Paradise - WOO Spring 2023 Issue

Letters from the Directors

Madeleine Salomons editor-in-chief

When coming up with the theme for paradise we knew we wanted it to be a sister publication of sorts to nostalgia—what theme could we possibly pick that evokes the same sense of longing and warmth present in nostalgia? What does it mean to look forward with that same warmth, instead of looking back? Paradise was the answer to that question, and throughout the months leading up to this publication we bathed in the idea of paradise; what, who, when, where, why—everyone had a different idea of what it was, and that is part of why I’m so proud of this publication. For the past 9 years, WOO has served as a space for students, faculty, and alumni alike to share their work with their community. That, to me, is what “paradise” looks like: a place to grow, and share, and rejoice in the creativity of those around you. I could not be more grateful to have lived in that paradise with such an excellent team, and feel particularly lucky that WOO has been a constant during my time at Emily Carr.

Here’s to paradise—may we find it everywhere we go.

Luiza Coulaud creative director

I’ve always thought of paradise as something beautiful, maybe a beach somewhere in Latin America, given that was my paradise when I was growing up, but I think paradise is more than just a pretty beach. Thinking about the theme for this issue, the idea of future came up, and with that the word paradise. Thinking of paradise as an idealistic place one would like to end up in makes me reflect on a lot of things, specially given the fact that this is my last year at Emily Carr. Thinking of paradise right now is one of the scariest thoughts I have, simply because it seems so abstract, what even is what I want to call paradise? What is my paradise? I think paradise is a dream, a wish, something that you really want, and something that can change drastically from one moment to the other, and honestly I’m here for the journey. This is supposed to represent whatever your thought of paradise is, being that a beach in Latin America, or just the dream of the person you want to become.

Thanks Woo team, I guess I’ll see you in paradise, whatever that is to you.

Editorial Team

Anoushka Nair

Cheryl Wong

Ella White

Kelly Hardi

Parumveer Walia

Vy Le

Media Team

Brandon Chan

Ella Funk

Jade Sawotin

Jordan Beaumont

Malvika Garlyal

Sarah Hong

Valerie Ivashchenko

Life-Detox

Can you see the man in the picture?

I can see him too.

Do you think he knows that we are watching him?

Do you think he knows he's living my dream?

My paradise.

Calm, green, earth. Nothing to be worried about, just being a human.

My paradise.

Do you think he knows that we are watching him?

Fatima Pourseyed

Destination

Being my first year at Emily Carr, I had no idea what to do in terms of art. I had just been tossed into the "real world" and had quickly realized that I was lost. I don't know where I'm going, nor where these countless bus fares will take me. Hopefully someplace good, I hope.

Erin Beleno

(2022)

destination (2022)

The Ghost of Us Vy Le

I have always disliked the unnecessary proximity to human beings in clubs and bars, but as long as the music is loud enough, I guess that is fine too. Our bodies are so vulnerable to all kinds of energy circulating through this universe that such intense vibrations of a beautiful sonic landscape can detach oneself from a reality suffocating one’s mind. A concoction of stimulants and substances contaminating this body; ironically frees itself from the burdens deteriorating its mind.

Illuminated faces come into vision. Intoxicated lungs trapped scents from estranged bodies.

And we earthbound creatures drift further towards the horizon.

I parted the crowd - empty glass in my hand, burning throat felt choked. It was at the bar, I was gulping down ice cold water when across the dance floor, I see your ghost. Strobe lights piercing clouds of sweat and breath shine on the morphing shapes of your remnants. Murky eyes are void and melancholy. Naked skin is rendered bloodless. Pale white lips form the words of “I love you.”

So you see me too.

And you are beautiful as ever.

You follow me to the bathroom where the smell of urine mixed with chloride turns my stomach. You try to hold my hair from my face but it slips through your fingers like

the ghost of us (2023 )

water. You watch me vomit, flickering like a glitched illusion.

The ghost of you haunts everywhere I go. I see you in my shadows when I walk home from work. I see you in the winter jacket left on my coat rack, the eucalyptus scent of your shampoo still lingers. I see you in between aisles at the convenience store where we used to frequent, looking for food and coffee to get through our study sessions after midnight. I see you at the empty spot next to the curb where your car used to park, where snow falling on your lips melted as you kissed me goodnight.

I see you in everyone I now love. And I see you in my own reflection.

You are my phantom limb. Pieces of you left behind turn our grievance into paranoia. We refused to let go.

Under neon lights where I last saw your ghost, you offered me your hand for a dance. And we danced, like how we danced to Al Bowly in our favourite jazz club. Like how we danced in the shower to Lil Yatchty contemporary rock blasted from your phone, your hair wet, your skin warm and you were real. Like how we danced under city lights, on the snow blanket as soft as summer clouds, our breaths turned to laughs and our laughs turned to smoke.

I learned to love you long before I came to know of your dances and your body. I tried

to break mine when yours collapsed, hoping my bodiless soul on this Earth can then find its way back to you again. But this body is also a legacy of our existence. Scars closing the broken skin where I place clean cuts cannot hold my soul leaking through like plasma.

This body is an altar where my ghost dwells.

Under the neon light, in the club’s bathroom where I last saw you, we danced for our farewell.

Strobe lights shone on the morphing shapes of your remnants. Naked skin rendered bloodless. Murky eyes were void and melancholy. Pale white lips form the words of “I love you.”

And we were both ghosts: you discarded the ashes of your flesh and bones to wander with mine while I pretended coldness was your warmth that I used to feel.

It was so hard to let you go.

But when I opened my eyes again and you were gone; it was as if you were still there and then, still here and now, still right next to me in this moment. I could feel blood pumping under my skin like you were still holding my hands, and our fingertips still touched, and my heart can still beat, and I was still alive.

A Crystal House For Her

My untimely return to that place where my tongue was severed by a pair of cold steel. The peace I feel there, where the blood soaked into the snow. Where after a month the snow melted into dirt. After two the dirt sprouts greenery. After three, it feels the weight of my body, laying by that tiny church.

Where none of it matters at all.

Antony Slynko (2023)

a black bird Song of

It startles you into joy. For so long life has ached, wounding

you and your bones. When the clouds sweep low, kissing the water

and rain pings on the roof, it is easy to feel like I am there with you,

pressing our hips together under the blankets and our cheeks, tears falling the same way

slow and shining.

When you awake in the morning, bones still aching

tell me what your fears are.

When you awake in the morning, bones still aching

tell me what your fears are. Perhaps there is nothing else

to do, but to open the doors and let the sunlight in.

Madeleine Salomons

Días en Veracruz

Days in Veracruz is a place of comfort for me and my family. This place is composed of various memories of activities we did around Veracruz, creating a paradise that I wish to visit once again.

Paula Valentin

(2022)

Three Quatraints

Here

Rain patters down some days

Others it floods and fogs

Covering mountains with a haze

These days are my favourites to watch

Home

Prairie grass bends and shivers

Shining ribbons of flax and wheat

Sky stretched wide and flowing rivers

Safe, the place where old friends meet

death never hit so close to me until i received the news across sea that you have left the reality we live in a sleepless night prior a summer early morning by myself the hotel room felt extra empty

i hope you have found your final destination something I remember we used to talk about a lot during casual chats that never felt like would be our last oh how beautiful and precious they were

i guess it has never crossed my mind that i’d ever miss these moments we share we spent so much time trying to get over the past or at least i was i was never really sure about you to be honest

while it took an extremely long time i was glad we were able to, somewhat, reconcile maybe more grateful now than ever from your apologies to friendly greetings small talks to silly jokes philosophical conversations to best wishes

part of me was still suspicious retrusting with caution a tiny piece of thorn forever stuck the residue of a vivid stain but at the end of it all, now i guess it doesn’t really matter the only thing that matters is the present

i hope this note finds you well (2023)

i hope this note finds you well

Cheryl Wong

was, the present, the past present perhaps maybe i should have realized this earlier maybe we would have had more conversations more time we could have shared cheerfully sometimes i wonder how our connections could have been if our story wasn’t so complicated maybe things didn’t have to be so difficult maybe then i wouldn’t be writing this right now

i hope you are free from all your worries free from all kinds of suffering and loneliness free from societal pressure and reputation i hope you have finally reached your destination finally found the things you adore finally enjoying the meaning of your existence i hope you are one with your body and mind in your very own promising utopia living in your true self

i forgive you, sincerely.

i look forward to meeting you again. until then. take care.

Sitting Dreams

Jade Sawotin (2022)

The photographic series ‘Sitting Dreams’ focuses on places of soft encounters, the natural world, and dreamscape-like spaces. Pieces of paradise found in the environment close to me. The film was taken and developed on unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səlilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

MY PARADISES

When I think of paradise I think of comfort, I think of being at home in the country, I think of the people I am close to, I think of sudden bursts of colour, I think of fleeting moments, walking in the rain, the sound of a camera shutter.

mixed media @ audreyboyart illustration year four

24

(2021)

“Fantastic Wor[l]ds’’ is a silent stop motion animation photographed on backdrops of monotype prints. It documents the journey of a woman involved in the creation of her world. She is both narrator and heroine, guiding us through “the beginning”. This animation was created out of a growing desire I’ve had to reimagine Genesis’s Eve. In this story, “Eve” sparks creation by being in relationship with the world around her.

Audrey Boy sCan Here FOr ViDeO woo publication

Siri Gusdal

The Blissful Garden

as darkness falls, when all I feel are the rhythms of my own breathing I start to hear the whole world sing a lullaby about a dandelion that floated away but never came back

a tale that has always been whispered yet not once questioned because that is where everyone wishes to be and in unison they hymn, TheBlissfulGarden

they say it is always spring there, where cool dews fall and pink petals awaken while streams flow silverly

a dream-like picturesque; wide pane fields of greenness sprinkled with glimmers of laughter surrounded by a meadow of dreams

the garden is where the tulips stand tall, the daisies flash a smile, and the dandelions swing lightly perhaps fairies exist inside–who live above the ponds, lay on the water lilies and sway with the dragonflies

the day comes to an end when the stars do not feel too far away and the night breeze embraces a hug

shooting stars fall into arms awaiting for wishes to grant all that is left is a choice: to flee or to stay

that is when thedandelion learns to make peace with the wind and the growth it foresees

a hundred wishes then floated to twinkle for eternity and called this garden, home

Paradise: Wrapped in Lace and Pearls (2023)

Being able to wake up and create as a multidisciplinary designer and artist is truly my paradise space. Having the ability to create inspires and motivates me; it feels like I’m constantly cycling through this paradise-like state. Truthfully, I have such a tough time going through designer/artist block, but the key is just to push through to achieve satisfaction or that ‘aha’ moment. After pushing through, I go back on track to my happy designer/artist paradise cycle. The drive for this piece came from my passion for both fashion and design. Just combining fashion and design together feels like paradise. To me, fashion has been a dream since I was about 5 or 6 years old, and to create designs or fine artwork related to fashion feels like I’m living a heavenly dream. I wanted to try to express what my paradise space feels like and what it feels like to create for me.

Shamsa Malek

The Apartment

The apartment of personality is a 7-panel oil painting I did in 2022, based on classical painting techniques and reference to the seven deadly sins. It’s pieced together into one symphony but can be separated into each individual panel to play their solo. There is a detailed portrayal of hyper-femininity

objects and human organs in this large-scale painting. By looking at the eyeballs in flowers and the skeletons wearing the Lolita dress, viewers may feel uncomfortable by this subjectivity of death but be attracted by the piece because of these different elements of life and death. I expose my sins onto the

of Personality

canvas using this religious concept to admit and accept the dark side of myself. I want to pass on the message of self-reconciliation to the viewer who struggles with internal friction.

Jenny Chen (2022)

Khim Mata Hipol

(In Memories of Grandmothers)

nila Lola

I’m mourning divot in my mattress.

I’m mourning bruises which have become whispers.

I’m mourning smell devoured by wool.

My mirror is gone. (And when you’re a mirror, because you’re a mirror).

I’m mourning.

The blur at the end of a mirror vortex.

The framing and reframing. (You, with your whole heart, calling my messy room bohemian).

Breath passed between mirrors. (Exchanged between mirror surfaces).

Talking and exhaling are indistinguishable between mirrors.

Weijin Ross

There’s a visceral pull (mourning). Visceral between soft unreachable insides and dry weathered outsides (mourning) because there’s a pull but no relief. Pulling perpetually (mourning). Mourning. Fruitless pulling.

Pull prod push play plight pry pride pose. Praise plush prime part pluck pile peck. Perpetually. (Mourning).

One pool, reflective, crests towards the other. While embracing, setting escapes the characters. There is no exposition, there is no denouement (mourning, perpetual).

Day to day and there’s mourning. (Perpetual).

Morning to morning.

Girls/Women/Daughters

by Ella White

Somewhere else, the first person that loved me got it right. Tenderness.

You know what it means to cower before someone who is supposed to love you. I stood there as if I were a deer just born; all of that innocence, already curdling inside of me before I could even breathe. I stood in the eye of the hurricane for so long. I thought the storm was over before it was.

I met you when I was nineteen, but I knew you long before that. We sat on the cherry red porch of our friend’s home in the middle of the night late into August. They left the backdoors open for us. We were girls. We were girls when we sat, hips touching, and confessed things that only women can confess.

Like “Sometimes I feel like someone did something really bad to me but I can’t put it into words. Words won’t hold this. Words weren’t built properly for this. Let me hold your hands instead.”

I don’t know where to find this memory, I don’t know what I’ll say. I want to tell you something, but could you close your eyes?

I feel like I’m growing out of you and I

want to be wrong. I feel like I’m five again. Too tall and too large. Limbs as long as my waist is wide. Being stuck in a box that I was twice the size of. Folded myself neatly along my spine. We had a man come into our school who taught us how to make paper birds, the ones with wings that flap when you pull the tail. He said “it’s important that you don’t make any mistakes, because once you fold, you can’t undo the crease.”

I grew up holding myself down. I’m growing out of you. You still don’t eat. I stare at your stomach in the bathroom. You pull up your shirt and tug down your skirt to check your waist. I stare down our reflections lined up in the mirror like targets. I stare us down. I can picture you two summers ago, deciding to put braids in your hair as I hovered, dampening my socks in the bathtub, just so I could see you better.

I remember when you stood on a set of bleachers in the middle of winter and yelled that you loved the feeling of being hungry. I remember every time that you were mean to me. And every time I noticed that I was bigger than you, yet still your shadow; made to feel so large yet

so invisible. Is there a word I can have for this dichotomy?

I love you like how you would say the word “please.” Out of conviviality, but mostly out of desperation.

Everyone loves you, everyone loves you. Everyone loves you—

My grandma calls today. She can’t do as much as she used to but I remember when she could. She can’t remember how to cook the chicken the way my mom wants her to and I can hear them shouting over the phone. And then I am shouting at my mother the way she is shouting at hers because all of this is getting too loud. And I can’t sit still when anyone is angry with me, you know this. Do you see yourself in me?

The first person that loved me had gotten it wrong. Maybe they weren’t a person, just a right hand casted after the injury. A concrete wall could have been made of me, but it wasn’t. Was a concrete wall made of you? It was. I know. I know.

However much bravery you needed to get here, you will need twice the amount to hold

yourself up to softness and not flinch. Girls who have been conditioned to think that love is a violent thing. A woman’s voice carries through your studio, bragging and loud, he hits me. Every time we cradled bruised knees, protecting every ounce of invisible misogyny. Every time we thought this violence made us more than we were.

There are moments that I think it could all be okay. I am not a rational thing. The human is held mostly in the nuance the word implies. The inside of his mouth is full of smooth skin that I touch with my fingers. Skin tastes salty but smells sweet. Everything I ever knew was wrong. There is somewhere that we use our fingertips like we are pressing flowers onto each other’s spines. Imagine we could have it.

I got so close to you I wanted to touch you to let you know that somewhere in this stretch of timeline, you were mine. You were tangible. I knew that this isn’t how this all works.

I’m living with the lights off. It’s a slow life. Getting up in the mornings with someone’s hands stretched out at me, catching the light on the webs of his fingers. We don’t have to touch. We can just reach for each other and pretend that it’s the longing and not the distance. We can stay here, far from all the things that I write.

You could open your eyes now, but I think I know that all this time, you haven’t been reading at all.

Can I protect you from what you want?

“A woman’s voice carries through your studio, bragging and loud, he hits me. Every time we cradled bruised knees, protecting every ounce of invisible misogyny.”

Saudade Luiza Coulaud

Saudades of my own personal paradise, the city I grew up in, and the place I miss the most in the world.

Saudades, Rio de Janeiro. (2022)

Hopeful Addictions

Many of us have that one person we care for so deeply, you wouldn’t know what to do without them. Whether you end up yearning for their love, their time, their laughter, their energy or simply their presence, a great source of our happiness may depend on that one person or group of people. On days when time feels heavy, we find ourselves needing those we yearn for. These days

are the times I feel the most solace. I feel grateful to have someone to depend on and love for. The process of making memories through the different stages of missing someone, spending time with them and saying goodbyes seem to all be a part of the cycle of happiness itself.

Our Song of Love

Enchanting it is, this universe of ours

Where the breeze flows and the silence hums away

Each sings along to the song that is our love

Feel the tunes of our song and take a step

Come, let’s take a step on the moon

And create dreams filled with love

Let’s build a small home shaped with memories

And settle a world of our own

A world of love exists in these far skies

The joy of union, not knowing separation

The calm of peace, not knowing conflict

There is a path to such a place

There is a way to such a place

our song of love (2023 )

A place known just to us

A place where we sing along to the song that is our love

Feel the tunes of our song and take a step

Come, let’s take a step on the moon

Where we all become one We breathe as one

Live as on Love as one

Our song of love, come sing along

Let’s build a small home

Where our strength be our gratitude for all

Where our joy be our trust in all

There is a path to such a place

There is a way to such a place

Feel the tunes of our song and take a step

A place known just to us

Where the breeze flows and the silence hums away

Our song of love, come sing along

A world of our own we made

Feel the life in all, rejoice

Feel the calm in all, deepen Enchanting it is, this universe of ours

Our song of love, come sing along Anoushka Nair

title of work (year)

the strong black woman (2023)

Natasha Kowo

As a person of colour or rather, should i say as A BLACK WOMAN we have been stereotypically being viewed in many ways: we are intimidating, you need to stop this “strong black woman” or else, won’t find a man; have you seen the body on the black girl, i wish i was a “strong black woman”.

I wanted to create a composition that is on the education point. My classmates are not familiar with the team “THE STRONG BLACK WOMAN”, and I am glad I had the opportunity to teach and inform them of the meaning. I created 5 q-cards and a mini booklet that breaks down some examples of each q-card that circle around “THE STRONG BLACK WOMAN”.

The Black Experience in Design spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens.

the strong black woman (2023)

Wrapped in Place

(2022)

This work surrounds ideas of safety and comfort which to me is paradise. Paradise is a space where people feel at home and blissful. Everyone can feel at home in them as these works are built to fit people in multiple size ranges. The imagery on the textiles also reflect BC and the beautiful mountain ranges around us.

Ashlee Hick

Symbiosis

(2022)

Shaoni Sen

In May of 2021, I went on a trek through the Himalayas to the summit point of Chandrashila, with a bunch of great people. The trek took us through ancient forests and lakes, meadows and caves, accompanied by the peace that vibrates through the air. Surrounded by paradisiacal, enormous, mountains and magical ecosystems; I felt small yet protected. I felt like I was part of something much bigger than me. Deep in those forests of the Himalayas, I feel like I fully experienced all the facets that make being a human being worth it.

Over Here, For Now

Aretha Pereira

It moves.

I don’t think anything has ever been able to stay still for longer than a few moments, and this - it definitely moves.

I imagine a pianist and sheet music that’s easy to read. It feels impossible, but fluency is dramatic, so I’m assured it’s real. Something traverses up and down a construction built of lines - you have never seen something so opulent and ominous and impressive.

It’s a copper ribbon stretched between six cities and many timelines. When I look closer, I find strange particles of history within fragmented narratives. I wonder how many tiny figurines could dance across the silky surface before tiring and realizing that eternity is a menace.

I find it in high places. I’ve taken many photos of my feet dangling over the edges of mountains and hills - rough terrains made of sharp browns and dark grays to long grass which peacefully sways in calmer winds. I imagine myself doing this until the day I die. The world is forever up there. There was a time I fell in love with a memory and it felt like a hangover afterwards. I think it was uncalled for even though it was my fault, but I didn’t know that at the time. It just felt realer than anything actually physical in front of me, and at least I was in charge. At least I knew what was happening. I don’t always know what is happening. On a Saturday it snowed three hours later than they said it would, quietly and shyly. The breeze was steady, and we all sat in an orange farmhouse under musty woven

over here , for now (2023)

blankets with bits of scratchy fabric roughing up our knees. It felt like December but it definitely wasn’t.

Imagine a Christmas tree, but only so far as a symbol. It’s surrounded by golden light that doesn’t shimmer or sparkle but promises stability. Ideally, it should be stared at for hours and days. I’ve tried to do that without blinking, but it’s difficult when you’re exhausted.

It’s in a lot of silences, more than anyone would really reasonably think. Sound can feel cosy too, but only when it delivers as you imagined. The simplest example is music.

There were weekends on trains - a sequence of dreams. I travelled and wore my feet out every single day and felt loved. My shoes fell apart in the rain as if they were embarrassingly made of sugar. I often worried about my suitcase wheels on the cobblestone sidewalks, creaking on every uneven rock beyond belief. It was okay, but only because I had good company to distract from the noise.

This is a fact: little pieces of paper are precarious but only until you put them on a wall. Then, they’re pins on a map that I

made, and I’m great at keeping track, constantly.

It’s in a bright and small tablet screen connected to a USB controller. Opening: a dark hallway and a small light you walk towards. Exit into a vividly colourful garden with pixelated bougainvilleas drenched in sunlight as if it’s honey - there’s something regal about the enclosed space. Try to escape it. I’d found a world which had everything I wanted it to.

There are moments when people come with me and I’m not alone even though I’m amazing at being alone. I would describe it as the earnest and eager quality of trusting someone else in a moment where you both know very little. How could I be ungrateful for people, even for a moment? I am built of them. I’m architecture.

Really, everything is consistent. And in retrospect, it feels like spinning around on that tea-cup ride. My brain tries to preemptively photograph as fast as possible, but there’s no need. These things are magically slow enough to watch and recognize and inhabit until they move again.

I can rely on strange things that move, ceaselessly, without fail.

It’s surrounded by golden light that doesn’t shimmer or sparkle but promises stability.

summer 2023)

Destination X

Wandering around the world, Traveling through time, Exploring into the unknown.

Breathing in the moments, Absorbing the aura, Seeking the meaning of existence.

Aren’t we all searching for our own destination? Bon Voyage.

Cheryl Wong

Maiden’s Cake

(2022) Qianxuan Chen

Liu Bei of the Three Kingdoms era, a King in ancient China, said, “Brothers are like one’s arms and legs, but women are only like one’s apparel.” This proverb means that brothers, like hands and feet, must

be cherished, but your wife, like clothes, can be at any time. The proverb inspired this sculpture, it to represent, “Women are only like desserts, are like one’s main dishes.” The brothers are main dishes, but women are as dispensable conversion of this proverb is an irony seemingly sweet cake is disturbing, objectified woman. Through its work questions women’s bodily leaves the viewer unconcerned. cake is devoured ferosymbolizing the violent truction and devouring women in patriarchy.

tapak (steps) Abi Simatupang

A reflection on moving away and finding a sense of home (a.k.a. paradise) in a new country. Alongside, conversation between two selves in two times and languages.

jejak-jejak kaki

yang menapak di

tanah rumah ibunda

perlahan menghilang

ditelan bumi yang berubah

waktu yang berlari

badan yang berpindah

menuju tanah baru

rumah untuk diri sendiri

‘nun jauh dari sini.

the footsteps that now walks on a new-found land indents slowly as the earth bends underneath and time moves closer while the body stagnates and declares the new land home a house for more than them that is near to here.

“tak ada laut disini.”

“there is no sunshine here.”

“tak apa, home is anywhere.”

David Aquino

Winter Slow

My work is about the “forced slow” and quietness that winter storms bring to the city. When we experience these really intense and shocking snow storms, there is always a period afterwards, in which the city seems to come to a halt. To me, being out during this time is my own paradise.

Jordan Beaumont

winter slow (2022)

Snow captures movement, and wihtout being too cliché, it has a memory of where people have and have not been. I like the stories that can be told by looking at the areas of untouched snow, and the tracks that people and things leave behind. The way it builds up on the wheels of buses, the way it sits on empty chairs. We can observe what is important to people by what gets cleared first, and we can see the tracks of other people enjoying this time as well. I enjoy being out in the quiet snapshotting these moments, and it is such a rare occasion in Vancouver that I get to do.

a hundred things i love about you

by Parumveer Walia

1. every room that feels empty without you

2. kisses that thaw the winter’s bite

3. the smell of you

4. and the things only I’ll know

5. a blubbering brain, your post-11 fatigue

6.

7.

8. I promised to not write about love

9. till you showed up

10. these melodies were never to be put on paper

11. only danced to

12. melodies on paper are just notes

13. I would never have written about love

14. I could never

15. capture

16. how my eyes can never

17. leave you

18. the oceans pulled

19. by the waning moon

20. my beating heart

21. your every move

22.

23.

24. we lay here

25. lying

26. freezing, as the winter bites

27. your music that I never liked

28. and the sweet smile,

29. that wins you all our fights

30.

31. the winter winds that carried you here

32. my magic prince from a land too far

33. I always hated the cold

34. till you showed me how to love it

35. my disney cliché

36. always

37. saying 38.

39.

40.

41. the melodies of love that echo within your body

42. the pompous sounds of violin

43. too far for kids too young

44. too rich for pockets too empty

45. ear to the wall

46. I hear the poetry

47. of your stomach rumbling

48. this music of a silent hug

49. this breathing of a loved body

50. the crashing of hands too unwilling

51. to let go

52.

53. I only ever hear you

54. in the sweet whispers of the night

55. my oceans pulled

56. by your waning moon

57. that crescents like the rock

58. you dangle around your neck

59. and sways like the clock

60. that sits over our rest

61. over the white linens

62. and the golden light

63. that sits awake

64. in the nights

65. you tuck me in

66. kisses on the forehead

67. as you call me an asshole

68. this moonlight sings

69. the sweet tales

70. of a thawing love 71. 72. 73. so 74. for you

75. I’ll write to life

76. the hundred things

77. I love about you

78. for you

79. I will conjure

80. these melodies on paper

81. to be the remedies of our hearts

82. sailing

83. in the biting winds 84. of vancouver 85.

for you 89. I’ll write a poem 90. that will never be as beautiful

as loving you

Brace

When thinking about Paradise and travel, I am overwhelmed with the fears I have associated with flying. I made these prior to visiting Mexico at the beginning of the month, referencing flight safety cards from “Design For Impact” as well as cards my partner has collected over the years.

Chase Hansen

brace (2023)

Why Not Live in Paradise Now?

“Edward, do you believe in paradise?” I asked while his fingers were tinkling on the grand piano of his house.

“What do you mean?” he replied.

“Well, you know... Some people think there is a life after death where we eventually experience rest in some sort. Where everything is perfect, see?”

“So, you want to know if I believe it exists. Correct?”

I nodded, and he looked at me without saying anything for what felt like an hour. I didn’t know what he was thinking about, nor did I understand why he wouldn’t talk. Eventually, Edward stopped staring at me and went back to gazing at his instrument. It was one of those high-end Yamaha Grand Pianos. And each

time he pressed down a note, I felt like time had stopped passing. His melody bewitched and trapped me in a memorable succession of notes, sounding like a whirling liberating birdsong.

“Do you know this song?” Edward questioned me after a few minutes of non-talk and peaceful music.

“Uhm, no, I don’t. Is it one of your new songs?” I answered, confused.

He smiled. At that point, I felt like I needed to be chattier about my previous response; maybe I should have known it.

“I really thought you composed this melody. But now that you’re saying it, it makes me think of another artist’s song... I can’t put a name on it, though. Would it be–?”

Edward interrupts me.

why not live in paradise now ? (2023)

“See what just happened?”

“Geez, the heck are you talking about, Ed?”

“Look, you asked me if I believed paradise exists–”

“And you haven’t talked it out yet, by the way,” I cut in in return.

“What did you feel when I was playing this track?” he queried as if I hadn’t said a word.

I am really unsure about what he is trying to do, but as I lock my eyes on him, I understand he is asking this seriously. Therefore, I reply.

“I don’t know, dude. Peace... freedom, I guess? I felt like it was time-thwarting if that makes sense.”

“And you noticed how I played each of these notes as I pleased?” It was not really a question. “I made you doubt and think that someone else had already released this track. And you believed me.”

I’m about to argue with him, which he probably notices, for he hurries to end his sentence.

“You kinda believed me,” he corrects himself, as he awkwardly wiggles his left eyebrow. “So, you asked me if I believe in paradise. But my answer will not be a yes or a no. You know why?” Edward carried on.

I don’t reply. I just keep my eyes on his immobile fingers resting on the piano and keep thinking about the track he just played and how good I felt.

“Because I believe we can create our own Paradise. I don’t think either you or me – or anyone else, actually – should be waiting to die to live. Why not live in Paradise now?”

His last sentence wrenched me from my reverie state.

“Can you say that again?” I asked.

As Edward pursued, he explained: “If we have this idea of paradise as an end goal, unattainable until death, and not as a near and accessible experience, in my opinion, we miss the whole point.”

“Now, what you’re trying to say is–”

“That Paradise exists. And it dwells within you. It’s that simple,” Edward broke in again.

As I pondered on Edward’s words, they reverberated and bounced in my head as they echoed the soft melodies that his fingers resumed playing on the piano.

Why not live in Paradise now?

A Dozen Dykes

Charlie Mahoney-Volk (2022)

A Dozen Dykes is a raunchy twelve month calendar featuring self portraits of a queer and fat body in stereotypically cis, straight, and skinny sex driven fantasies.

Pieces of Parad esi

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 where they find their own little paradise in Vancouver—to find more, visit us on Instagram @woopublication!

Lucky’s Comics

3972 Main St

“Lucky’s Comics is by far the coolest place in Vancouver, that bookstore is paradise for me”

@amesketches

I’ve always been someone who draws. It’s very much my natural inclination I think I’ve always really valued storytelling with my art and storytelling in general. When I was visiting home in Vancouver Island, I found all these comics that I made when I was like seven or eight which I don’t think I even knew were comics back then so it made me feel really happy to know. I also thinkt that’s how I intuitively navigate the world and express myself.

I always knew that I wanted to do something related to art and I did different courses at my community vollege back home and I realized that I wouldn’t be satisfied with doing anything other than art. For me, though I do really love design, it’s very much the compromise of creating and thing that is a bit more structured.

My favorite thing about art in general is the ability to learn about stories that you wouldn’t otherwise. Learning about something through art is such an intimate experience– it’s more intimate than just reading something in an academic setting. What I really love about comics is that you can have this very concrete storytelling, the emotional appeal of illustration as well as the visual aesthetic of beautiful art and style.

I think authenticity is very important to me in my practice. I’m very interested in the truth of the matter even if it’s not necessarily romantic or like beautiful. I really endeavor to try to do that, which of course is very difficult when you want to capture experiences that are to your own, but I would say that’s one of my biggest goals in my practice.

jessica ruffalo faces of emily carr

Faces of Emily Carr

Communication Design

Year Two

Jessica Ruffalo

WOO is available at Emily Carr University and woopublication.ca.

The views expressed in this publication do not reflect those of Emily Carr University or the editors and publisher.

© 2022 including all content by the artists, authors, and editors. All images are reproduced with the permission of the artists.

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WOO is also recognizes the support provided by students, alumni, faculty, the Emily Carr Student’s Union, and the Administrative Board at Emily Carr University.

Inquiries can be addressed to the Directors at woopublication@gmail.com.

The typefaces used in this publication are New Reason, designed by Miles Newlyn, and New Spirit, designed by Miles Newlyn and Riccardo Olocco.

This issue is limited to 350 copies.

WOO assumes all work published here is original and the work is the property of the submitting students. All tartwork titles and student names are trademarked or copyrighted by their respective owners.

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