A., Haviah Mighty, WiztheMc and many more. Being a Rap/ Hip-hop artist himself, Gurveer is familiar with the unique environment created by each artist. Whether it be a slow and calm space for an R&B performance, or a high energy Rap or Rock performance, Gurveer is there to capture the experience.
MOMENT Show to show, artist to artist, if not art in general, music is something that everyone can connect with. Going to watch fellow artists perform inspired me to take the feel of the environment, no matter what genre of music, and combine it with the presence of the artist themselves. Rather than treating event photography as a way of documenting the event, I chose to take the performances and treat them as a photoshoot. Changing the way moments are captured during a concert, and turning each photo into its own experimental piece. There is no other ways to explain each image, other than to let the viewer feel however the captured moment makes them feel.
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photo by Leo Shek
Thank you to OCAD University’s Photo Department for sponsoring this publication, to our professors for guiding our learning, and to the class of 2020 for creating a community of support.