LEAK – Woo Spring 2019 Issue

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LEAK SPILL

SPRING 2019

@FACESOFEMILYCARR WOO MEDIA TEAM FEC is a series of short posts featuring students, faculty, and staff within Emily Carr. The goal of FEC is to showcase the diversity of our community and further engage with those around us by sharing stories centred around their practice. Features are published throughout the week which include a portrait, doodle and tid-bits of conversations with a fellow community member.

woo challenge @WOOPUBLICATION #WOOCHALLENGE WEEKLY WOO CHALLENGES Every Monday and Friday on Instagram Submit relevant works by tagging us in your posts and be featured at the end of the week on Instagram. Following the publication’s mission to embrace diverse stories and engage with student work, Woo Challenges provide a quick outlet for exhibiting students and their art.

DIPPED IN RESISTANCE Alena Webber 2018 Film Photography and Scanner

The reference for this illustration is a Chinese novel written in the 18th century titled, “Dreams of the Red Mansion� by Cao Xue-qin. The illustration showcases one of the most iconic scenes from the novel where the main character Dai-yu buries flowers as they fall from the trees. In this illustration, Dai-yu is holding a shovel on her shoulder ready to dig a hole in the ground to bury the fallen blossoms. She believes that it allows the souls of the flowers to rest in peace, and she believes they are too beautiful and too pure to be blown away to unknown places.

DAI-YU Zhongting Li 2017 Gouache

I’M LEAKING Amelia Earhart 2018 Digital Animation

EMBOUTEILLAGE Pascale Jean 2018 Analogue Photography Spilling suits Vancouver. It is a rainy area, people are flowing everywhere and time goes fast. A spill is “to cause or allow especially accidentally or unintentionally to fall, flow, or run out so as to be lost or wasted” (Merriam-Webster dictionary).

In Vancouver, we are active, we are creative, we are united, but perhaps we are also in too much of a hurry. Our time is spilling and it goes down the drain with the rain. We hurry to catch it, catch the green light to go back to our comfortable cocoon, our homes. Maybe it sounds bitter or pessimistic, because in the end, what’s the point of it all? But if we stop to look at all this commotion, a lot of beauty can be unveiled from such a cacophonous existence... Maybe all that spilling isn’t even all that bad.

i promise

MONIQUE GERMAIN WOO EDITORIAL

He stands over the grate in the concrete, staring,

The Boy’s bottom lip quivers, but it is all done now.

wishing it had been shut. The Boy has never been

There is no point to it, no point at all to feeling

clumsy before and he’ll never be clumsy again - he

misery- for what is done has been done and he must

promises- but damages cannot be undone. There

stand now and take responsibility.

would be no more use in thinking of it.

The boy steps forward then, thinking of home, and slips himself down through the open grate.

He wouldn’t get his keys back, but it will be ok.

He will flow down the long, winding pipes and meet His mother told him once, “If you lose yourself, our

the ocean one day. There - I promise you reader,

spare sits under the front door’s rug,” and The Boy

for I’d never tell a lie - he will meet the other little

remembers her words, and he knows that the spare is

children who float down the sewers on their backs.

still there, and that the spare is still safe.

Little Boys with sunken eyes, clutching broken dishware. Little Girls with dull cheeks, with thoughts

There is no way the spare will be dropped or lost,

of missed curfews and calls.

because he knows that the stone beneath it is firm, and it is whole, and it is shut. There are no grates

Their families will have spares under their rugs - so it

under its rug and there is no clumsiness- the spare

will be ok. The children will not come back, but that is

will have its chance to see the light. They’d be all the

to be expected. They will never be clumsy again, and

better for it.

the spares will learn never to be clumsy at all.

The Boy takes a deep breath and looks up towards

If they are, and if they too become lost - it will be

the sky.

ok. There is always another spare, and there is always another family, and there is endless space

He wishes that the grate had been shut. In fact, he

underground for all the Boys and Girls whose parents

wishes that the grate had never existed at all- but

strive for perfection.

it will be ok. He reminds himself that it will be ok because there is a spare. There is always a spare.

The spares will be ok. They will not lie, they will not break, they will not speak. The stone beneath them is

The Boy reminds himself that his mother said to

very firm, and it is very whole, and they are very safe.

never tell a lie. The Boy reminds himself that it is

I promise.

better to be truthful and to accept what has been lost than to dwell on what could have been. He’d tell her.

There is no more use in thinking of it. There is no

He has to tell her.

more use in thinking of them at all.

SYS + M Ferj David and Shraeyas Massey 2018 Black PLA, PLA, Bronze Filament and Nylon Bristles SYS+M is a project based on the ideas of modularity and systems.

From these emerge an heirloom object that a user would want to keep - that minimizes the amount of plastic usually disposed off from worn out toothbrushes and shavers.

MUSEUM OF RECEIPTS Devansh Parikh 2019 Photo Collage As a part of my research, I’m investigating receipts as they are one of the most common medium of interaction for everyone. From coffee cups to groceries, purchases to returns, with each transaction there are usually one or two receipts attached. This results in the unnecessary waste of paper and ink, which also reflects our consumerist lifestyle. This concept of investigating receipts is a method of catching people’s attention in regards to the number of things they buy on an everyday basis which contributes to our collective waste. This project explores various design elements involved in a receipt i.e information systems, typography, print techniques, ink styles and how a piece of paper acts as a mode of communication between consumers and businesses.

EL VACIO DEL CIELO Simplicio Villareal 2018 Digital Photography Escribo todo lo que no tuve oportunidad de decirte, Escribo y no hay tanto papel.

Hablo con la sombra de tu recuerdo, Me desvelo aferrado a una almohada, Cierro los ojos esperando a que se convierta en tu piel.

Escribo sabiendo que todo lo que guardo en tantas palabras Podría habértelo dicho que frente, Me sentía tan fuerte, Te sentía tan presente.

Sabia que compartiría contigo lo mas bello que jamás podríamos haber imaginado pero con una palabra de apenas dos letras te solté.

Escribo esperando que la tinta se lleve de paso tu recuerdo.

Maldita sea, lo que daría por volverte a ver.

IN BETWEEN Candice Yee 2019 Photography We had a broken conversation. Many times I just wouldn’t answer, not out of rudeness, but because my mind was elsewhere. I kept asking if he wanted to switch roles or if he had an idea, but he said no, “I want to see your process”, or “no, I like doing this”. I asked him to put a garish red silk pillow cover over his head (it smelled like my dad’s greasy scalp.) He also did not complain about holding a hot projector to his eye; and I kept asking if he was going blind, he said he was ok. Suddenly he brought up the Scandinavian girl he used to see (I never found out her actual name.) He said that she was pregnant, and there was a 33.3 percent (1/3 guys, then) chance that it was his. I wasn’t shocked about the possibility of him being a dad. I had no doubt that he would be an excellent dad. He said she wasn’t worried, because she wasn’t going to keep it. I can’t remember if the pillow sheet was still over his head at this point.

UNTITLED Deborah de Brito 2019 Oil Pastel, Ink Pen on Paper The human form is central to my practice. In representation, the body can be viewed as a sculptural form, but cannot be considered in isolation from the political and social spaces that it inhabits. It is an experience that is individual to a person, yet plural in its interpretations. Through abstracting the figures in my work, they are interpretations of an emotion or a state of mind rather than a portrait of an individual. They attempt to break down the human form in a traditional representation, becoming abstract figures that resemble the human body but are in essence an emotional expression. In reference to ‘leak’, the human form is viewed as a delineated reproduction of the original.

Drawing One Last Breath is a portrait of the artist in a state of limbo, suggesting that sometimes the gap between the living and the dead, banality and magic, exhaustion and possibility is filled with

DRAWING ONE LAST BREATH Sahand Mohajer 2018 Photography

one flickering but long breath.

a letter to a fury consume you whole.

You burst and rage, then not long after, your bitter laughter echoes throughout the house, never quite permeating — it fails to settle into the floor, to embrace the bones of the walls.

Instead, your guffaws echo between the living room and the kitchen where she must face you

I have not

with a tight smile.

Those pursed lips of hers

the capriciousness you possess to turn to your good spirits on a whim

are the sole reason

the second you feel appeased.

the walls do not quake,

My tears run far longer

that the ground does not break.

than your curses do.

I have only recently stopped wondering how she can never seem to find her smile in photographs.

fall far from the tree,

How can she wear a smile? when yours so often darkens descends into a scowl.

I fear that the apple does not that all that I will inherit from him will be his anger The man my mother knew was kind, gentle, patient, smart.

Or,

GRAHAM KIM WOO EDITORIAL

so she has told me.

The only thing besides these claims that I know about this man is that I have never met the man my mother knew.

father

You have such a tendency to let

SNOT Shannon Pot 2018 Pen and Ink

SOMETIMES YOU’RE UP Marcus Dénommé 2018 Relief on Rag Paper Working on this printed edition, the concept became a study of the cycles in our everyday lives. Similar to waves that crash onto shorelines, or tree roots that grow and undulate city sidewalks, we as people are constantly moving through cycles of being up and being down and having luck and running dry. When aware of our patterns, this piece poses the question of how permeable we choose to be as we move through the world, and how much external influence and inspiration we allow to leak into our work and our lives. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down.

“What Ever Happened to Emily Carr?” is an activism project by me and Maggie Bouchard criticizing the lack of artistic spaces in the new Emily Carr campus on Great Northern Way (Vancouver). We created a poster that reads “Please do not graffiti on the walls, this is an art school” and put it up around the Emily Carr washroom stalls to provoke students to think about their relationship to their new campus, as both a creative and a community space.

There is no graffiti in the washroom stalls, no paint scribbles on the lockers, no history of the art students who attended before us. The walls are massive, sterile and empty. The walls of the washrooms, at the very least, will be staying that way as a result of the relationship that has developed between Emily Carr and a P3. We hoped that these posters enabled further exploration and understanding to this new dynamic between students, Facilities, and the P3.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO EMILY CARR? Kerem Dogurga & Maggie Bouchard 2018 Digital in that

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REEF Lara Carson 2019 Illustration In memory of how coral reefs used to be.

VOYEUR Sawyer Anderson 2017 Pencil, Acrylic, and Watercolour

COLLISION OF MEMORIES Summer Lu 2018 Oil Painting Food has been a major inspiration for me this past semester. It is a theme that leaks in and out of my artwork. This piece is my interpretation of food colliding with memory.

DONNA Melanie Choi 2019 Digital Painting The Donna is a piece inspired by the colour palettes of summer. In the dreary weather of Vancouver, summer often feels bleak and uneventful. For inspiration, I look for visual happiness within my own pieces.

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SANYA ARORA WOO EDITORIAL

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The first drop - loud; strange against the dry tin; The pail sits below the leak - waiting, longing.

A distant rumble of thunder, the rain tap-dances on the wooden floor above.

The pail awaits another drop, another touch; Another touch of newly discovered knowledge.

leak The floor beneath the tin becomes the pupil,

The night still young, the pail quenches its thirst.

accumulating the knowledge passed down in streams.

Satisfied with knowledge, but wanting ever so more.

The knowledge becomes richer,

The roof above drenched with water, unravels,

the water floats on the surface,

The wooden fibres become apparent,

slowly seeping through the wood,

The source of knowledge revealed.

embracing each and every fibre,

The water no more a stranger to the tin walls, hurries;

Consuming every layer, enriching it;

Faster, richer, heavier with the knowledge it carries,

Saturating it - but wanting more,

enriching the pail, softening it, giving it reason.

Always wanting more.

Filled to the brim, the tin wants more;

Soaked, but curious - Intrigued.

The water agrees, the drip continues.

The wood consumes,

The pail consumes, saturated, excited,

and the knowledge leaks through the layers.

It overflows.

And it falls -

Tiny rivulets stream down its side,

The first drop - loud; strange against the dry tin

racing to the ground, they spread across the floor.

The pail sits below the leak - waiting, longing‌

The pail consumes, the rivulets become denser,

A distant rumble of thunder,

complex networks flowing everywhere,

the rain tap-dances on the wooden floor above.

sharing the continuous flow of knowledge,

The pail awaits another drop, another touch;

enriching the floor, spreading what it has learnt.

Another touch of newly discovered knowledge.

UNTITLED Rebecca Bair 2018 Sculpture The silhouette of a woman is mounted on a wall. She is larger than life and stands above the viewer - her gaze ambiguous and her posture resolute. Her hair is defined, each curl caressed by a halo of yellow light that traces the contours of her face, down her breast, and across her torso.

The main objective of this composition is to subvert the stereotypes of the fetishized Black Woman’s body. Rather than reproducing these stereotypes, the Black Woman challenges them and the viewer by embodying strength, resilience and vivacity.

SURE IT HURTS Joni Taylor 2019 Ink on Watercolour Paper

TOPOGRAPHY OF OUR MISUNDERSTANDINGS Romane Bladou 2018 Sound and Digital Image on Paper

This fifty-foot long fresco is a visual rendering of the sound piece The Narrator/Le Narrateur.

Sound waves from recordings of my voice as I read the same text in both French and English are overlapped to create a reflecting,

but not

matching landscape. It is a study on translation, and on how language shapes the way we see things, objects, and landscapes. The text goes as follows: There was a monotone narrator who repeated each of my actions. I was tired of his redundancy and he of his career. He left to try his luck in America I think. I had lost the thread of the story, he had left everything in a mess. I was unable to pull the thread into the eye of the needle, everything was confused. So I enrolled it and drew the line of mountains that surround me with it. The thread of my life will be that of the horizon. It seems to me that we are always part of the landscape, in someone else’s field of vision.

ILL Graham Kim 2017 Pen and Ink Mental illness seeps and settles into the bones, inundating the mind with isolation. One sees in the water, their emaciated, spiny reflection. (Special thanks to a friend.)

23 Angela Donakhristi 2019 Digital Illustration All the times and places where the light looks best.

MALIGNE CANYON Ben Evely 2017 Silkscreen, Acrylic, and Gouache on Paper This work is from a series of prints exploring the intersection of digital collage, analog printing, and painting processes. Digital photos were collaged and manipulated in Photoshop by layering textures with the clone stamp tool. The image was then bitmapped into a dot pattern and made into a stencil. The stencil was then silkscreened on paper, and in between layers of printing coloured acrylic and gouache details were added.

STILL LIFE 2019 George Macrae 2019 Digital Illustration

[I KNEW] Michael Cabaj 2018 Digital Photograph I look to see, to be present I think to mind, mind the gap light leaks to, from and on shadows repeat, release and off I look too long, longing to find I think too much . . . anew

work(ing to appear normal) VINCENT CHORABIK WOO EDITORIAL In a society obsessed with production, people

I have a hard time leaving the house lately.

often put their own needs aside in order to

Sometimes I can’t get on the bus or train,

accommodate this consumerist reality.

sometimes I break down before I can exit the front door. It’s too hard to put on a jacket – did I

I find myself doing the same.

forget something? What’s in my pockets?

I struggle with what google calls “the most

I know that it makes things worse when I stay

common disability” – depression (and/or anxiety).

home and avoid life, but I’m afraid. I don’t want

I also deal with a lot of other issues, but let’s just

people to see me when I cry and hurt myself.

focus on these two.

I don’t want to look stupid or strange. I don’t want people’s attention or pity. Oh god, how

Last night, I had really bad insomnia as a result of

I hate the pity… It makes me feel like such a

my thoughts.

burden to others. It’s better if they don’t know.

They kept me up, chit-chit-chattering away about this

Or so I tell myself.

And that

But, I’m not the only person struggling.

Google calls this “the most common disability.”

This and that Our voices must be heard. Our experiences And…

must be acknowledged, for things to change.

The circle goes round and round

I think this is where art (and writing) comes

“You should have said this” / “You should have

in. We can express ourselves, give ourselves

said that”

validity and unity. Help others understand the turmoil of a mind that is against itself. Fighting.

I pick at my nails, I pick at my teeth – Small signs,

Struggling. Sinking. Drowning. And resurfacing

most people won’t see.

for breath.

At home, I pull at my hair, I pull at my clothes –

Defeated. Ashamed. But, alive.

Bigger signs, only I will see.

And ready to fight another day.

BOODLE FIGHT Una Gil 2018 Tri-Colour Risograph Print A modern take on the boodle fight, a Filipino military style of eating, this illustration takes inspiration from vintage Philippine postage stamps, showcasing iconic national elements including sampaguita / Philippine jasmine, mango, bangus / milkfish, fiesta banderitas / flags, and a parol / Christmas lantern.

A personal project examining the intersection between digital design and analog forms of printing, as well as the seeping of my own cultural background into my practice as a designer.

SOMEONE TOLD ME TO TAKE A HIKE Maggee Day 2018 Oil Paint on Canvas

SLIP UP. Svava Tergesen 2019 Analogue Photography My work emerges from the interaction between photographic technology and visual perception, inspired by how these tools allow us to experience the uncanny or the hidden. Using a variety of analogue tools, my work investigates how photography can mobilize aspects of perception to re-envision conventional methods of representation.

MOM KNOWS BEST Lyrica Waskalik 2019 Oil and Acrylic on Canvas

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

Inquiries can be addressed to the Directors at woo@ecuad.ca. © 2019 including all content by the artists, authors, and editors. All images are reproduced with the permission of its artists.

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

Woo gratefully acknowledges the support of students, alumni, faculty, the Emily Carr Students’ Union, and the Administrative Board at Emily Carr University.

Website—woopublication.ca Email—woo@ecuad.ca Facebook—woopublication Twitter—@woopublication Instagram—@woopublication / @facesofemilycarr Printed with Hemlock Printers.

Cover design and illustrations by Una Gil. The typefaces used in this publication are Freight Micro—designed by Joshua Darden Lyon—designed by Kai Bernau GT America Mono—designed by Noël Leu and Seb McLauchlan This issue is limited to 350 copies.

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