Stadia

John Shukin

Stadia is an exercise playing with space and history. Inspired by the massive “paintings” of Julie Mehretu, this piece is meant to be reorganized and reformulated, reconfigured according to each player. Each component was artificially aged to give it the appearance of having a history, something that is intrinsic to all material and space. Drawing on Mehretu’s work, this piece explores how spaces can be made into stadiums, that is, political arenas composed of various actors and acting forces.

Wood
40 in x 20 in x 20 in

Throw, Grow and Flourish

Sabrina Emanuele

Christina Gancz

Pam Menegakis

Cassandra Carosello

Alexandra Durand

Sophie Michiko Fukuda

The creation of seed bombs is a way of promoting methods of biodiversity conservation that allow others to be more actively involved in their community. Every part of the product is handmade and is either reusable or has an ongoing positive impact on the environment. The project fully embraces the concept of maintaining continuous life cycles of elements important to our city’s biodiversity.

clay, compost, organic muslin
5 in x 5.5 in

Object book

Dina Bakalova

This artist’s book highlights the global issue of green washing. It uses textiles, natural dyes, and transfer paper for the printing of images. The bright colours juxtaposed with the dim and bleached palette stress the controversy behind the glamorous and yet toxic fashion industry. The imagery of dying an endangered species exposes the grave consequences facing us as each new item emerges on the market. The book conveys awareness and reminds people of the not-so-sparkling beauty behind their favourite brands. The list is long and toxic, with companies like Nike, Adidas, Gap, and Armani at the top.

Stich witchery, Aida, bookbinding nails, metal container
10.5 x 5.5 in

Saprophytic Architecture: cleaning up Detroit’s Central Station

Sarah Denis

The project brief was to design a nature-inspired environment that would revitalize one of Detroit’s many vacant spaces. This project works in and around Detroit’s abandoned Central Station, a very important building for the city’s history but neglected since 1988. This project proposes a solution that truly emblematizes Detroit Future City’s mission: it is a progressive taking-over of the complex with closed-loop urban farming and restaurant systems. What about a saprophytic architecture that would work to clean up the host structure by bringing people, money, and infrastructure to the site?

Wood, paper, plastic, metal, ink
36 x 36 x 36 in.

Living River

Hannah Materne

Living River transforms an empty lot in downtown Detroit into an oasis, combatting both human and environmental water crises occurring currently. Living River provides clean drinking water, via taps located under the lip of the illuminated boulders. Their lights increase safety in the park at night. The boulders are intended as play structures and benches. By using pervious concrete and native ground cover, Living River represents an entirely pervious park, allowing water to flow through it freely. This prevents harmful run-offs and allows rainwater to pass through the park and re-enter the water table, filtering naturally in a process standard concrete does not facilitate.

MDF, clay, acrylic paint, embroidery thread, LED
28 x 12 x 4 in.

Erosion

Hannah Materne

Erosion is a design research-creation piece acknowledging the agency of rock. Based on Hannah’s accumulation of natural objects from the sacred space of her cottage, Erosion considers her differing relationship to the rock from the city versus from the lake. The emerging poem is scientifically accurate, based on the specific geology of Lake Wah Wash Kesh. It considers the feel of the crystallization from magma, and what it might be like in a sealed room, in the palm of a human. The image of the sacred space brought forth in the text tells its story with its physicality.

Digital print
22 x 30 in.

Slow Cookbook

Laurence Pilon

Jessica Maher

The intention of this project is to reconnect individuals with the provenance of the food we consume on a daily basis. The writing, the design, and the printing of Slow Cookbook address the notions of slow food, local food, while also highlighting many important sustainability practices. Furthermore, food waste can be countered by raising awareness within our communities, thus empowering individuals through knowledge of what they consume daily.

Screen-printing, paper
8.5 x 11 in.

Les plantes sauvages du Québec

Anne Moncion

́Emile Archambault

Marie-Pier Larose

Fanny Marcoux-Lebeau

Francis Leclerc-Charron

Every person, as a consumer, politician, and instigator of social change, can model their lifestyle towards having a net-positive impact on the environment and a personal wellbeing. Quebec has no fewer than 10,000 plant species native to various environments. Picking wild plants can become a gratifying activity for it supplies healthy, highly diverse, and free food. It is a splendid opportunity to discover things about our environment and to share the fruit of these adventures with our loved ones, creating new standards in our nutrition system. Until then, perhaps the weeds in our gardens, which we shamelessly pull out, can possess new potential.

Website

Average Joe

Maria Mahdessian

This project is a stop-motion animation that portrays the life routine of Average Joe, which consists waking up, eating, going to work, watching television, and sleeping, all without any excitement. Years pass by in a flash without a change and without Average Joe truly enjoying his life. At the end of the animation, there is darkness, which represents his final spiritual and physical death. This project’s intention is to show that life is a journey of adventures and experiences through which a person can feel truly alive. The skeleton symbolizes death and the use of grey scale represents a boring, plain, and uninteresting life.
Audio: “Living Fully Now” by Alan Watts.

Digital, skeleton dummy

Derelicte

Sandra Alexandre-Aimé

Sabrina Emanuele

Anna Luisa Lopes

Cassandra Carosello

Emilie Kehm

This project evaluates a current social issue while using the context of a wearable. The concern lays with current consumption habits taking over consumer culture. This dress was made to comment its emergence in the post-war era and how it resulted in negative environmental outcomes. The many pockets serve as storage for the daily waste an individual produces. This action changes the elegant shape of the dress and how they are seen. The way they feel about themselves also changes, making them more mindful of their personal daily waste.

Organic Linen
34 x 24 in.

Stripped

John Shukin

Julie Tremblay

Jeremy Karl

Tess Kuramoto

Lucas LaRochelle

Stripped is an exploration of identity and first impressions through the lens of clothing. By making transparent apparel, attention is focused on how many stereotypes and conclusions we, as everyday strangers and passers-by, draw from what we put on our bodies. By removing the substance from these signifiers, these conceptual containers, we are forced into a state of discomfort, searching elsewhere for ways of categorizing and understanding. Suddenly, the body becomes packaged within this plastic, stripped of its outward “face” and displayed as imperfect and raw.

Plastic, string
Two outfits

/.\

Julie Tremblay

Sandra Alexandre-Aimé

Cory Landels

John Shukin

Alexey Lazarev

Ketlin Martins

Inspired by Japanese stone gardens, /.\ is a wearable and transformable garment bag that recreates the intimacy and meditative characteristics of nature. Although the stone garden is intensely controlled (raked into a precise pattern), this garment provides the wearer with an experience that brings one in closer harmony with nature by evoking a quasi-spiritual state of being, of proximity, and of attention to nature.

Linen, screen-print, rock
40 x 40 in.

Senescentis Felix (Happy Aging)

Tia Besser-Paul

Luis Aretuo

Marie-Andrée L’Italien

Johnson Ta

Alexey Lazarev

Senescentis Felix explores the stigma around aging and ways to create a positive discussion around it. It was developed through research of people’s perception and the different kinds of aging. This wearable is a step towards the embracement of wrinkles. It encourages its wearer to play with its pulley devices to create deep, dense wrinkles along their own neck. The more intense the wrinkles, the more interesting the piece becomes. This wearable acts as a platform for discussions between the wearer and the people that interact with them.

Organza silk, cotton, transparent thread
30 x 20 in.

Nef pour quatorze reines, Polytechnique Memorial Proposal

Julie Tremblay

John Shukin

Although the soil is never fully fertile, we must still plant seeds of hope for women around the world.
Nef pour quatorze reines is a proposal for a memorial commemorating the Polytechnique massacre. It is an attempt to help reflect on the tragedy, but also to provide a seed of hope and a way to move forward. Made using predominantly burnt cedar, the memorial comprises a seating area surrounding an inner sanctum filled with plants, offering an opportunity for meditation and renewal.

Burnt wood sticks, MDF, Plexiglas, FIMO paste, soil
15 x 11 x 6 in.

Speak

Laurence Pilon

Quebec has a complex history of linguistic conflicts still affecting the present multicultural society. “Speak White” refers to a racist expression used by English authorities in the late 60s to regulate French-Canadian workers. It is also the name of a poem, written by Michèle Lalonde after the Quiet Revolution, that critiques the ethnic and linguistic tensions. Quebecer Marco Micone, born in Italy, wrote “Speak What” years later in response to Lalonde’s work, suggesting that intolerances prevailing in the province are now directed against immigrants.

Ink, Paper, Poetry
2 x 24 x 36 in.

U & I

Jade Brisson

Edward Nyamenkum

Frédérique Pelletier

Gabrielle Vaillancourt

Tea interacts with three different senses: taste, smell, and touch. Tea is also a culture and experience, which is why the tea bags are bound in pairs. This encourages the receiver to share the moment of enjoyment of a warm cup of tea with a loved one. The tags are perforated so they can be split in two like a wishbone. They contain seeds meant to be planted, adding another level of depth to the ritual of tea, one that continues beyond a cup.

Fabric (cotton), tealeaves, wood
16 x 12 in.

Women of Syria

Fanny Marcoux-Lebeau

This book of photographs shows the situation and condition Syrian women refugees must face daily. The book layout is minimal in order to focus solely on the beautiful portraits taken by Adnan Sharbaji and Giulio Magnifico. An image is worth a thousand words. The little amount of information is also chosen to engage the viewer in doing their own research, especially when we are constantly being fed false information from several media outlets. The book was also done in the hope to give agency to these women.

Mayfair, Strathmore paper
5 x 8 in. (closed), 10 x 8 in. (open)

Uprooted – The Syrian Refugees Crisis

Joey-Christophe Gravel

Uprooted discusses the Syrian Refugees Crisis. Evolving from deep conceptual and content research, this project is a social study, divided into several age groups, that focuses on the challenges of being a refugee. These people’s constant struggle is reflected in the book through a simple and efficient design, captivating photographs, and the informational content. The book is entirely handmade.

Paper
6.5 x 8 in. (open), 13 x 8 in. (closed)

L’Exil

Laurie Goudreau

L’Exil is based on a series of testimonies to create a shared story, a path that occurs too often. The book shapes itself following the media’s awareness on Syrian refugees in 2015. L’Exil rises from the realities of political conflicts, social crisis, and torn lives, in order to depict a portrait of refugees. Often raw, often poetic, this identity search, once seemed lost, lives in various emotions. L’Idéologie encourages the reader to reflect on their own identity and to write their own story.

Academia paper, sewing thread
4 x 5.5 in.

Therefore Lamp

John Shukin

Therefore Lamp is an attempt to make a friend out of an object and to imbue it with as much agency and character as possible. This light is finely crafted, but also hides a secret and a cheeky personality. The hope was to give an object such individuality, or at least the potentiality for it. Thus, a long-lasting and sustainable relationship between the user and the lamp might be formed.

Wood, aluminum, paper
60 x 30 in.

Je suis malade…

Stéphanie Bélanger

It is a book about the different phases of acceptance of a person suffering from a critical illness. The illustrations and the writing style are somewhere between childhood and the point of view of an adult. In some way, this book is about the child that hides in the depth of our being and who is scared. They show us the negative counterparts and the difficulties met by the adult who does not know where to hide their sorrow. Illnesses are present like those monsters that haunt us in our childhood, which we did not see but that were true in our eyes.

Recycled paper, string
4.5 x 4.5 in.

I AM

Mariana Leyton

I AM The concept behind this piece is inspired by the “art process” which refers to an artistic movement where the end product is not the principal focus. The process in “art process” refers to the process of the formation of art, the gathering, sorting, collating, associating, patterning and actions created by it.
By being concerned with the actual doing the actions themselves can be considered a piece of art on their own. In this case, the process became as important as the final product. My intention is to express art as a creative journey or process rather than a deliverable or end product.
To create this poster a first scanned my fingerprint, later I vectorized it and created an stencil 15 inches by 25 inches. Once printed I proceeded to stamp my fingerprint with black pigment and I took a picture every time I placed my finger on top of the stencil. With over 500 photographs I created a stop motion video to show the process. Once I covered up all the edges with my finger print full of ink I removed the stencil and obtained this beautiful composition. I’m currently working on a series of this poster.

Paper, stamp, ink
20 x 30 in.

Show&Hide

Laurie Goudreau

Murielle Dufort

Marie-Élaine Grant

́Émile Archambault

Show&Hide reflects on the contradiction and tension that lies in the function of body wear in our society. Clothing has a duality between decency and dare, between unveiling and isolation. Sometimes geometric and cold, this unisex outfit hides the face and torso, creating an isolated space. Other times organic, fluid, and bold, it reveals the body and its figure. Show&Hide questions the real function of body wear in its extremes. Until what point are we willing to hide behind a piece of fabric? Contrarily, to what extent can we reveal ourselves to draw attention?

Tinted wool, recycled leather, magnets
2 x 1.5 ft.

The Survival Kit

Lauralyn Lamarche

John Bigsby

Sydney Cornett

Louise Heng

The Survival Kit is part of a collaborative research project. The challenge was to create a transportable, collapsible, and personal creative space, open to customization, sharing, and multi-functionality. The group was inspired by their own needs of organization. After researching the problems with traditional organization methods, the item that was created could be transported and shared between peers. The result is a multi-functional backpack with detachable compartments. Its concept comes from the shape of the cocoon or seashell with its numerous layers.

100% organic cotton canvas, screen-printing
14 x 19 in.

Helvetica No More

Alyssa Zwonok

This poster is designed for a lecture held at Concordia University by type designer Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer. The large modular typeface and small cursive font were designed in Illustrator, inspired by handwriting and sketches. Ideas of space, movement, and the construction of typographic forms were explored in a neutral colour palette with a pop of turquoise to emphasize important information. The focuses of this project were expressive type, concept development, poster composition, and information hierarchy.

Poster
24 x 36 in.

Helvetica No More

Eliza Nguyen

The Design department hosted a talk at Concordia on why Helvetica may not be such a great typeface after all. The keynote speaker was Erich Rainer Scheichelbauer who hails from Vienna. He spoke about his love for typography and his disdain for Helvetica. The custom vector typeface for “Helvetica” in the poster serves as a fun and playful means to contrast the neutrality of the Helvetica typeface. It also serves as a way to showcase the “melting” and “disintegration” of the typeface. The colours are bold and vibrant to grab the attention of the viewer and reinforce the idea of making a statement.

Paper
24 x 36 in.

Helvetica No More!

Maya Moufawad

This project is a post-conference poster called “Helvetica No More”. The concept is to distort the typeface Helvetica and represent it in a different way. The manipulation is exaggerated to make a point that Helvetica is overused, and shows that it is not necessarily the most legible or the best solution. Bold colours for a bold message.

Paper
33.11 x 46.81 in.

Helvetica No More

Samantha Dicriscio

Helvetica No More is a poster designed to play with the idea of using different typefaces within the design world. The talk was presented by Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer, a type designer, teacher, writer, and translator. He brings forward the idea of “letting go of Helvetica” and demonstrates what today’s variety of typefaces can do and how accessible they are. This poster displays Rainer’s ideas by breaking apart a typeface, scattering it across the page, and showing off the elegance of different typefaces other than Helvetica. We are at the dawn of the new era of typeface design.

Paper
34 x 24 in.

Helvetica No More type talk poster

Desislava Davidova

This poster is based on Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer’s typography talk entitled “Helvetica No More.” The poster had to be expressive while the concept had to reflect the idea behind the talk. A limited palette of maximum four colours had to be used and no figurative illustrations or photographs were allowed.

Paper
24 x 24 in.

Le Sol Est…

Alyssa Zwonok

This series of posters was designed for an SDGQ contest to raise awareness of the importance of healthy soil. It uses earth-grown vegetables to illustrate possible negative consequences. To avoid overgrazing, land must be cultivated using a crop rotation system. Water infiltration systems are encouraged to help in the event of heavy rainfall and run-off. Populated crops and humus-rich soils are essential in protecting vegetation from harsh winds.

Paper
24 x 34 in.

Année internationale de la protection des sols

Anne Moncion

This three-poster series was created for an SDGQ competition to publicize an exhibition at the McCord Museum about the International Year of Soils. The hand-drawn illustration, paired with the watercolour, accentuates the materiality of the theme. Furthermore, the hourglass as a symbol is used in three different ways and serves as a reminder of the urgency of changing our exploitation methods, from deforestation and the usage of pesticides in farming to the overharvesting of agricultural lands.

Numerical print, ink, watercolour
24 x 36 in.

2015 – Année Internationale des Sols

Joey Christophe Gravel

This three-poster series was designed for a contest organized by the Société des Designers Graphiques du Québec (SDGQ) to promote 2015 as the International Year for Soils. The concept is to bring attention to the critical situation of soils, while encouraging a change in our habits, through a simple but communicative and efficient design. The evocative and self-referential visuals at the core of each poster, the consistency of the layout, and the simplicity of the colour palette in relation to the subject are key elements to convey the main message.

Paper
24 x 36 in. (1) x 16 x 24 in. (2)

International Year of Soils

Dina Bakalova

This series is composed of three posters created for the International Year of the soil, declared by the 68th United Nations General Assembly and under the auspices of the SDGQ, the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec, the McCord Museum, and Publicité Sauvage. They seek to raise awareness of the importance of better soil management on a global scale to contribute in food security efforts, hunger eradication, adaptation to climate change, and reduction of poverty, through sustainable development.

Paper
24 x 36 in. (1) and 16 x 24 in. (2)

Cityscape to Sacred Space: A Visceral Sculpture Map

Hannah Materne

Mel Palapuz

This sculpture map is the physical manifestation of the visceral and emotional experiences while crossing from the chaotic cityscape of Boulevard René-Lévesque into the sacred space of the cathedral Mary Queen of the World. The bead, representing the human, is pulled along a wire path as it travels from the chaos of the street, through the imposing vertical threshold of the modern city, and finally, into the warm hearth of the illuminated sacred space. The journey, repeated in the opposite direction, draws out a shred of fabric from the sacred space, showing that the experiences of each space colour one another.

Wire, aluminum, clay, foam core, fabric, LED
10 x 4 x 8 in.

We Don’t Think in Binaries

Jeremy Segal

This installation explores the increasingly blurry dichotomy that exists between our natural, biological selves and the mesh of computational technology in which we are embedded. Using glitch art methods, the video’s code is directly manipulated in text form, producing visual noise. The sound is a direct sonic reading of the video’s code. This project aims to extend the definition of typography in digital media, shifting it towards the code itself.

Acrylic cube, iPhone 6S+, mannequin hand, grass rug, soil, lights
8 x 8 x 8 in.

3D heart

Anna-Maria Van Kosenstram

The project required research about how printing helps in surgery, specifically for parts of the human body having been damaged. This 3D-printed heart is based on chest X-rays from a cat scan. The intertwining future of 3D printing and medical procedures is an interesting topic of study.

2015
Powder 3D printer
4 x 2.5 in.

Before Effects

Francis Goodship

Tam Vu

Since AfterEffects is typically used as a post-production tool, it is interesting to use it for the opposite, creating all the video animations as preproduction. A box was constructed to allow the juxtaposition of the animations in real time, which in effect leaves room for error. This sort of imperfection is an attempt to broaden the common spectrum of video animation.

Glass, iPad, screen
12 x 17 x 6 in

I Digitalove

Johnson Ta

Abejane Lou Alvarez

This is a speculative project that critiques our society’s carefree approach to sharing personal information on the Internet. Set in 2056, it is a world where the death of a person is missed more virtually than physically. In order to comfort a family member, a lover, or a friend, an online company called “I Digitalove” creates an Artificial Intelligence based on that individual’s social media and online footprint. The AI becomes the perfect individual; it has the same memories and psychological and behavioural patterns. Hence, it becomes possible to continue communicating online with loved ones that have died.

Paper
8.3 x 11.7 in.

The Cocoon, or the Phone Removal Treatment

Alexandra Durand

Nomophobia is the anxiety felt when separated from our mobile device. Set in a speculative future, this project The Cocoon is meant to be a treatment for this condition. By knitting a physical cocoon for your mobile device, not only are you cutting yourself from it, but also enjoy the meditative craft of the process. Since it is not permanent and can be undone at any time, the project brings forth the idea of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: in a system in which no external forces act, disorder will increase.

Yarn, knitting needles, cardboard, paper
8 x 8 x 3 in.

Future Tomb

Jamison Lightfoot

Cemeteries contain gravestones from centuries ago, showing crumbling and deterioration, to the modern laser-cut ones, pristine and photorealistic. Gravestones from a hundred years ago have begun to return back to nature, weathered from years of harsh winter, while the graves of the present may remain long past their owner’s death. Furthermore, tombs of the future may exist in binary, devoid of tactility or materiality. This typeface aims to take inspiration from the structure and form of bevelled stone. However, it is brought to the digital and deconstructed, so as to understand the progression of the medium of mortality.

Vector Illustrator (Adobe), ink print
24 x 34 in.

Dee & Ampersand

Alexandra Durand

This project sought to experiment with items that are typically 2D, in this case letters and other glyphs, by bringing them into a 3D context. These two characters are meant to be an exploration of materiality and texture. The letter “D” is knitted and stuffed; appearing soft and squeezable, while the ampersand, embroidered using French knots, creates texture and plays with tactility. Both letters are made with what are considered artisanal crafts, pushing against the idea of mass-production. These two sculptural pieces are unique; even if they were to be redone, they would not be the same.

Wool, synthetic stuffing, canvas, embroidery thread, foam
5 x 5 x 5 in. and 5 x 5 x 1.5 in.