Tag: Student Work

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Arts Arts and Culture

Poetry Spotlight: Steven Gao

Orange Rain. Photo and poem by Steven Gao

Born in Jinan, China, and currently living in a small town on the west tip of the Montreal island, Steven draws inspiration from his roots and observation of the world. He writes poetry in English and sometimes in Chinese. Before starting at Concordia University, majoring in History, he graduated from CEGEP and worked full-time in marketing for two years. He participated in Twigs & Leaves (a poetry reading event, now defunct) and continues to be a regular participant in another poetry/arts event, Kafé Poe. In his free time, Steven enjoys learning history and doing scale models, as well as photography.

=UnexpecteD Flashʞɔɒd=

It was a Saturday evening

I attended a poetry event

With people

Who

Made me feel cozy

With

Fine dessert and coffee

I

then

Went back home

After

Kissing the foreheads of my beloved ones

Wine,

Unwinding.

Found my long gone love

Of

The songs

That

Give me a feeling of home

But

Also

A °F0ᴚƎigᴎ feel

While

Going through my history

Where

The revolutionary Red met

The impetuous Blue

Where

The new mƎ

Was

Born

.

.

.

Categories
Arts and Culture Student Life

Concordia Arts students collaborate to produce a brand-new exhibit out of a recycled one

Ramona Hallemans pats down straw pulp to make book paper at Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Julia Israel // The Concordian.

The students of the special topics art course ARTT 399 get a hands-on learning experience about sustainability in art.

On Feb. 14, a group of 45 students brought their class to Concordia’s 4th Space to work collaboratively and display the making of their project to the public. They are making a book using materials they’ve recycled from a previous Public Art and Sustainability student exhibit at Place des Arts Aiguilleurs in Griffintown.

Straw sculptures, financed by the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM), were erected near the Griffintown REM station in an original student exhibit produced by a cohort of students from multiple universities last summer. This transformation will culminate in a book of poetry and drawings in response to the original student exhibit, commemorating nature lost to city transformation in Griffintown.

Course Teaching Assistant Sabrina Rak said this process imbues the project with transformative power.

“This is really a metaphor, taking the actual straw from the other structure, boiling it with soda ash, and blending it to make paper pulp and making the basis of a book which is paper,” Rak explained.

Sabrina Rak and two students enjoy the messy process of their art over tarp floor lining at Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Julia Israel // The Concordian.

Studio Arts student Ramona Hallemans registered for this course to learn practical skills to work in the art industry once they graduate. The class works in collaborating teams on book design, communications, documentation, and grant writing. Hallemans describes this project as one with community collaboration as a central value. 

Ramona Hallemans pats down straw pulp to make book paper at Concordia’s downtown campus. Julia Israel // The Concordian.

The ARTT 399: The Artist as Multi-Hyphenate class will present the exhibit in Concordia’s Visual Arts Visuels (VAV) gallery from May 5 to 11. For updates, follow the course on Instagram at @45_passersby.

Categories
Arts and Culture Photo Essay Student Life

Where I am Writing From

Where I am Writing From, December 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.

These are the desks I wrote my graduate thesis on.

​​Caro (Caroline) DeFrias is an emerging academic, artist, and curator currently based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. They are currently in the final stages of their graduate thesis in art history at Concordia University. Previously, they achieved a Combined Honours with Distinction from the University of King’s College in the historiography of science and technology and anthropology, with a certificate in art history and visual culture, and an unofficial minor in contemporary philosophy.

Their work, through a variety of mediums and forms, explores the embodied politics and poetics of queerness, anticolonial art histories and practices, and notions of inheritance and identity in relation to immigration and (re)settlement. As well, they maintain a critical interest in the construction of the gallery space, the politics and history of display practices, embodied and queer phenomenologies of encounter, and the ethics and pathos of the archive. 

Where I am Writing From, July 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, August 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, September 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, October 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, November 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, December 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, January 2024. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, February 2024. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Artist Spotlight: Noah Rubel

"Present" the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel

Noah Rubel is a Vermont-raised artist attending Concordia University.

His practice started as a high school freshman, drawing digitally and on paper. Since 2018, he has explored various mediums, especially during his undergraduate career. 

Studying in Montreal, Noah works to understand the various cultures of his peers. Surrounded by a welcoming Latin and French community, Noah now takes inspiration from his fellow international students. Alternatively, he uses this time to understand his own Japanese identity and how to reclaim his family’s lineage through creation and research.

To see more of his work, check out @granoah_art on Instagram!

“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Rubel

Artist Statement

“Present” the Puppet is a giant marionette made entirely of resourced wood and screw hooks. I found the wood and hooks in scrap piles and resource centres. All the pieces were sanded and rounded using woodworking tools and then assembled with screw hooks and wood glue. This piece takes inspiration from the adventures of Carlo Collodi’s wooden puppet, Pinocchio. Throughout the book, Pinnochio finds himself lost and helpless, abandoned almost by the cruelties of reality. While many consequences are a by-product of his delinquent nature, plenty of punishments he faces are undeserved. As the world abandoned Pinocchio, Montreal abandoned this scrap wood.  I wanted to reclaim the wood in this city and give it a purpose, in this case, as a marionette. I gave the puppet the name “Present” because he is a gift. He gave the wood a purpose but also gave something to me. Plenty of objects have personal value, and my piece investigates the value in everything. Living or not, what do we choose to care about? What values do we assign to things? The value I hold in “Present” is a present in itself, since, for any object, the ability to exist is beautiful. 

“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel
“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel
Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Poetry Spotlight: Steven Gao

Photo by Steven Gao

Born in Jinan, China, and now living in a small town on the west tip of the Montreal island, Steven draws inspiration from his roots and his observation of the world.

He writes his poetry in English, sometimes in Chinese. Gao currently studies history at Concordia University in history. He participated in Twigs & Leaves (a poetry reading event, now defunct) and continues to be a regular participant in another poetry/arts event, Kafé Poe. In his free time, Steven enjoys learning history and doing scale models, as well as photography.

Photo by Steven Gao

Yet Another Morning… Lost?

The sky is crooked, not like if it were smudged by clouds.

But I feel something’s off.

I see the reflection of the lake, reminding me of blinking fish scales.

At what scale?

– I don’t know.

But they flicker randomly.

Should you trust me with a pinch of salt?

My measuring is off, so is the sky, yet the light is on.

Confused indeed.

Is it another day of hallucination?

Or mental condensation?

I still see ripples dancing.

I hear the morning piano go off key.

I smell the burnt coffee.

I feel the floor quaking.

Not again,

Everything goes off the charts!

Or am I trembling?

Ah! I forgot to adjust my lenses…

Photo by Steven Gao
Photo by Steven Gao
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