title: Noise Music, Environment and Peripheral Patterns

contributor: Thorogood, Miles Thorogood, Miles (Author)

subject: Music--Soundscapes--Noise music--Algorithms--Computer programming

abstract: The development of the project Peripheral Patterns aims toward an autonomous software system for generative music, that takes as a point of departure, how sound is implicated in our experience of the everyday world in the city. This investigation began with the analysis and consideration of the contrasting soundscapes of the city and the natural settings. The analysis was found to show some correlation with the arrangement and frequencies of sounds in soundscapes and post-industrial noise music works. The above observations led me to the further analysis of soundscapes and noise music. My position on the current city soundscape is as follows: As the human is both a creature from the natural and urban environments, these contrasting vistas will create modern sonic topographies which are exhibited in noise music. Peripheral Patterns explores these convergent spaces to investigate the potential of the sound that is at the limits of human hearing. Whereas once animals occupied small spectral niches in the soundfield, a sky train can be heard passing over Commercial Drive as the constant white noise roars from the city. Conversely, there is a desire for something that resembles peace, a desire to return to an experience of natural soundscape. This thesis looks at a possible convergence of urban and natural soundscapes.


title: E_Motion: a critical approach to ethnographic observations in nursing homes

type: Text thesis

contributor: Leal Barrocas, Ricardo (Ricardo Leal Barrocas) (author)

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate Studies (Degree granting institution)

contributor: Day Fraser, Hélène (Hélène Day Fraser) (thesis advisor)

format:
24 p.
electronic

rights: This thesis is available to view and copy for research and educational purposes only, provided that it is not altered in any way and is properly acknowledged, including citing the author(s), title and full bibliographic details.

subject:
Older people
Nursing homes
Design
Observation (Psychology)
Ethnology
Aesthetics

abstract: This project is about humans. It is about people and their waning days. It is about the inevitability of decline and the acceptance of the inexorability of our life cycle. The end of life that's usually spent in nursing homes and devoid of things that once meant something to us. It is an attempt to observe and, above all, sympathize with those who already – and inevitably – can have a glimpse of the last days of their lives. Observing and yielding much more than a snapshot of a setting and the people within. A study that fosters the redemption of the researcher's background, assumptions and culture. An observation method that does not pretend to be free from all sorts of biases, but one that considers pre-existing circumstances and makes the most out of them, refining subjectivity and nurturing interpretative accuracy sharp enough to explore alternative design values. This project explores to what extent critical design can be informed by critical design insights and bear inspiring, engaging and provocative outcomes able to subvert the status quo and cultivate an aesthetic sensibility. And it does so in nursing homes, among elderly residents.

abstract: Residential care

abstract: Critical design

abstract: Critical ethnography

abstract: Social function

abstract: Motion

abstract: Pinball machine

abstract: Elderly


type: Collection Text thesis

subject:
Ocean
Experimental films
Photographic processes
Film

abstract: Valine, Ana. OCEANIC ALCHEMY: Collaborations and Surrenderings in Film Eco-Processing. Master of Fine Arts (Experimental Film), April, 2021, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, BC. My filmmaking practice has been centered around ocean plant film development and the ‘oceanic feeling’. My contemplations have taken the form of experiments in eco-processing as both the method and subject of my work. This opens for me the following questions: how does the act of inviting and collaborating in the shoreline, and then surrendering to the outcomes, manifest physically, spiritually, and psychologically in the filmmaking process? How do these invited variables transform the observer and the celluloid? These questions are important for me as an artist who is re-situating myself in my practice. I’m relearning how to be a filmmaker; as a restorative art form and as a way to understand, and contribute to, the world in which I create. I'm opening the camera and myself to possibilities of re-imprinting, unlearning and responding in new ways. In this slowing down to see and listen more deeply, is there potential for creative re-integration through immersion in place and material practice? How can we consider acts of reciprocity in our creative work with natural elements? When I consider the shoreline and its inhabitants as teachers and partners in my making, what does that do to the hierarchy of filmmaking outside of the film industry? Through material engagement, I'm exploring forms of renewal and restoration in collaboration with the sea, discovering ways of making films with the ocean using seaweed and seawater. The shoreline begins to function as a space of potentiality and transformation. Perhaps it is in response to big picture, urgent topics that I’m opening a tiny lens on more intimate collaborators. Maybe there are connections to the macro through the micro. I'm wondering how we will be changed if we acknowledge this Earth as the knower and ourselves as discoverable. How will surrendering to the timeless patience of the sea change my ways of making?


title: THE PASSAGE: Enquiry into the Ephemeral Absence of Social Construct During Transitions

subject:
Installations (Art)
Performance art
Absence in art
Ephemeral art

abstract: “In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.” ― William Blake. This thesis support paper presents my artistic research on the ephemeral nature of absence in social constructs while relocating myself to new places. I am interrogating a fluid positionality that is continuously shifting, leading me to contextualise the research stance in the between and betwixt of Passage. I am examining the experience of passing from one place, condition, or stage to another and highlight the in-between space made visible through artwork produced with various methods and processes. Throughout, absence is indicated via aesthetics, materiality, and immateriality pointing to subtle boundaries between play and seriousness, the real and imaginary, the ephemeral and permanent. Themes of travel, constraint, absence, liminality, and human consciousness are explored through performative installations, architectural spaces, and different degrees of audience participation. The research generates a dialogue between performance, space, and time which involves bodily experience, live actions with mixed media installations, and time-based works. The choice of media and symbols revolve around various conceptual ideas inspired by academic and non-academic sources — contemporary art, spiritual texts, psychology, lucid visions while meditating — which become the artistic expression's metaphorical core. Anchoring in an auto-ethnographic methodology of resisting mastery, the research was conducted by allowing space for unknowns to reveal their contours through silent being and doing by not doing.


title: A Theoretical Exploration Of Consciousness

subject:
Physics
Painting
Art and science
Narrative art

abstract: The following paper is a two-part document of research. I process information best through the use of metaphor and narrative, so in order to tackle the complicated, analytical research of unpacking consciousness and the nature of death in relation to my work, it felt necessary to open with the short story that is behind my visual thesis. The heady concepts of physics and the winding history of different theories of consciousness, be they in art or science, informed the short story, which then informed my paintings and prints. All three—the visual works, the narrative, the research—are different iterations of the same exploration. It would feel disingenuous to not present each one as a sum and a part of the whole, as they are intrinsically linked and inform one another.


subject:
Narrative art
Textile art (visual works)
Fabric arts
Sculpture
Installations (Art)
Storytelling

abstract: Threads Entwined, Stories Unfolded, Futures Imagined is a thesis project which begins to unravel narratives of becoming, personhood and the radicality of imagination that Punjabi Sikh women, in my life, have cultivated. I bring forward and explore these themes in my work as an artist. Through artistic exploration of a scrap fabric collection of traditional, cultural garments that goes back decades in my family, I bring together modes of being and becoming. Navigating forms of braiding, tying, knotting, as well as sewing and reconstructing, these fabrics serve as the groundwork in approaching the complexities, resilience and strength these women carry in their limitlessness. The recognition of our being here in what we know to be “Canada” is weighted by stories of struggle, displacement and adaptation. This thesis project is geared toward paving space for our voices to be amplified, our experiences shared and reckoned with through celebration. Sublime are The Imaginative Forces Within Us.


title: INDEPENDENT HEROES: Supporting Type 1 Diabetic Young Adults’ Transition to Independent Living

rights: This thesis support image is available to view and copy for research and educational purposes only, provided that it is not altered in any way and is properly acknowledged, including citing the author(s), title and full bibliographic details.

subject:
Wearable technology
Diabetes
Hypoglycemia
Design

abstract: This Master of Design Thesis project focuses on the condition of severe hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) in young adults living with type 1 diabetes by carefully understanding the unique challenges they face in transitioning to adult care. This research surfaces the needs that often get blurred in the transition process and offers a design for an appropriate solution to support the identified issues. Canadian young adults living with type 1 diabetes often find themselves at the risk of hypoglycemia during emerging adulthood. The concept of emerging adulthood has not been considered extensively in managing chronic illness and transition from pediatric to adult care. Yet, this is a critical time when a person may first assume full responsibility for their diabetes self-care while simultaneously facing all the usual challenges young adults face. Additionally, the fear of hypoglycemia is strongest in this group. A review of the literature informs us about previous work done in this field. However, most current interventions are in the form of bulky printed materials. Another critical issue with the development of most recent tools is the absence of user involvement in the creative process leading to unmet user needs. In this project, participatory design methodologies were introduced in a human-centered approach, collaborating with young adults to understand and address the transition process gap. It included actively listening to user narratives and co-creating the solution. The synthesis of primary and secondary research resulted in the designed outcome of a smart wearable device that will work in conjunction with the Continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and alerts the bystander and emergency contacts by turning them into potential lifesavers. It will inform them of a diabetic emergency and guide them through the life-saving instructions. Additionally, it will alert the medical emergency services for prompt assistance if needed. The solution attempts to provide early intervention during emergency and could also alleviate the fear of hypoglycemia in young adults. This in turn will reduce the load on the already burdened healthcare system.


title: Dialogues in Silence

subject: Stone Storytelling Language Ceramics

abstract: This text is my reflection on this journey of exploring, study- ing, contemplating, learning and unlearning, in different layers and different voices. Metaphorically, it is in the shape of a palimpsest. The process of writing it consists of erasures and repetitions, similar to the way I work in the studio, and very similar to the way I live my everyday life. erase, repeat. Layers in both content and structure sit on top of each other, overlapping, hiding and revealing, creating a new meaning different from their individual purposes. These layers of my thesis are my attempts to narrate stories, reflections and thoughts about my artistic practice. They are arranged nomadically, similar to the way I organize my objects. Similar to the way I was raised. They (every section, every paragraph) do not have one title but instead several keywords, as I find giving titles a political action towards the text that limits, groups and simplifies. As indications of pauses, I have three Farsi characters. They are the marks of my literal movement through the text, from stories to theories, from theories to my practice, from my practice to stories, every time, no matter how many moves, I go back to the stories. This text is not about me, read it with me.


title: Rock Paper Charcoal

subject: Monotype Drawing Charcoal Geology


title: The River of Time

subject:
Emigration and immigration
Watercolor painting
Animation
Memory
Drawing
Immigrant experience

abstract: Through a visual art practice and research, this thesis explores my personal background as a Chinese immigrant, through depicting scattered childhood memory to seek overlooked connections among people, objects, and places. By investigation of theories of human geography, social psychology, philosophy, especially Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place and Maurice Halbwachs’s On Collective Memory, I considered how people's sense of belonging to homeland is strengthened through memories of ordinary objects and everyday interactions. In relationship to my practice, I define memory as a semi-fabricated hallucination. I further invoke time in my projects in reference to Svetlana Boym’s concept of contemporary nostalgia. The paper analyzes my projects, The Tuesday Afternoon, Snow, and River, which I produced during my study in the MFA program of Emily Carr University. I employ watercolor painting and animation installation as my medium, inspired by artists Luc Tuymans, Christian Boltanski and William Kentridge, to explore the following questions: how do fragmented still images and dynamic animations in dark spaces transmit the feelings of loss and disorder caused during immigration, and the ambivalence of memory? Could these practices create a space of intersection for personal and collective memory? How does the use of obsolete technology contrast with the contemporary concept of time in rapidly developing society?


title: Transforming Shoes: Storytelling Through Artifacts and Design as Narrative

subject:
Transformation
Shoes
Sneakers
Shoe fetishism
Storytelling

abstract: This project explores the relationship between personal narratives and everyday objects. It aims to gain an understanding of the relationships people have with a specific everyday object: shoes. My research explores how people’s memories are connected to their shoes. The primary aim of this research is to explore the role design can play in transforming people’s ordinary possessions into artifacts that tell stories and convey meaning. The intent throughout has been to encourage people (users and designers) to look deeper into their relationships with everyday objects. As one of the most common things in people’s daily lives, shoes are a means communicate and be expressive. Inspired by people who treat shoes as more than daily objects—sneakerheads who collect, trade, and admire sneakers as a hobby and artists who create provocative artifacts and messages out of converted sneakers — my research aims to use narratives and history to explore different possibilities of shoes’ transformation. I have done this with the intention of addressing the following questions: How might people develop deeper understanding of their relationship with possessions through storytelling? Can designers transform objects into new artifacts based on people’s remembered and shared personal narratives? Through collecting people’s old shoes, documenting stories related to shoes gathered from their owners, and deconstructing shoes, my practice seeks to transform shoes to artifacts that reflect the original stories and convey memories and emotions of the former owners. As a result of this research, multiple artifacts were created from shoes including customized hats and tapestries made with shoe parts. Customized hats and tapestries were also created to explore the notion/used of the souvenir and the collection in relation to design objects. My intent has been to connect and evoke a sense of value to people’s belongings. My practice challenges the notion that shoes as utilitarian products only valued for their physical function (assist in walking) and aesthetic pleasure (to be seen) . I have come to understand making as functioning as a means of realizing and making connections with our own shared and built narratives with everyday objects. The process of making and unmaking can facilitate new relations with objects, where the object is 1) perceived and recognized; 2) conceived as made; 3) understood. Through my work gathering narratives and emotions is validated as an important aspect that is relevant to the creation of artifacts made from previously used objects, in this case shoes. Shoes contain memories and mutual experiences across time that influence thoughts and feelings about both personal experience and the objects that we carry along with us over time. Through my explorations I found that personal narratives can serve as inspirations for designing new/residual objects. The stories gathered and the artifacts created have led to the reflections on self-expression and self-identity among the people who did the initial storytelling and myself as a maker and designer who responded with my own set of story objects in what I call “ design as narratives”.


title: I Learnt What Care Means From A Stranger

subject:
Installations (Art)
Storytelling
Social practice (Art)
Ceramics
Sculpture

abstract: I envision the world as an intricate labyrinth of stories, where with each encounter we have the opportunity to learn from the lived experiences of others. The perplexities of human existence and a curiosity for understanding and sharing perspective is what drives my artistic practice as a visual storyteller, multidisciplinary maker, and social practitioner. My practice looks at storytelling as a catalyst for changing the perspective of another through an exploration of the role of care in our everyday lives and the stories we carry with us. I work towards understanding gestures of care and their public, social, domestic, unseen, racialized and distributed forms as a core part of my artistic practice. I bear witness to personal anecdotes and the oral histories of others to acknowledge various articulations of care expressed through lived experience, which we manifest physically through the form of material exploration. I see this act as increasingly necessary in our current socio-political environment—one built on the foundations of ‘imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ (1) as Author Bell Hooks describes in Understanding Patriarchy. However, in this context, gestures of care, no matter how carefully studied or attended to, may not be enough, and so I have developed a practice of Radical Care. In this document I define Radical Care as an embodied protest and methodology that aims to listen and be present with the unknowable other, in an embrace of vulnerability and discomfort to better understand difference. I define this need as a brown body in a white context and hope to expand empathy into support for others as I attempt to build a space for care, comfort, community and ultimately a sense of belonging. This is done by hosting gatherings, through the form of a workshop, interactive installation or sculpture, within which others are able to self-identify as wanting to participate in this particular discourse. The work stems from conversations that unfold through a series of gestures such as storytelling, listening and making to form generative environments for dialogue and exchange. Across my work, I use clay as a co-facilitator to access the memories we store in relation to tangible objects, places or people, and to extend that dialogue through material exploration, which moves beyond the need for verbal communication or common language. Materially and metaphorically, clay embodies the underlying tendencies of radical care, offering a material record of conversations and vulnerabilities that are needed to better understand the people I work with in my projects. This document works towards situating and contextualising this practice by tracing my two year journey and relocation to Vancouver, BC from Bangalore, India. It also dissects my relationship with social practice, workshops, sculpture and aesthetics in the contemporary art discourse. As I define decisions I make and reflect on how they function in the case of four specific works that resulted from the MFA program at Emily Carr; Objects of Place, Where Are You From, What Do We Owe To Each Other and Listening Vessels.


title: Intricate Webs of Nature From the Microscopic to the Cosmic

subject:
Nature
Patterns
Installations (Art)
Mycology
Cosmology
Biomimicry

abstract: The thesis paper explores an interdisciplinary and research based practice as a means to interpret the intricacies of webbed patterns in the universe. It examines the existence of patterns at a microscopic and macroscopic level in order to reinterpret them in a contemporary art context. The practice draws on theories from philosophers, mycologists, ecologists, and physicists such as Michel Foucault, Suzanne Simard, Lisa Randall, Bernie Krause and Carl Sagan. Through an investigation of their ideas, the paper highlights the presence of these patterns in nature and as an artistic influence. The structure of webbed patterns in fungi, the human body, land, roots, the cosmos, and animal architecture are a continuation of the artistic investment in biological patterns, large and small. The thesis artworks discussed here will emphasize how a research based practice is intertwined with material, form and process through a series of installations. This interdisciplinary and process based research practice builds an awareness of the pervasive patterns in the universe.


title: Trauma, Diaspora and Storytelling - Craving Healing

subject:
Repetition (Aesthetics)
Performance art
Patriarchy
Storytelling
Racism
Gesture


title: Monuments of Power

subject:
Architecture
Monuments
Painting
Landscape painting

abstract: Travelling to the Peace River Valley from Vancouver, I saw firsthand the impact upon the land, from large mining enterprises leaving polluted rivers, streams, and lakes; the clear cutting of forests, and the introduction of industrial work camps disrupting the structure of communities with economic and social impacts resulting from a disproportionate change in regional gender ratio with the introduction of a mostly male, transient resource work-force. This thesis support paper serves as but a brief investigation of the complex – and contentious – aspects created by authoritarian landscape architecture with respect to the Site C Dam in North Eastern BC. It is my hope that this project has added a little to the record of documentation regarding the Site C Dam. In the future, I look to further explore and create an analysis of structures of power and authority. In addition to paintings mentioned in this text, I have also been painting a series of gift portraits and landscapes of places at risk from the Site C Dam. I will be returning with these to the Peace River in 2019, to give them back to the people who have been fighting for the future.


title: Moving Mountains

subject:
Nuclear accidents
Painting
Prints
Fiction


title: Animating Material: Exploring Spatial Vitality Through Performative Textile

subject:
Vitality
Textiles
Lighting
Industrial design
Fashion design
Tacit knowledge

abstract: The scope of my graduate thesis identifies and explores design strategies to consider how the manipulation of textiles can stimulate engagements between humans and the materials they engage within the built environment. The experimental installations of the research seek to encourage interactions between people and textile-based artifacts to contribute to the consideration and formation of dynamic spaces. This research investigates how to provoke gestures of makers and non-makers through interactive designed artifacts that occupy a determined space. The adaptability of the artifacts are created within the installations, simultaneously dynamic in both time and space, which elicit corporeal actions. Through time spent with the materials in a determined space, participants access and align the forms they create with their own narratives and musings. The majority of the material experiments within this research focussed on design within a textile architecture. Structural forms with spatial implications emerged from the experiments. More specifically, the concept of spatial vitality was explored through responsive textile forms and artifacts with lighting. A Material Reflective Research approach was developed in the early stages of the design process, which later shifted from an emphasis on practice-based research to practice-led research. The research described started with a dominant lean towards an internally focussed material exploration of the designer and evolved to an approach that sought to create interactive experiences for people. Throughout this process, a wide range of materials and techniques were explored as means for spatial vitality to occur between the maker and the material. The outcomes of this process took the form of a lighting installation for people to experience a transformation of their imagination within the space of the design. This study not only addressed the significant contemporary design issue of the complex relationship between people and objects, but also aimed to gain a deeper and more meaningful understanding of materiality through design and action in a poetic space of performative interaction. Through the design of a multi-sensorial lighting installation people were invited to engage and to respond through various actions, gestures, and movements, expanding the experience beyond vision. This interrelationship between participants and artifacts intends to enhance an awareness and appreciation of life, both of theirs and artifacts. Animating Material connects people with designed artifacts, such that a passive observer could become an active participant in a dynamic and symbiotic reciprocity, a conversation with performative textiles.


title: The Experience of a Lifetime: Interactive Digital Experience Beyond the Screen

subject:
Software prototyping
Electronic art
Interactive art
New media art

abstract: Screen-based digital experience design is blooming among the local businesses in Metro Vancouver along with the increased pervasiveness of information technologies, new digital products in contemporary society. However, there are significantly fewer cases and related businesses around tangible interactive digital experience in which tangible objects and physical spaces replace the screen as the site of interaction. This thesis project aims to explore the specialties of the tangible interactive experience compared to the digital experience on the screen or in the virtual space. Additionally, the author investigates how to leverage user experience design methodologies in the process of designing an experimental interactive experience. In this practice-based exploration, the author prototyped four interactive digital experiences using different interactive technologies and tools tailored to different use case scenarios: 1. an interactive offline retail experience, 2. a “magical” and playful painting, 3. a room-scale interactive installation, and 4. an immersive meditation activity. These projects illustrate and explore the implementation of tangible interactions into digital experience design. During the development process, the author applied several user experience design methodologies in the projects – including field research, interviews, questionnaires, and design probes – to develop a workable framework designing tangible interactive experiences throughout the research project. The author aims to outline key implications of applying principles of user experience design to the field of tangible interactive environments. In the process, the author argues that tangible interactive design is indispensable in a successful and engaging digital experience, and thus worth investing in and exploring further in Vancouver’s marketplace.


title: Enceinte Holobiont

subject:
Feminism
Sculpture
Textiles
Installations (Art)
Motherhood
Motherhood and the arts
Labor
Body

abstract: This thesis document, Enceinte Holobiont, explores the positional, practical, and theoretical underpinnings of my recent sculptures Composite Tension. My thesis (both conceptual and visual) focuses on the model of the maternal body that speaks to the questions I raise through these sculptural forms. I propose three questions to engage the pregnant-birthing-maternal body. I ask how maternal bodies speak to (1) repetitive domestic labour, (2) the abject, as enceinte or space of ‘other’ within a patriarchal-capitalistic society, and (3) the idea of the collective holobiont. I use the terms enceinte and holobiont as metaphors for an undefinable messy body as it relates to the capitalistic ideal of an individualized body. My explorations through sculptural forms consist mainly of sewn and crocheted objects that include a personal archive from a documentation series of domestic labour. I reference historical and contemporary feminist artists to enter the discourse of re-writing the maternal body counter to patriarchal depictions of motherhood. My artistic research is both practical and theoretical. I engage multiple tensioned conversations that address and challenge the notion of self and other, as well as how the ethics of care functions within patriarchal systems. I use the maternal body, the enceinte holobiont, as a starting point.


title: Strangely Lucid: Using Light To Destabilize

subject:
Lucid dreams
Installations (Art)
Light art

abstract: This paper examines the experience of lucid dreaming both from my own perspective and that of others, as well as the theoretical, psychological and artistic aspects of this phenomenon. I discuss destabilizing factors in lucid dreaming: a term used to describe things that normally do not happen or exist in reality as well as the feeling and perception in lucid dreams that persist in the waking state. I examine the research question: how might light be used to evoke a destabilizing feeling and perception inspired by lucid dreams in an art installation? I describe three installation projects that address this question.


title: Repeating Lies, Repeating Truths

subject:
Mental health
Video art
Photography
Performance art
Feminism
Body image
Cultural studies

abstract: This support paper seeks to analyze the potential of a new media arts practice in relationship to Second to Fourth Wave feminism discourse. Based on the works produced during my MFA studies at Emily Carr University, I investigate how a humanized representation of feminine subjectivity in media arts can operate a mind shift in the audience. I intend my work to participate in the neutralization of the internalized objectification of women’s bodies, providing a counterfoil to the images of the beauty myth at the benefit of a broader and more inclusive mode of femininity. Drawing from feminist photography, video and performance art from the 1970’s to present day, I explore how abjection, repetition, and autoethnography in media art act as key strategies in my research. Just as my artworks, this support paper is both a manifesto and a love letter; a protest and a celebration. // Ce document de soutien vise à analyser le potentiel d’une pratique artistique médiatique dans le cadre de la Seconde à la Quatrième Vague de féminisme. Se basant sur les œuvres produites durant mes études de MFA à Emily Carr University, je questionne comment une représentation humanisée de la subjectivité féminine dans les arts médiatiques peut exercer un changement de mentalité chez l’audience. Mes œuvres ont pour but de participer dans la neutralisation de l’objectification internalisée des corps féminins, offrant un contrepoids aux images du mythe de beauté au profit d’un mode de fémininité plus large et plus inclusif. Citant la photographie, l’art vidéo et la performance féministe des années 1970 à aujourd’hui, j’explore comment l’abjection, la répétition et l’auto-ethnographie dans les arts médiatiques agissent comme stratégies clés dans ma recherche. Tout comme mes œuvres, ce document de soutient est à la fois un manifeste et une lettre d’amour; une protestation et une célébration.


title: Sense and Spirit

subject:
Cosmology, Chinese
Sensory stimulation
Consciousness
Synesthesia
Painting

abstract: My art practice is based on the study of sensory perception. How can the representation of synesthesia function in an art context, specifically painting? Further to this, what is the role of sensory perception in relation to Chinese cosmology and cosmic consciousness in my artwork? I explore synesthesia, Chinese qi, cosmic consciousness to approach and understand my painting practice, and the potential for artists to visualize ineffable aspects of perceptual experience. My work is influenced by both Eastern and Western painters, including Cai Guoqiang, Qiu Shihua, Timothy B. Layden, Pia Fries, and Elizabeth Neel. The large-scale paintings produced in this thesis make significant use of layering and marks that look like they were accidentally created; however, the paintings are composed intentionally using synesthetic experience and an abstract vocabulary. I am trying to approach a state of reconciliation between control and non- control and apply it into the gestures and marks of painting. I experiment with gestural and abstract painting approaches to develop a perceptual space of emptiness. I am inspired by both the concept of qi, which literally means “breath “and is the soul of Chinese landscape painting, and Richard M. Bucke’s definition of cosmic consciousness, which he connects to ‘intuitive logic’ and a highest level of mind. My desire is to explore a topography of spirituality that I associate with consciousness in order to reveal where sensorial experience can lead.


title: A Thesis in Seasons

contributor: Reeves, Ben (Ben Reeves) (thesis advisor)

format:
40 p.
electronic

subject: Painting Ceramics Autobiography Seasons Seasons--Alberta

abstract: A personal take on a thesis. Alyson Davies uses narratives of her rural Albertan upbringing to position her art practice and experience in Emily Carr University’s MFA program. Davies painting, primarily based in autobiographical narratives, is also met by supplementary practices across other media where seasonality and nature direct the subject of the works. The thesis paper aims to contextualize Davies’ artworks along other artist’s work, and within the physical and inner worlds the work exists in.

abstract: Seasonality

abstract: Prairies

abstract: Farming

abstract: Farm

abstract: Betty Woodman

abstract: Vanessa Bell

abstract: Mary Fedden

abstract: Anita Klein


title: MY GENEROUS FRIEND, TREE: Crafting in Nature

contributor: Parand, Sepideh (Sepideh Parand) (author)

contributor: St. Pierre, Louise (Louise St. Pierre) (thesis advisor)

subject:
Sustainability
Spirituality
Nature
Crafts (art genres)

abstract: Although humans are a part of the natural world, the relationship between nature and humans is not fully understood. The earth is damaged by humans, and the resources of nature are being taken for granted. Humans cannot survive without nature, but nature can survive without us. In this research, the relationship between self and the natural world is studied through the method of crafting. For me, this led to finding a spiritual relationship with nature, and positioning myself in greater harmony with her. Crafting is a relational practice that connects several aspects of my research, such as materiality, the positionality of the maker, relationships with other people and the generosity of nature. Crafting with nature as a method led to discovering deeper aspects of that relationship, such as spirituality and reciprocity. Moreover, by practicing land-based making in my everyday life, concepts like gratitude, animacy, and agency of the more-than-human world have become more tangible to me. I call the objects that are being made my makings. My makings are not the ultimate goal, but making them was a way to gain philosophical insight. The purpose of this research is not the form and beauty of the objects. It is how crafting helped me as a maker to find my place in relation to the natural world. Therefore, you can see that I made a variety of objects based on the materials that I had, the techniques that I wanted to experience, and the place that I wanted to make in. My research is a personal journey. This written thesis is mostly a meditation on my relationship with craft and nature. At the end of the thesis, I offer suggestions for others who might be looking for a relationship with nature through craft. I hope this helps others create their own rituals and gain a closer relationship with nature.

abstract: Craft

abstract: Making


title: Accessible Grocery Food Packaging for People with Vision Impairments

contributor: Neat, Cameron (Cameron Neat) (thesis advisor)

format:
60 p.
electronic

subject:
Food -- Packaging
Blind
Low vision
Vision disorders
Design

abstract: This thesis investigates how information on Canadian food packaging can be made accessible to people with vision impairments. Accessible packaging will allow them to shop for groceries independently, make informed purchase decisions, and use the products more efficiently. This thesis uses two approaches. One was to redesign existing food labels to make them accessible to people with mild or moderate vision impairment through the appropriate use of typography, color, images, illustrations, and patterns. The second approach focuses on the addition of Braille and a text to speech feature to meet the needs of people with a severe vision impairment or blindness. Along with accessibility, the aesthetic appeal of the packaging has been a critical consideration throughout the research. Communication design based studio explorations form the core of this thesis. Other methods such as observation, precedent review, personal reflection, case studies, literature review, and interviews with visually impaired participants, experts, and design professionals drive the explorations. The final outcome of the research is a prototype of a sample accessible grocery food brand with a variety of products. Considerations and challenges that shaped the prototypes are also discussed. The research provides a resource for designers and businesses within and outside Canada interested in working within the field of accessible grocery food packaging.

abstract: Accessible design

abstract: Communication design

abstract: Inclusive design

abstract: Visual impairment

abstract: Packaging design


title: Same Old Story: A Topography of Anti-Colonialism

contributor: Rashtian, Hamed (Hamed Rashtian) (author)

contributor: Hilder, Jamie (Jamie Hilder) (thesis advisor)

format:
38 p.
electronic

rights: This thesis is available to view and copy for research and educational purposes only, provided that it is not altered in any way and is properly acknowledged, including citing the author(s), title and full bibliographic details

subject:
Colonialism
World politics
History
Decolonization
Installations (Art)
Sound in art

abstract: Same Old Story engages with a global perspective on the complex subject of colonialism by visualizing past and present anti-colonial narratives in different locations around the world. I aim to develop a global topology of anti-colonial movements in order to better understand the global histories of colonization. My interdisciplinary approach to this project is rooted in my primary goal of identifying points of connection among diverse narratives of colonialism to benefit from different knowledges and struggles in order to expand my understanding of decolonization. Starting from West Asia and North Africa I look into different instances of colonial interactions from around the world, searching across a wide range of collections and sources. I am curious about the similarities in the patterns of exerting power relations between the colonizer and the colonized. Currently, my focus is on the architecture of the sites of the events as well as the archival sounds related to them. I am curious about the conditions of buildings, specifically empty and banal spaces devoid of the people, that carry the weight of political events that perpetuated colonialism in one way or another. The narratives that I create consist of superimposed digital drawings that are laser engraved on raw canvas and are based on photos of the sites of the historical events as instances of colonization. I specifically include different superimposed drawings in one piece in order to emphasize the illegibility of history and to put these diverse events in conversation with each other. In the process of creating the six-channel sound installation, I have done research on the archival sound, related to historical events. I initially used sound in the installation to encourage an intimate connection between the audience and the piece. However, while creating the soundscape, I realized that the simultaneous presentation of sounds from different events created a fictional situation in which distant events converge. The events that are currently featured in my project are as follows: Patrice Lumumba’s anticolonial speech during Congo’s independence day ceremonies; the secret negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Liberation Organization that resulted in the Oslo Accords; the battle of Algiers as part of the Algerian War of Independence that was fought between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN); the history of the British colonial intervention in Iran including an oil concession between Iran and Britain; the destruction of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French forces during the Opium Wars in China; and Construction of the Tiny Houses.

abstract: Digital drawing

abstract: Sound installation

abstract: Historical representation

abstract: Archival research


title: Relational Encounters: Negotiating Communication Barriers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

format:
73 p.
electronic

subject:
COVID-19 (Disease)
Pandemics and COVID-19
Social distancing (Public health)
Communication Barriers
Storytelling

abstract: This thesis aims to explore and honor how people are trying to connect with each other during the isolation required by COVID-19. I embarked on a personal journey to understand how people were experiencing the barriers of communication when social distancing became necessary. The relational encounters among family, friends, and strangers have changed drastically. The care and connection that was once expressed through physical contact like hugs, pats on the shoulder, or wrapping one’s arms around each other, is now reduced to a restricted point of contact, such as through a window or across a distance. These small moments of interactions have proven to be jewels of connections under challenging times. Experiencing this firsthand myself further validated the trajectory of my research. Through a process of journaling, auto-ethnography, storytelling, story gathering, and story listening, I researched new characteristics of human relationships and connections formed among families and communities. The unconventional interactions that I saw taking place through windows and across other thresholds have deeply resonated with me. I asked myself, as a designer, how can I use storytelling as a method to aid social innovation to create a space of engagement within a community? Can design support the generation of new narratives where the families, friends, and fellow community members feel included and connected to each other? I have been observing interactions happening through windows outside of care homes. It inspired me to search for ways to support interactions and channels of communication in these constrained and challenging times. The design-driven outcome, Khirki, has proposed a narrative environment where the audience can physically, emotionally, and intellectually participate that will help to bring people together safely across barriers and appreciate precious moments of shared time.

abstract: Narrative environment

abstract: Relational encounter

abstract: Care & concern

abstract: Social innovation


title: Nested Bodies: Fermentation as Embodied Praxis

contributor: Van Oyen, Julie (Julie Van Oyen) (author)

contributor: Gillieson, Katherine (Katherine Gillieson) (thesis advisor)

format:
31 p.
electronic

subject:
Fermentation
Design
Artistic collaboration

abstract: The craft practice of fermentation prioritizes embodied know-how in the maker, and collaboration between the practitioner, fermenting microbes, and other beings and elements implicated in the process. This project draws from embodied design research methodologies to develop a material fermentation practice into a process-led research praxis, wherein theories of embodiment and the relational bodily self can be explored. This project then proposes how this embodied, multispecies praxis may cultivate a deeply relational connection between humans and the ecosystems they are embedded within, in order to conceive of and exercise more caring relations.

abstract: Interaction design

abstract: Embodied knowledge

abstract: Fermentation

abstract: Multispecies

abstract: Praxis

abstract: Relational self

abstract: Embodied design


title: Listening to Plants

contributor: Feldman-Poyntz, Emily Brooke Artemis (Emily Brooke Artemis Feldman-Poyntz) (author)

contributor: Jones, Chris (Chris Jones) (thesis advisor)

format:
90 p.
electronic

subject:
Herbalism
Decolonization
Plants in art
Healing

abstract: This research investigates connections between sensory alteration, pleasure, resistance and healing through a land-focused art practice in collaboration with organic materials. Through multisensory installations, murals, sculptures, and texts, my work engages with the audience, recontextualizing notions of healing, embodiment, and land. This art practice is influenced by new materiality, phenomenology, spirituality, and science. The practice is further informed by contemporary artists who work with herbology and healing. With this thesis, I aim to explain why working with plants matters. I investigate ways for art to become medicine. I reflect on how I can ethically engage with the land as a settler. I explore how this work is intended to be viewed. Embodiment and inter-species collaboration inform my practice, and I explain how this research shapes my art today.  The objective of this work is to encourage space for healing to become a social or communal practice engaged in a conversation around artmaking. By contributing to a community in this way, I ask viewers to consider what creative healing could mean for them, and how they might imagine this practice themselves.

abstract: New materiality

abstract: Sympoiesis

abstract: Plant knowledge

abstract: Sensory alteration

abstract: Embodied learning


title: Dark Potentials in Smart Environments

contributor: Kayanadath, Thejus (Thejus Kayanadath) (author)

contributor: Armen, Haig (Haig Armen) (thesis advisor)

format:
57 p.
electronic

subject:
Technology
Ethics
Ubiquitous computing
Social media -- Psychological aspects

abstract: Manipulative and intrusive technologies are directly or indirectly responsible for many significant issues faced today, including misinformation, prejudice and violence, and issues with health and wellbeing. Content platforms show hyper-targeted content that reinforces people’s existing biases - sometimes leading them towards harmful, extremist views on society and politics (Chakrabarti). Manipulative interfaces can make digital products extremely addictive, using psychological tricks to keep people engaged and encourage repeated usage (Harris). Many of these persuasive and privacy-intrusive patterns appear in technology-enhanced physical spaces, or 'smart environments'. The extensive use of facial recognition, tracking of people in shared spaces, and persuasive advertisements and interactions bring issues of ethics to smart environments (Lin). The potential for technologies to be harmful is often overlooked or undervalued by designers and technologists in general. This is evidenced by opinions from designers of addictive social media applications, as they move towards curtailing or avoiding their use of these media (Breland). As smart technologies grow prevalent in people’s public and private environments, it is increasingly important for technologists to build an understanding of the harmful possibilities enabled by their work and products. This thesis aims to explore manipulative and intrusive possibilities in technology-enhanced spaces. It follows a methodology of provocation-led workshops to help designers become familiar with technologies in these spaces. Through these workshops, participants are encouraged to identify potential for benefit and harm in scenarios they create, and become familiar with terminology that can help identify and communicate this potential in their work going forward. The outcomes of these workshops contribute to a growing online collection of examples of manipulative and intrusive smart environments. This resource is intended to further build awareness and understanding around these issues, and serve as a reference for technologists, researchers, policy-makers and other interested parties in the future.

abstract: Interaction design

abstract: Smart environments

abstract: Dark patterns

abstract: Participatory

abstract: Provocations


title: The Imaginary Body: A Discussion of Female Body's Beauty Standards in China Using Imagination and Illustration

format:
65 p.
electronic

subject:
Feminism
Imagination
Illustrations (layout features)
Body image
Self-perception
Chinese -- Social life and customs

abstract: “The Imaginary body” series of illustrations is the core visual output of my thesis research. It is a way for me to express, think and acquire knowledge. It is also a means for me to critically respond to the social problem that I am concerned about: the stereotyped and dogmatic beauty standards of women’s bodies in modern Chinese society; how these standards come into being under the political purpose of gender oppression; and how they seriously affect the establishment of the positive and benign self-identity of modern Chinese women. In the research process, the studies I involve include how women internalize social aesthetics and establish self-identity, sexual objectification, body-image, and transfeminism. Nourished by these background and secondary researches, I develop some conversation directions and prompts, with imagination as the core. With their help, I have some conversations with some close friends of mine (Chinese women of similar age).  These dialogues provide me great inspirations so that I can take my illustration creation as a reflection to visually show and communicate my thinking and critical response around this research topic. The illustrations that emerge are fantastical, hybrid, grotesque and powerful. These monster bodies constitute an offence to the existing relationship between the individual and the collective with their peculiarity. Through these illustrations, I ask questions about how should we reflect on our relationship with society and ourselves, and how could individuals build stronger and more independent self-identity in the modern patriarchal heterosexual ruling system.

abstract: Feminist

abstract: Illustration

abstract: Sexual objectification

abstract: Critical design

abstract: Self identity

abstract: Body image

abstract: Beauty standard


title: Making Kin with Wild Fire -  A Relational Design Practice

contributor: Doyle, Keith (Keith Doyle) (thesis advisor)

format:
82 p.
electronic

subject:
Three-dimensional printing
Ceramics
Relationism
Wildfires
Indigenous knowledge
Storytelling

abstract:
Standing next to trees as they are consumed by living swirls of heat during a wildfire will make you quickly realize the precarity of your own position. This feeling only deepens after walking past melted microwaves while surveying towns impacted and transformed by this unyielding force. This sense of imbalance between the sites we live in and how we choose to inhabit them is hard to ignore. Yet, away from the fire, the material culture that contributes to this disjunction continues uninterrupted. The objects we use everyday affect the world we live in. This thesis project is about coming to see where we are, how we live, and using objects as storytellers to transfer meaning from this unique place of relations. It is about imagining ways of making that can reknit ways of living. Ways of being tied to the land.

I make 3D printed ceramic flasks—vessels made with foraged clays that undergo a transformation, an interaction, as they are vitrified by wildfires. These functional objects are experiments in ways of making that care for the interconnected web of relationships that the objects we put into the world have. Can we co-design collaboratively with natural forces? Can we craft with wildfire? Can we expand our understanding of kinship and use this inclusivity to re-tool our design practices in order to reconsider who, how, and what we are designing for? The hope is that these vessels carry new ways of seeing and an imperative for new ways of acting. This ongoing project is a personal one, consisting of material assemblages that share parts of my relationships with the places I am making in and the more-than-human actors that I am in conversation with—the wind, the clay, the robots, and of course the fire.

abstract: Relationality

abstract: Philosophy of technology

abstract: 3D printing


title: Counterfactual Histories and Speculative Immersion: Exploring the Capabilities of Unveiling Historical Wrongs and Institutional Discrimination

subject:
Racism
Architecture
Interior decoration
Alternative histories
Colonialism
Gentrification

abstract: This document incorporates the description of the theoretical and practical foundations of my research and studio practice. I have conducted excavations and inquiries about the injustices that occurred in the lower mainland of British Columbia across the 20th-century related to colonialism, racism and gentrification. The historical events that have been studied are mainly regarding the forced removals of Japanese and African Canadians. The research is involved in applying the critical design methodology of Alternative Histories to support communities that have been historically underrepresented. Alternative Histories are a design methodology proposed by British designer James Auger which proposes that it is useful to re-imagine the past in order to re-engineer the present. Through writing Alternative Histories, constructing architectural models, and utilizing rendering and virtual reality technologies, the final thesis project aims to make audiences reconsider the past ideals and losses of Hogan's Alley, a historic Black community in Vancouver that has been erased due to the construction of Georgia Viaduct, a raised highway that connects East Vancouver with Downtown. This project, unexpectedly, contributes to the negotiation between Hogan's Alley Society and the local government on the removal of the Georgia Viaduct and community reconstruction. Ultimately, my research guides the audience to take a historical detour and brings to the surface the problems of colonialism, racism, and gentrification in Vancouver to attract social attention. Through the research, I aim to ask what the capabilities of Alternative Histories are as a position to unveil historical wrongs and institutional discrimination. In conclusion, the research finds that Auger’s alternative histories are actually useful in contemporary design projects.


title: The "Warm Space" Approach

contributor: Hertz, Garnet (Garnet Hertz) (thesis advisor)

format:
81 p.
electronic

subject:
Pandemics and COVID-19
Social distancing (Public health)
Masks
Communications
Interpersonal communication

abstract:
The greeting is the very first connection we use to communicate with others. In this document the author – who fears saying hello to people – will go on a journey to explore the elements that make up the act of saying hello, what this interaction needs to look like, and how this simple, subtle action can evolve into more meaningful social interactions. Greetings are a rehearsed human behavior. Universally, individuals have been trained from an early age to perform this. When analyzed, greeting interactions have three basic phases involved: recognition, intention, and engagement. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, these three components were taken for granted due to the open access people had in greeting one another relatively freely in our North American greeting system. An open greeting system allows the greeter to give their receiver respect and establish trust. The author terms these moments “warm spaces” because they provide a safe, intimate, and respectful space for personal interaction.
However, “warm spaces” have now been disrupted due to the unprecedented pandemic of 2020. A recent necessary accessory, the face mask, has changed the dynamic of greetings as it covers the dominant indicator of respect and safety; the smile. The mask wearer’s voice is also stifled, as the individual has to force amplification when talking. Masks now play an important role in our everyday interactions, and learning how to communicate and greet with masks is now critical to society. However, because there is a sense of interpersonal mistrust because of masks like social distancing and
fear, greeting styles are drastically changing. Despite this, people are still yearning for social connections and “warm spaces”. Changing our mindset of how greetings take place during a pandemic is the
focus of this thesis. Through a review of current academic literature, a review of the research methodology, and a series of design outcomes, these recommendations will provide a blueprint through practice-led research for enhancing social connection and creating “warm spaces” during this critical historical moment. In order to inform this thesis, the author relied on research in the areas of
psychology, human behavior, and theories of political protest and racial identity. Most sources in this document were dated prior to 2019. Once she understood their arguments, she attempted to integrate the ideas to help interpret her research. The method of auto-ethnography is a significant approach to the author’s investigation to the personal quality of the greeting action and its three scene components.
In exploratory developments, the author shifted from projects that were participatory into auto-ethnographic work. The visual narrative inquiry approach allows the author to understand the core of her investigation by putting her own personal story into her remaining set of projects. The first few studio projects allowed the author to understand the essence of what components made up a “warm space”, like vulnerability and spontaneity. When the pandemic struck, the author realized she wanted to evoke the same elements of intentional vulnerability. Because of masks and social distancing, the author created new dynamics to the exchange of sharing personal narratives, through the medium of painting on masks. In the development of her research, she found it critical to create spaces for the participants to feel respected and trusted enough to be vulnerable. Therefore she created a series of design outcomes that foster respect, trust, and vulnerability. These included a physical construction activity: video exercises, observational paintings, and creating custom masks that show narratives and create questions and dialogue to break down barriers. Each of these studio projects highlight the value of intentionality, creating a “warm space”, and giving clues as to how to create one. It is critical to form ways of building “warm spaces” during this period of social alienation. This will be an ongoing exploration as the author expands her current design project. If we can adapt and innovate the ways we greet one another, we may be able to overcome the social isolation many people are experiencing. It starts with “Hello”.

abstract: Greeting

abstract: Human connection

abstract: Communication design

abstract: Narrative inquiry


title: OBJECTs AND

contributor: Foroutanzadeh, Sima (Sima Foroutanzadeh) (author)

contributor: Fraser, Hélène Day (Hélène Day Fraser) (thesis advisor)

format:
51 p.
electronic

subject:
Object relations (Psychoanalysis)
Material culture
Reciprocity (Psychology)
Meaning (Philosophy)
Objects (Aesthetics)

abstract: We shape objects and objects in their own way, shape us. Still, despite this reciprocal relationship we humans lack awareness of the way we make and interact with our contemporary human-made material culture. Arguably, through our modern fixation with technology and ever increasing techno-centric world, we have lost the poetic aspects of products which causes a separation between us and products and could be the reason for a lack of empathy we have for our objects. The consequence is short-lived products and a growing consumer culture. Shifting our understandings of our relationship with material culture may play a role in adjusting expectations of the future and provide alternative notions of a material world. My thesis explores ways that design can help us experience a deeper engagement with objects. It does so by seeking ways that design enables us to value the objects around us through the creation of personal meaning. My research, based on actions that I conducted between May 2020 and March 2021 has been a means to consider and better understand the agency of objects, spirituality, ways to reinforce our human's natural sensibility towards objects, and design for the creation of meaning. Objects can intervene in our life by making and changing our habits, behaviors, perceptions and emotions and this fact reveals the importance of considering the quality of our communication with the world of material things. In order to explore this communication I took on an approach that embraced practice-based design processes as a way to imagine other possibilities of the design of material things. I actively used making in order to think, reflect on and investigate our connection with objects.  Doing so allowed me to work in my own quiet introspective and poetic way. Throughout, my intent has not been to find solutions, but rather to ask questions and promote consideration about our perception of material culture.

abstract: Design poetics

abstract: Design values

abstract: Material practice

abstract: Human-object dynamics

abstract: Connections

abstract: Reciprocal relationships

abstract: Meaning making

abstract: Thinking through things

abstract: Aesthetic sensibility


title: The Flesh Talk: An Exploration of Mental Health Stigma in Chinese Culture

contributor: Chen, Qinya (Aria) (Qinya Chen) (author)

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate Studies (Degree granting institution)

subject:
Chinese -- Social life and customs
Mental health
Stigma (Social psychology)
Discursive works

abstract:
A pursuit of the philosophy of He (harmony), rooting from the highly relational nature of Chinese traditional socio-cultural conditions, has been deeply embedded in Chinese language, social norms, and family education. In a discursive environment where mental well-being is partly perceived as a communal issue, open discussions of mental distress are morally constrained to a certain extent. Throughout history, reference to mental well-being has therefore been somatized in the Chinese language. These limits open conversations, and inhibits the process for seeking help if it is needed.
In my research, I developed a group of discursive objects and scenarios to bring forward and expose embedded and somatized expressions of mental distress in Chinese culture. How might discursive artifacts shift the discourse and stigma around mental illness? Can discursive artifacts challenge the somatized language used in Chinese culture, to lead to a more open conversation about emotions and mental well-being? These are the main inquiries of the project.

abstract: Mental well-being

abstract: Discursive scenarios

abstract: Stigma

abstract: Somatization

abstract: Cultural discourses


title: Object Narratives: Storytelling Through Objects

type: Collection thesis

subject:
Ceramics
Storytelling
Social sciences
Objects
Vases

abstract: This thesis explores the political and the narrative nature of objects. It questions how we can “charge objects with issues” (Marres, 2012), and looks at the ways we build up stories through objects. In order to explore these questions more comprehensively, it considers why we need to tell stories, and what kind of stories can be told through objects. The focus of this body of work is not the functional improvement of objects; rather critical design objects are used to trigger and mobilize thoughts and reflections from the audience who will view those objects, or participate in the scenarios formed through those objects. Through critical design and a practice-led approach, the historical origin of domestic objects, and their capacity to embody our humanity and hold our attention are explored. The work focuses specifically on ceramics as a medium to tell stories. The humble vase has not only served as an ambassador of cultural exchange but a witness to history. This document introduces a historical context of cultural and economic trade and exchange and brings forth contemporary examples of storytelling through objects. A historical survey of Ming to Delft trade initiated the work and helped me consider aesthetic appropriation of culture, and the contexts that inform making. My practice- led projects incorporate traditional craft processes and skill development, supported by case studies of contemporary design practitioners, and the logic and inspiration behind their work. The main methods at play in my research are heuristic study, survey, and material practice (learning through making). I have focused on how different objects (singular) can tell different stories as well as how a collection of objects (multiple) can tell stories. Through this exploration, and in order to understand my context for making, I learned skills of making in a traditional craft: ceramics. I gained knowledge from expert craftsmen by working with them in a professional studio. I explored ideas and concepts of contemporary decolonization through a practice of making. Material agency enabled me to piece together and reconstruct stories related to my personal experience, social events and the relationship between people and objects.


title: Reflective Textiles: Garment Design, Space, and the Digital

subject:
Fashion design
Costume design
Weaving
Reflective materials
Performance
Theater
Textiles

abstract: How can engagement, visualization tools, and handworkmanship promote thinking beyond traditional modes of garment design? Traditional garment creation has a deep history of craft, quality workmanship, and culture. As the collective skills of weaving, sewing, and draping are being challenged through societal influences of consumerism and the roles of clothing, this research seeks to blend traditional garment design processes with emerging visualization tools to order to support manual making skills. Through seeing the final silhouette true to the 3-dimensional shape, a custom textile was created with both manual and digital applications on a digital jacquard loom. By bringing in other designers’ perspectives, design philosophies, and digital visualization tools, a series of artifacts were created to support a proposed theatrical production, Future Human.


title: Inclusive Design for Regaining Lost Identity: Accessible, Aesthetic and Effortless Clothing

subject:
Disabilities
Ethics
Fashion design

abstract: Inclusive Design for Regaining Lost Identity is a research project that aims to design and develop accessible clothing that is inclusive and fashionable to foster psycho-social well-being and to enhance the self-esteem of women with disabilities. The research explored inclusive design solutions for the saree – a traditional Indian garment for women, through a practice-led iterative methodology of designing and producing pragmatic and aesthetic sarees with enhanced ease of dressing and undressing. These sarees are intended to offer the participants a sense of independence and individuality whilst responding to their needs for self-expression. Clothing for persons with disabilities frequently follows a medical model which focuses on their inabilities. Such experiences tend to aggravate feelings of inadequacy and lower self-esteem due to the limited choices of pertinent fashionable clothing. Ethnographic research was conducted with women in the age range of twenty to forty years with mild to moderate physical disabilities, including those with cerebral palsy, reduced dexterity and limb amputations. Investigations into apparel-related barriers they face and their expectations and desires about clothing pointed to a huge void in terms of designed inclusive clothing for women with physical disabilities. Self-efficacy emerged as a significant criteria for the selection of garments. A series of informed study prototypes of adaptive sarees were designed and developed along with an exploration into the feasibility of 3D printed fasteners intended to alleviate potential feelings of frustration and deprivation while wearing saree is an elaborate garment that requires precise draping, which makes the saree complicated to wear and inconvenient to carry, particularly for women with physical disabilities. For many women in India, the saree remains the customary dress, especially for work and occasions, yet minimal progress and advancement has been made to enhance its accessibility and ease of use. This research aspires to provide inclusive design solutions that seamlessly embrace persons with disabilities, to elevate their agency and to challenge and change prevailing negative attitudes, misconceptions, and stereotypes in relation to their specific needs and desires.


title: Harmony with the Land: Explorations in Graphic Narratives

subject:
Traditional knowledge
Yunnan Sheng (China)
Hani people
Oral history

abstract: Harmony with the land is a series of explorations of graphic narratives based on my lived experience and received knowledge relating to my homeland of Yunnan. The narrations are rooted deeply within the memory, culture and sensation that inhabit my engagements with flora and fauna of Yunnan, as well as my experience with people that are deeply connected to this land. As I trace my memories with the land throughout the years, deeper and further, divergences begin to emerge. I find intricate connections between my experience and the experience of other people. Through reading and studying ethnic materials such as literature and poetry, observing and participating in activities and events, I find similarities based on our interactions with familiar objects that come from the land. Whether it is a pine tree in the woods, a mushroom under the leaves or a bush of berries. The idea of placing my lived experience with the land in the context of people who are also closely connected to the land is intriguing. Among the ethnic materials I studied, there is an epic poem about the arduous historical migration of Hani People of Yunnan. The poem tells the stories of resilience, humility and responsiveness of the Hani people throughout the migration. I relate myself to the land that Hani people travelled through about 1,000 years ago, as the places, animals, plants, people in the poem have also been essential to my lived experience. I base my explorations of graphic narratives on the interactions and inspirations of personal memory and the knowledge from the Hani migration poem. My studio work, as well as this writing, is an oscillating process between my lived experience and received knowledge; it is a space where intrapersonal and interpersonal dialogues happen, all of which are based on the land and things that have come from the land. Through these explorations of storytelling, I hope to convey the harmonious, earth-centered relationship of people and the land to my audience, to investigate the potential application of such storytelling experience, and also to reconnect myself to the memory that shaped my view of the world.


title: Ahọn Dudu

subject:
Storytelling
Poetry
Dance
Clothing and dress

abstract: My project aims at using Yorùbá storytelling frameworks to tell stories about my experience with lack of black communal culture here in Vancouver. I tell these stories through the Yorùbá lens of ‘the spectacle’- a show put on to teach and entertain; which encompasses oral storytelling, poetry, song, dance performance and garments.


title: Perspective is Moving: Tactics - Ways for Shifting Perspectives in Design Practice for Ecology

subject: Ecology Design Relationism

abstract: My research Perspective is Moving started with two questions. An internal one - how do I see the world? And a professional facing one - how can a design or design process contribute to shifting contemporary dualist, human-centered perspectives derived from modernity to ones that are more relational, pluriversal, and ecological? My research is a personal journey, to ponder how it is that I have been tamed by modern society, to mark out how I have adapted to these constraints and to find alternative approaches to counter them. As a way to shift my own perspective and assumption of the design process, I have applied epistemic artefacts found in modern world to my own process of cognitive recognition: Seeing-Refusing-Doing-Engaging-Embodying-Knowing-Becoming. Reflections at the end of each of these stages enabled me to identify my next steps. Generative, they became my way of finding a way forward. My early stages of research were developed through a cognitive design practice made up of actions for: Relating, Transposing, Merging, and Turning. In the second stage of my inquiry I embraced an empirical design practice made of actions that were: Engaging and Embodying. Outcomes from the early stages of my research trajectory show how flexibility and connectivity of my perspective and relationships can affect the process of designing artefacts. The second stage of my work demonstrates how I sought out ways to negotiate and communicate with nature. A specific tree, located in the public park of Vancouver plays an important role in this stage of my work – a way of connecting with nature. My work, detailed in this thesis document, provides other designers provocative tactics to think about how we live and be with nature and concurrently contribute through our work as designers. It is also an invitation to designers with limited first hand experiences in nature or ecological thinking: observe how my perspective has changed by trying the approaches and methods that I took on.


title: Liquid Land

subject: Sound Decolonization Nature Phenomenology Ecuador Ecology

abstract: Liquid Land is an art thesis project informed by decolonization and Andean Phenomenology. Working from an Ecuadorian perspective, this art project proposes alternate ways of perceiving nature as an attempt to decolonize our gaze towards the more than human world as well as move our attention to nature’s subjectivity. Liquid Land proposes a slow process of learning to decenter and deconstruct the privileged hierarchy that positions the human over the more-than-human. Land, plants, and trees do not answer to the social hierarchies of power that make an imaginary land division into Nation-states and property, even though the asymmetrical matrix of power that splits land is imaginary. The exclusion and oppression are real for the people on the other side of the benefit line.


title: Public Space and Pandemics: The Changing Relationship Between the People and their Cities

subject:
Maps
Epidemics
Cartography
Cities
City planning
Public spaces
Urban parks

abstract: The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about fundamental changes in the relationship between people and their cities. The pandemic also unveiled design elements in public spaces that were previously not visible. This study draws on these elements to investigate some of the implications that the design in public spaces will have in relation to the well-being of the community. The study analyses three regions shown in both historical and contemporary contexts, resulting in some of the design principles at stake. Epidemics bring specific factors into view regarding disease transmission. In the case of respiratory diseases such as COVID-19, physical space is a critical element in the way of transmission; in this context, urban design takes on a medical dimension. Taking this into account, the analysis of these case studies addresses several important points, including behaviour within the public space, density management, and current design strategies for the future of these cities. The research identifies the need for new urban outdoor lifestyles. The principles derived from the analysis of the case studies suggest that a network of parks, small squares, and greenspaces could provide a more active and balanced lifestyle for many people than most of the current urban designs allow. Using speculative design strategies, the research develops three cartographic propositions regarding a new network of interconnected greenspaces in three example cities. These maps are intended to provoke imagination and encourage the reconsideration of the city that maintains a universal well-being.


title: Volcanic Memories

contributor: Cerritos Cuellar, Rosalina Libertad (Rosalina Libertad Cerritos Cuellar) (author)

contributor: McIntyre, Lindsay (Lindsay McIntyre) (thesis advisor)

format:
30 p.
electronic

subject:
El Salvador
New media art
Indigo
Installations (Art)
Experimental films

abstract: Volcanic Memories is a thesis project that explores cultural identity and how this unfolds through memory, history, time, and intergenerational experiences of trauma, celebration, hope, immigration and collective and personal nostalgia in the context of El Salvador and its diaspora. The entry point to this thesis project began with Ajkewa, which is my first installation in the MFA program. This work marks a transformation in regards to the character of my practice from working with 2D projected experimental digital moving image to one that inhabits space and dimensionality. With this first exercise of projection mapping, I became very interested in activating the way in which the viewer interacts with moving image, visual narrative, objects and the space that these elements inhabit. Somos Shikilit is an experimental digital interactive installation and forms part of my thesis exhibition. The title translates into We are Indigo - Somos is Spanish and Shikilit is Nahuat. This work explores cultural identity through the history of indigo in El Salvador. It is a nostalgic celebration and exploration of cultural identity through the use of colour, texture and abstract forms. With this piece I began exploring an iterative manner of working which has been a great creative exercise and is now informing my practice in a very significant way. The artwork titled Shuchikisa completes my thesis exhibition and project. It is a commemoration of the spirit of resistance and how this moves through time, history and memory. The title in Nahuat translates into “to bloom”. Shuchikisa is conceived to be a projection mapping moving image installation. Through this thesis project, I have learned to invest my practice further in a deep emotionality that is concerned with the complexities of my cultural identity as well as my experiences as part of the Salvadoran diaspora. Acknowledging the weight and significance of cultural, social and political inheritance has become important in my creative process and practice. In my work, these experiences are expressed in a manner where moving image, sound and sculptural form encompass the subliminal corners of my emotional intellect and imagination.

abstract: Expanded digital moving image

abstract: Cultural identity

abstract: Mesoamerica

abstract: Colonialism

abstract: Projection mapping


title: Ethical Sellout: Refining Standards of Ethics in the Commercial Design Industry

subject:
Graphic design
Ethics
Sustainability
Social impact
Professional ethics
Marketing
Advertising

abstract: This project aims to refine notions of ethical design within the commercial communications industry and investigate the potential for actionable support to ethical practice. It intends to provide a unique aggregation and distillation of ethical design wisdom in the format of a comprehensive, foundational guide to assist practitioners in exploring their ethical potential and encourage the sustainable, dynamic development of a more socially and environmentally responsible practice. Though the “responsible design movement” continues to flourish, predominant perceptions of the marketing, advertising, and design industries remain largely negative (Heller & Vienne, 2018, p.103). A profit-above-all focus has resulted in public notions of an unethical industry complicit in perpetuating gratuitous consumerism, reflexive media consumption (Harris, 2016) and gross racial and gender inequality (3% Movement, 2018). Industry discourse indicates a heightened awareness about the perils of commercial work (Schwab, 2018) and employees are increasingly primed (Deloitte Millennial Survey, 2018) to participate in efforts to address today’s most pressing issues, in and outside of the design industry, like diversity, ethics, gender equity, climate action and socially responsible consumption and production (AIGA Design Census, 2017, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 2018). Arguably, however, design literature has had little to offer in terms of actionable support for the employee’s desire for purposeful work (Garrotem, 2017). Ethics discourse in communication design has largely centred on the dissemination of idealistic manifestos (100 Years of Design Manifestos, 2014, Monteiro, 2017), organizations denouncing the unethical aspects of industry (Ico-D stands against crowd-sourced competition for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 logo, 2016, Schwab, 2018, Time’s Up®/ Advertising, 2018), and publications celebrating aesthetics in visual case studies for public-sector clients (Resnick, 2016, Simmons, 2016). This project explores a history of ethical design discourse, popular publishing in the area of ethical design, and expert interviews and surveys with over 130 practicing professionals. The research reveals an industry that has long focused on problematizing design’s complicity in capitalist endeavour. It has been said that for designers to effectively address the world’s problems, design must first free itself from its position as a tool of advertising (Garland, 1964, Papanek 1971) and separate itself from the hegemonic market economy (Fry, 2009, p. 80, Walker, 2013, p. 446). While there is probable partial truth to this suggestion, it is often impractical and, at times, impossible for a practitioner to leave the industry altogether. Given the multi-billion dollar size of the Canadian communications industry (Fuller, 2016), it is in our best interest to develop a means to effectively support the thousands of industry- employed practitioners (Graphic Designers - Canada Market Research Report, 2018) to realize an ethical practice within their existing work-life structures. Research findings have supported the development of ten ethical design archetypes under which over 130 actions toward ethical practice are organized. The book-as-thesis has been designed with an intention toward accessibility, inclusivity, and clarity in order to provide practitioners of many ilks with the practical knowledge to realize a more ethical practice.


title: Service Design in the Public Sector

subject:
Ethics
Public Sector
Government
Rapid prototyping
Agile software development

abstract: The digital transformations revolutionizing so many aspects of contemporary culture are also dramatically changing government services. Designers have an important role to play in these shifts. A wide range of government services— from applying for birth certifications to voting and paying taxes; from immigration applications to citizenship and permitting processes—are becoming available in digital formats. This extension of government services from traditional countertop services to digital access means that governments are hiring designers to build these online applications and platforms. This redesign of services, when including human-centric research methods, enables citizens to have a say in the government decision-making process (Stewart, Dubow, Hofman & Stolk, 2016), and has resulted in exciting design opportunities as well as significant challenges. In this thesis, I elaborate on the practice of service design in a government context, from micro and macro perspectives, using three case studies. In the first case study, I will give an example of how governments are transitioning to redesign specific public services using Agile principles. Agile describes how prototyping and development teams experiment with different possibilities in short “agile” periods of time, allowing real end users to contribute their insights. Using rapid prototyping methods such as Agile helps provide simple and useful ways for citizens to find, use, and contribute to the design of government services. This first case study will describe agile practice in the rapid prototyping lab at Ontario Digital Service (ODS), an organization under a provincial government ministry. In the second case study, I will describe how governments practice service design from a broader perspective. This example comes from my work with Public Digital Innovation Space (PDIS), an organization under Taiwan Open Government. PDIS contributes to facilitating public collaboration with citizens and the government under a mandate from the Taiwanese ministry called Open Government. In this case study, the service design organization is tasked with encouraging citizens and other stakeholders to participate in the government decision- making process and social discussions. In the context of my Master’s research, it was important to investigate ethical issues in bringing neo-liberal rapid prototyping methods to government service design (Kimbell & Bailey, 2017). The final case study outlines a workshop I held with fellow design students to investigate one ethical issue in design; power dynamics within multidisciplinary teams. I had realized that there was a lack of discussion around design ethics in the public sector.


title: Net-Work: Weaving Human-Nature Connection

subject:
Installations (Art)
Indigenous knowledge
Ecology
Trees
Forests and forestry
Environmental protection
Crafts (art genres)

abstract: My impetus as an artist is to promote a sense of nature connectedness in the public consciousness, with the understanding that this leads to more pro-environmental attitudes. I gain insights from Indigenous ecological perspectives, the science of plant intelligence, environmental activist movements, and artists whose work facilitates reflection on biocentric values. My methodology includes on site fieldwork to investigate ways to express the language of trees. Dr. Suzanne Simard’s research on the underground network of roots and mycorrhizal fungi enabling communication between trees, and Indigenous philosophies of animism and interspecies connection all support my work. To address these concepts in my thesis project, I initiated a collaborative art installation, “Net-Work”, utilizing handcrafted yarn work — knitting, weaving, and crochet — as my medium, a significant shift for me in materiality and methodology. Although the use of marginalized “women’s craft” carries post-feminist stigma, third-wave feminists are embracing that challenge using craft activism, or “craftism”, as an alternative form of protest. Despite my initial concerns regarding initiating a craft-based socially engaged art project, the numerous and enthusiastic responses I received from participants worldwide is evidence of a resurgence in traditional hand crafts, while demonstrating how social activism can stimulate dialogue and raise awareness of issues, in this case facilitating a tangible response to the effects of human activity on non-human kin. Reliance on the internet for connection and dissemination of information to participants has introduced an unforeseen correlation between online social networking and the underground web of tree connection. While I have now received a sufficient number of fibre works to create the installation, this project continues to evolve, supported by future exhibition opportunities and widening public interest.


title: Theatre of the Female Self

subject:
Self
Feminism
Collages (visual works)
Video art
Gender

abstract: This thesis project is auto-ethnographic research and practice-based inquiry, into the cultural construction and representation of women. Movement, video installation, photography and handmade collage are combined to examine the marginalized spaces of the domestic. Exploring metaphors of the fragmented female body, this document seeks to challenge Western patriarchal ways of knowing and interpreting the world. Inspired by fourth wave feminist theory and artwork, I discuss the female experience as one that is made strange through gender codes, rape culture and spectatorship.


title: "What Would YOU Do If Your Mother Asked YOU?"

subject:
Texture (Art)
Painting
Feminism
Punjab (India)

abstract: My heritage is glued to colour palette, which is layered underneath historical and contemporary painting influences. In an attempt to answer these questions, I begin to peel back layers of personal history and the physical layers of each painting, discovering aspects of my identity that fuel my desire to participate and contribute to painting today.


title: Flotsam & Jetsam: Shoreline Studies of Time & Material

subject:
Installations (Art)
Assemblage (Art)
Found objects (Art)

abstract: This paper outlines the formation of an artistic methodology and an emerging thesis project. Walking and collecting along the shoreline serve as a conduit for creating and point towards a broader engagement with notions of time and temporality. The shoreline represents a liminal space from which to witness the effects of the Anthropocene and to notice changes large and small. The objects I forage serve as generative starting points for creation. I ask how these objects, both organic and inorganic, contain multiple temporalities, and how can I exert these qualities through methods of assemblage, installation and mimicry? The timescales I encounter in my expanding collection range from the geological to the distinctly human, from deep time to fleeting moments of capitalist consumption. I ask what knowledge can be gained from studying the matter we discard through an artistic lens, and how might it point us toward an alternative future? My work pays attention to the remnants and traces of human and nonhuman activity, to patterns of growth and decay, to interaction between organic and inorganic entities, and to the traces left behind.


title: Never "The Body" But Always Yours and Mine

contributor: Hermant, Emily (Emily Hermant) (thesis advisor)

format:
36 p.
electronic

subject: Sculpture Abstraction

abstract:
Haptic experience
New materialism
Corporeal feminism
Non-binary thinking


title: APORIA JOURNEY: The Rebellion of The Visual

format:
100 p.
electronic

subject:
Visual communication
Magazine design
Graphic design

abstract: This thesis presents a creative work called “APORIA” which is a fictional magazine that engages the ideological complexities of the current visual age. As a graphic designer, in addition to understanding how to use visual language effectively to communicate, ability to question the interpretations and meanings established by symbols is especially critical in this age. I wanted to explore the role and potential of graphic design in relation to social and political issues, therefore I am using APORIA magazine as a means to explore the ways in which graphic design could interpret possible social and political issues. In this practice-based exploration, I have investigated the ways and effects of rebellion from an interdisciplinary perspective and developed a rebellious visual communication strategy. APORIA magazine is a thought tool to break beyond the reality, a design strategy to break the rules of graphic design and conventional aesthetics, and a visual practice to trigger social and political dialogue. Through this work, I encourage designers to work with a “rebellious spirit” as a way to explore and create.

abstract: Visual culture


title: The Landscape and Historical Ecology of Tan Tans’ Garden: The Consequential World Birthed by American Imperialism

contributor: Hong, Jae Hyun (TanTan) (TanTan Hong) (author)

format:
86 p.
electronic

subject:
American imperialism
Memory
Storytelling
Installations (Art)
Korean diaspora
Geopolitics

abstract:
Tan Tans’ Garden is a research-based practice deeply rooted in the creation and dissection of a parafictional world. Tan Tans’ Garden is a metaphorical parallel universe birthed by the affects that American imperialism had on the Korean Peninsula, the Korean culture, and the Korean diaspora. In this paper, I discuss the creation of this world along with the studies of its landscape and its historical ecology from the perspective of a young millennial artist as well as a kin to generations of colonial trauma. The creative process manifests itself through critical analysis of histories and creative approaches to world-building, bookmaking, letter writing, collages, drawings, storytelling, object making, and video documentary. At the same time, the practice mutates itself into narratives of science-fiction and notions of post-humanism. Throughout this practice, I refer to the storytelling method in the context of geopolitics. I am heavily interested in how vulnerability, fermented memories—a term I will later explain—and the process of mourning can be utilized to explore the radiating violence of American imperialism. The works in Tan Tans’ Garden invite you to a fictional world in which the personal insights and intimate effects of being a byproduct of U.S. imperialism can be explored.
This paper is sectioned by differing subject matter. The Key Terms are there to help guide you through the barriers of translation that I do not attempt to clarify or negotiate. Tan Tans’ Garden remains an ongoing practice and I am not seeking to find a pure conclusion to this work. Here, I am only trying to understand why it took so long for my grandparents to understand their own internalized trauma and memories, and why it took another 50 years to find words to their fermented memories. In this paper, I am only attempting to reiterate the stories that were told to me during the creation of this parafictional world. Here, the goal was to be vulnerable, without hindrance. Note: The collection of works and research findings presented in this paper were studied and created through the times of Covid-19. Having faced limitations to physical spaces of studio practice and research, these works were made in a personal household space. Initially what felt like a barrier ultimately became a realizing haven.

abstract: Ecology

abstract: Genealogy

abstract: Diaspora

abstract: Fermentation

abstract: World-building


title: PLAY House: The Art of Finding Queer Pleasure in (Private & Public) FUN + PLAY

subject:
Pain
Public spaces
Installations (Art)
Collage
Identity
Pleasure

abstract: Utilizing a TRANSdisciplinary and iterative process, with a focus on collage and installation, I am investigating identity & Private spaces in relationship to the Public spaces of the Art Gallery & Internet. My thesis project, PLAY House (2021), comprises three installation works that occupy, whether physically or digitally, the same three-walled room. Holliday Home (Glitch of the Heart) (2020), MySpace.jpg (2020), and PLAY Room (2021) were all created during the Covid-19 pandemic and explore intimacy, collaboration, isolation, and self-reflection with a focus on transforming a Public space. These installations act as self-portraits that aim to invite the viewer into a Private space as a means of creating understanding and connection between the artist & the participant. As my work is autobiographical, my positionality as a Canadian Queer Disabled ‘90s Kid is key to unpacking my methodology of FUN(ny) + PLAY(sure/ful) art, terms I’ve invented for the purpose of this thesis. While both FUN + PLAY evoke child-like pleasure, FUN(ny) is one’s experience with pleasure, and is a synonym for something humorous, while PLAY(sure/ful) is the thing that activates one’s experience with pleasure and a synonym for sexuality. Ideally, FUN + PLAY activate Queer Pleasure (Pride & Joy), which decreases Queer Pain (Shame, Anxiety, and Depression). FUN + PLAY are essential to our survival, culture, learning and innovation (Koster, Huizinga, Brown). Queerness & Disability drive me to engage in FUN + PLAY and dictate my choice of a Colourful, Campy, Maximalist, DeSkilled or “BAD,” Dada, POP Art aesthetic. This hybridized aesthetic is funneled into my research on private space as self-portraiture & its relationship to the public art world (e.g. Vincent van Gogh, Robert Rauschenberg, Tracey Emin, and Erica Stocking). Through my research & practice I conclude that Queer Pleasure & FUN + PLAY are essential in how we connect to ourselves and others in an uplifting way that is generative for learning, creativity, self-love, and community building.