Degree: Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and Visual Studies

What was the most enjoyable or memorable part of your degree?
The most enjoyable part of my undergraduate degree was being able to explore the interdisciplinary intersection between architecture and visual studies and being able to use my education to question the notions of culture and identity in relation to the themes of colonialism, war, and political turmoil.

What advice you would give to a prospective student?
Make sure to take advantage of all the co-curriculars at UofT. Take as many courses outside of your major as you can. Your interests outside your major add a lot of depth in your art and architecture projects. 

How has your understanding of architecture changed over the course of your degree?
Before I started my degree I felt that architectural education was just about making beautiful drawings and endless critiques on form and structure. Once I was here I realized through the instruction of professors like Zeynep Celik, Hans Ibelings, and Jeannie Kim that there’s always a social impact of architecture that manifests itself in the form of occupation, displacement and gentrification which is equally important when we talk about the built environment.

What are your plans after graduation? How has this degree prepared you for the future?
I would like to stay in the interdisciplinary world of arts and architecture as I continue to engage with themes that address the politics of design and how it engages with the society. Being a part of SHIFT magazine has made me realize that the world of publishing is a place where I find a lot of comfort so I’m planning to continue down this path until I’m ready to pursue a master's degree.

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

Degree: Honours Bachelor of Arts, Architectural Design and Visual Studies

What advice you would give to a new student?
One thing I wish I could change in my university experience is that I wish I started spending time in studio earlier. At Daniels we constantly exposed to such great and inpiring artists and designers that at the end of the day it really motivates you to become a better artist. My only advice to new students is to spend more time in studio and become a part of the studio culture, you will definitely benefit from it! 

How has your understanding of architecture changed over the course of your degree?
I never wanted to be an architect. It was never my dream. Growing up, I changed my mind about what I wanted to be every couple of months—I wanted to be a sergeant, then a teacher, then a volleyball player, and the list keeps going. Because I didn’t necessarily want to study architecture, I hated my first year, but then I met a professor who gave me an even harder time and pushed me to work harder; he showed me what my actual potential was and he made me fall in love with architecture. Working late nights in the studio and engaging with other students, I didn’t just fall in love with architecture but with the studio culture as well. Everyone helps and gives feedback on one another’s designs for further improvement. Each project I worked on became a part of me and I worked on it for hours and hours. For the first time in my life I knew what I wanted to be and how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I never wanted to be an architect, never planned on being one, but I know for sure that’s what I am meant to be. 

What are your plans after graduation? How has this degree prepared you for the future?
I decided that I want to continue studying architecture and I will start my MArch degree at the Daniels Faculty in September. Eventually I would like to be that one professor who makes students not just like architecture but fall in love with it. 

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

Degree: Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and Visual Studies

What was the most enjoyable part of your Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and Visual Studies degree?
Most enjoyable for me has been the friendships I've made with my brilliant and inspiring colleagues. Students often describe Daniels as "tight-knit community", and I wholeheartedly agree; the sense of camaraderie found in the 'studio culture' of both Architecture and Visual Studies has been a memorable and gratifying aspect of my time at U of T. Supporting each other on in-school and extracurricular projects and learning from our collective experiences in fields outside architecture allows for a broader and more rewarding education, not to mention making lifelong friends along the way.

Want to Play Cars? | VIS204 Installation with Ed Pien, Dec 2017
This work explores the idea of play. As kids, we project our imaginations onto the world around us; anything can become a castle, or a road, or a bridge, or a parking lot. 'Playing cars' with friends was a big part of my childhood, so this was a lot of fun to revisit. The pipes in the installation room made for a fantastic, untapped world to explore, and I added an aerial video projection of a real city for context. So, want to play cars?

What advice would you give to a new student?
Consider all of your courses as one giant course. Although every student has different subjects that they study (or different classes within architecture), avoid artificially siloing them: each can bring something new and unique to another, and taken as a whole your education will be far more fulfilling than if they are kept in isolation. Always be thinking about how you can use what you've learned in one class to influence your work in another!

Tension Tower | ARC280 Modelling and Fabrication in Design with Nicholas Hoban, April 2018
Modelling proves a tricky means of exploring a project's physical strength. While often highly delicate, they represent towers that are designed to be strong and resilient. This project was a study in structure, where two non-parallel cores serve to anchor and self-align each floor plate. The final model was built without the use of glue, supporting itself exclusively through tension.

What are your plans after graduation? How has this degree prepared you for the future?
I currently work in the Woodworking and Fabrication lab at Daniels and plan to pursue my Master's degree in the future. As the program encourages students to pull knowledge and experience from courses outside the faculty, such as Environmental Studies, Physics, and Gender Studies, I feel that the breadth of education that Daniels provides has allowed me to broaden my sense of what art and architecture can be and how those practices can influence one another. I'm planning to pursue a career in design/build with an ecological and artistic focus.

Den | VIS431 Thesis with Joanne Tod and John Massey, April 2018 | Photo: Harry Choi
Where does architecture end, and furniture begin? Den explores the architecture of play at furniture scale. Invoking the magic of creative, anarchic, childlike freedom, Den is a playful take on the spatial spectrum and inspired by the unprogrammed primitive shelters of animals.

Illustrations in slideshow, top:
Smaller Than Life | VIS308 Advanced Drawing with Ed Pien, Feb 2017 | Pencil on Paper
This work compares reality and perception. Four stills of my model train set are composed as though they are actual photos of a landscape, and rendered in a traditionally realistic way. However, each still includes a nod to the truth of their existence, such as a leaning paintbrush, unhooked train track, or the rafters of my basement. As such, it is a series of drawings (abstractions) of photographs (direct depictions) of a model (abstraction) of reality, where the abstractions are meant to increase the true reality relative to the perceived and expected idea of what is being shown. The work is scaled to the relative size of the train set, self-reflecting on the idea of the constructed image.

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

"and I am the curator of this show” is the title of this exhibition. It is also a quote from Kate Fowle’s opening remarks at a roundtable (NSK Embassy Moscow Revisited, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, August 1, 2014). Her statement simply referred to the exhibition in which the roundtable took place. But, what is this statement? What does it mean to claim authorship, or rather curatorship, over an exhibition? What does it mean to take, to enact or to be given this position? What does it mean to invite artists, artworks or objects into an institution, into an exhibition? What does it mean to “be” the “curator” of that show? With this exhibition, I am not trying to answer those questions but rather to ask them again. To ask them again, with Sophie Bélair Clément, Walter Benjamin, and an exhibition structure. 

Opening Reception
Friday March 23, 2018, 7-9pm
University of Toronto Art Centre

Curated by Christophe Barbeau.

This exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto.

The Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council with additional project support from TD Insurance.

The University of Toronto Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition showcases the talent and excellence of undergraduates in the University of Toronto’s tri-campus visual studies programs, including those at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. The selected works demonstrate quality of artistry across multiple media, as well as depth and sophistication of thought in approaching complex concepts and issues. Through themes of identity, family, home and the body, these emerging artists address political issues and explore personal subjects that speak to universal human experiences.

Opening Reception
Friday March 23, 2018, 7-9pm
University of Toronto Art Centre

Artists: Maria Patricia Abuel, Aisha Ali, Maia Boakye, Syeda Karishma Bristy, Idil Djafer, Kelly Dundas, Matana Joelle Geraghty, Anran Guo, Claudia Han, Lara Hassani, Isabel Mink, Sarah Pereux, Heather Riley, Chelsea Ryan, Adriana Sadun, Mira Szuberwood, Olivia Tjiawi, Skye Ece Ulusoy, Lisa Veregin, Eleonora Zivkovic

Curated by: Masters of Museum Studies students Shauna Taylor, Emilie Albert-Toth, Karley Staskus

Supporters: The Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council with additional project support from the Office of the Vice-President & Provost, Manulife and the University of Toronto Faculty of Information.
Visit the Art Museum website for more information.

Congratulations to Daniels Faculty alumna Elisa Julia Gilmour (MVS 2016) on winning the 2018 New Generation Photography Award sponsored by Scotiabank. Meryl McMaster and Deanna Pizzitelli also received the award, which was given in recognition and support of young artists in Canada “to help them reach their infinite potential.”

As stated in the press release:
 

Elisa Julia Gilmour is an emerging Canadian artist producing still and moving images. Her work engages with the notion of ephemerality through gestural storytelling. Her most recent project, Éperdument (Madly) (2016), which included a three-channel video installation and a publication of short stories, investigates how a Corsican mythological figure has enlivened a contemporary sense of identity. She has exhibited at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, the Ryerson Image Centre and the Art Gallery of Mississauga.
 

The prize was awarded to “exhibited artists working in lens-based art.” A jury consisting of “Canadian and international photography experts, artists, and leaders in the community” selected the winners from a longlist that was announced in February.
 
The winners, in addition to being awarded a cash prize of $10,000 each, will be featured in two exhibitions: a group exhibition at the Canadian Photography Institute PhotoLab in Ottawa (April 13-August 19), followed by a second exhibition at OCAD’s Onsite Gallery during Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto (May 5 -June 17). 

OCAD University will also be hosting a New Generation Photography Award Panel Talk with the three award recipients. For event details, visit their website.

For more information about the New Generation Photography Award and other prizes and events by the Canadian Photography Institute and Scotiabank, head over to their website: www.scotiabank.com/arts

Photos above from Elisa Julia Gilmour's Master of Visual Studies thesis Éperdument (Madly) - film stills and installation view from the thesis exhibition at U of T's Art Museum.

Considering a career as a curator? The Daniels Faculty's Master of Visual Studies (MVS), Curatorial Studies program provides students with valuable experience in all aspects of exhibition planning, including curatorial research and exhibition logistics, installation design and coordination, critical writing in the form of a curatorial essay, exhibition promotion, and programming development. The deadline to apply to the program is April 30, 2018.

MVS students in Curatorial Studies examine histories and theories of the burgeoning curatorial field as well as developments in contemporary art and theory. The course of study affords students the opportunity to work with diverse faculty members from across the University of Toronto in an interdisciplinary context, to participate in internships at a local and international level, and to engage the mentorship of practicing professionals in the field. Supported by the Reesa Greenberg Curatorial Studies Award and the Curatorial Studies program, students also take part in travel to see major exhibitions within the region and internationally.

As part of the program, students are given the opportunity to produce their own Graduating Exhibition for public presentation within the professional context of the Art Museum on the downtown campus of the University of Toronto, and at the centre of Canada’s largest city. Graduate students in the program may also participate in courses and internships with Art Museum staff, including Barbara Fischer, the Art Museum's Executive Director/Chief Curator.

Graduates of our program achieve successful curatorial careers and institutional positions in Canada and internationally. They include Wanda Nanibush, Curator, Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario; John Hampton, Executive Director of the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, cheyanne turions, Director of Education & Public Programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Sabrina Maher, Grants and Sponsorships Officer at The Power Plant; and those in directorial and curatorial positions at Contemporary Art Institutions, Foundations, and Artist Run Centres across Canada and around the world.

Recent examples of MVS Curatorial Studies Exhibitions:
    • Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table, Emelie Chhangur
    • Talking Back, Otherwide, cheyanne turions
    • Morning Star, Jason Baerg and Darryn Doull
    • Far and Near: the Distances(s) between Us, Henry Heng Lu
    • All our days are full of breath: a record of momentum, Jenn Goodwin
    • All This Time, Jaclyn Quaresma

Application information can be found here:
https://www.daniels.utoronto.ca/admissions/graduate/master-visual-studi…

The Daniels Faculty would like to congratulate Master of Visual Studies student Sam Cotter & alumna Elisa Julia Gilmour (MVS 2016). Both have been longlisted for the inaugural New Generation Photography Award, presented by the Canadian Photography Institute of the National Gallery of Canada and Scotiabank.

Artists on the longlist for the photography award were selected by a panel of 15 nominators comprised of photography experts from arts universities and colleges across Canada.

Three winners will be selected from the longlist and announced in March 2018. Each will receive a cash prize of $10,000 and be featured in a group exhibition at the Canadian Photography Institute PhotoLab located at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in April 2018 as well as an exhibition at OCAD's Onsite Gallery during the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in May 2018.

Cotter and Gilmour are both Toronto-based artists. Cotter regularly employs photography, film, and installation to examine issues of visual representation and artifice, while Gilmour works with still and moving images that explore cultural, familial and gender identities.

For more information on the inaugural New Generation Photography Award longlist, visit the Scotiabank website.

Photos above from Elisa Julia Gilmour's Master of Visual Studies thesis Éperdument (Madly) - film stills and installation view from the thesis exhibition at U of T's Art Museum.

“What kind of spiritual experience does 'the land' hold for human beings? And what does it mean to feel a deep connection to the land in Canada today?​“ These are questions that the CBC program Tapestry asked in a recent episode, now available online.

The questions were inspired by, and explored in, a recent book on the topic called The Good Lands: Canada Through the Eyes of Artists.

From Tapestry’s website:

In the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Canada 150 -- and in an era of environmental crisis -- it seems the time is right for an expansion of what 'the land' means. And art is a very powerful way of making meaning.

The book was curated by a diverse group of contributors and includes insightful essays from  Lee Maracle and Naomi Fontaine, as well as a foreword from Senator Murray Sinclair, Chief Commissioner of the TRC.
 

The director of the Daniels Faculty’s Visual Studies programs, Charles Stankievech is among the artists featured in The Good Lands and on Tapestry. Stankievech’s work and research has explored ssues such as the notion of “fieldwork” in the embedded landscape, the military industrial complex, and the history of technology. His project The Soniferous Aether of the Land Beyond the Land Beyond (2013) is highlighted by the book's curators.

“A beautiful work, but it's talking about early warning, about aggression, about defence; [co-curator] Laura Brandon talks about this, you know, Canada's had a militarized landscape for a long time. And we sometimes forget about that." says Victoria Dickenson, one of the curators of the book.

Stankievech was a founding faculty member of the Yukon School of Visual Arts in Dawson City. Since 2011, he has been co-director of the the art and theory press K. Verlag in Berlin. His diverse body of work has been shown in Canada and around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and the Venice Biennale.

Last spring, Stankievech gave a talk as part of the Future Environments Art and Architecture in Action event. His 15-minute lecture explored the history of weapons and metallurgy in the arctic, starting with the Inuit and leading into the demand for rare earth elements in the 21st Century, and is available on the Daniels Faculty's YouTube channel.

Image, top: The Soniferous aether of The Land Beyond The Land Beyond by Charles Stankievech

Master of Visual Studies alumnus, Brendan George Ko (MVS 2014), has a solo exhibition at CONTACT Gallery (80 Spadina Avenue, Suite 205). Titled Moemoeā, it explores through photograph and video the re-emergence of the Polynesian voyaging canoe in contemporary Hawai'i and how it has revitalized Hawaiian culture and created a community that brings together elders, youth, natives, and non-natives. The exhibition opened January 11 and runs until March 10, 2018.

Ko was the recipient of the 2017 Portfolio Reviews Exhibition Award which recognizes outstanding work presented at CONTACT’s annual Reviews.

From the exhibition description:

In 1973, the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) was formed to reconcile differing beliefs about the settlement of the Polynesian islands. Was Hawai’i discovered by aimless seafarers unintentionally, as the Western narrative maintained? Or was it found as the result of organized voyages at the hands of ancient explorers as early mythology indicates? The PVS built its first ancestral canoe, and in 1976 the Hōkūleʻa with its crew members travelled from Hawai’i to Tahiti and back, navigating by the stars and proving the skills of their ancestors. Since this inaugural journey, the canoe and its crew have voyaged extensively, most recently concluding a three-year, worldwide journey that included stops in Sydney, Cape Town, and New York City. It was during this voyage that the Hōkūleʻa traversed the St. Lawrence River to Kahnawá:ke Mohawk Territory in Quebec. Amongst the crew on this leg of the journey were educators from Pūnana Leo, a Hawaiian language school which was influenced by the Mohawks of Kahnawá:ke's model of indigenous language education since the early 1980’s.

The exhibition title, Moemoeā (a vision found in dreams), was chosen by the artist to acknowledge the dream shared by the voyaging communities throughout the islands. Articulated through his dual perspectives as a non-Hawaiian and a crew member, Ko’s work foregrounds the idea of the canoe as a tool for change and empowerment. The exhibition includes portraits of the Hōkūleʻa and its navigators, builders, and crew members—known as the ohana wa’a or “family of the canoe.” Accompanying Ko’s photographs made in Kahnawá:ke is a Mohawk pledge to sovereignty, drawing a parallel to the shared vision of indigenous people around the world. His photographs collapse concepts of the ancient and the modern, depicting elements such as a mo’ai statue draped in ti leaves, a petroglyph of a double-hulled canoe, and a watermelon occupying a captain’s seat. A short, large-format video frames the canoe against the motion of the water and the vast landscape. Ambient sounds are punctuated by Hawaiian prayers and stories.

The voyaging canoe’s rebirth in the late 1970s coincided with a growing movement to reclaim native Hawaiian traditions and values, including the craft of the male hula, the playing of the steel guitar, and preservation of the Kānaka Maoli language, which had been outlawed in schools for much of the 20th century. With over fifty vessels now active throughout the Pacific Ocean, the canoe is a platform for teaching traditional knowledge that reaffirms and redefines identity and place for many. Ko’s work is a thoughtful and personal look at a unique part of Hawaiian culture, encompassing images of his own voyaging experiences and of the people he has shared them with.
 

For more information on Moemoeā, visit the Contact photography Festival website.

Image, top: Brendan George Ko, Hokule'a On Her Way Home, 2017

On December 18, 2017, undergraduate students in the Daniels Faculty’s Visual Studies program showcased their work as part of the annual Eyeball exhibition and party. The event was held in the North and South Borden Buildings, across the street from One Spadina. View the photos above to see the range of work from our students.

The Daniels Faculty’s Visual Studies program focuses on studio practice in combination with critical discourse. All aspects of contemporary visual culture are explored, and students are encouraged to explore other scholarly interests within the University of Toronto. These interdisciplinary studies ultimately inform and strengthen their work, allowing ideas and modes of thought that might be rooted in more conventional forms of making art to be openly refined and challenged.

With a prominent address along Spadina Crescent, the North and South Borden buildings house the Daniels Faculty’s Visual Studies programs, which include Master of Visual Studies degrees in studio or curatorial studies.

For more on the Daniels Faculty's programs, visit the Programs page of our website. 

To view more photos from Eyeball, visit the Daniels Faculty’s Flickr page.