Toronto Metropolitan University's Independent Student Newspaper Since 1967

All Arts & Culture

Inspired to push boundaries

MAXIMUM EXPOSURE

Fourth-year image arts show

Trading in her paint brush for a camera lens, Alice Zilberberg is constantly striving to translate the limitless nature of painting to her photography. For her current collection titled, “Dreaming Awake”she created abstract pieces that are images within images that play between fantasy and real life.

“The mind is so complicated and not totally explainable and I think that idea comes through in my work,” Zilberberg said.

Joshua Macdonald has always been an avid movie fan and hopes that after graduation he will break into film because he enjoys telling stories through his work. When searching for models for his latest project, instead he found a whole collection of aspiring actors on Kijiji.com. Most of the actors had completely separate lives to support themselves before their big break — such as a real estate agent — and their stories are what stood out to Macdonald. His goal is to create portraits that work with the themes of their personal lives.

“You have to believe in your work. It helps when other people do too, like the actors I’m using for this piece. I can do so much more with the idea knowing that they’re willing,” Macdonald said.

Attempting to create contemporary work using analog materials and historical processes is not always easy for Deanna Pizzitelli. Her current collection is a mix of all canons of photography — from portraits to landscapes. A regular reader of graphic novels she does get inspired by the high contrast, animated images of those pages even though it doesn’t directly translate into her work. She uses parts of that style when focusing on frames and aspects of her own photography to give the old methods that contemporary feel. When she feels challenged she just keeps going.

“I’ve learned to just keep shooting and you eventually get out of any rut you might be in. Just keep shooting.”

MASS EXODUS: ZENITH + NADIR

Fourth-year fashion design and third-year fashion communication

This year Mass Exodus will be using lights, darks, and projections to bring the show to a whole new level. When producer Emma Truswell and head of set design Robyn Woytiuk sat down with their team to establish a theme for this year’s fourth-year fashion show they knew they needed something that would tie together all 57 graduating collections but also wanted something beyond. The final decision was Zenith + Nadir. They thought the attractive title would lure people in out of sheer curiosity.

Zenith refers to the highest or lightest and Nadir refers to the lowest or darkest. The show will take our minds on a journey from Nadir to Zenith said Woytiuk and Truswell.

“We are turning a generic theatre into a different world. By playing to the senses we are striving to make the audience feel like they’ve gone somewhere else,” Truswell said.

All the collections fit somewhere on the spectrum between Zenith and Nadir whether it be based on colour, composition, or the look of the pieces.

To illustrate this abstract theme, they will be incorporating projection-based technology into the show. Working alongside a company called Media Co. and the Ryerson Theatre School, they will be bringing Mass Exodus to a level it’s never been before.

The projections will provide a very dynamic setting with greater possibilities than a physical set. An exhibit of fourth-year fashion communication pieces will complement the show. The goal is to make sure all the communities of Mass Exodus are cohesive, from the posters to the runway.

“There are so many layers to the show. The set, the projections, the lights, the collections, the models, they are all layers that will create one incredible image,” Woytiuk said.

META

Fourth-year new media show

Kristen Bunting’s pieces always revolve around the idea of mixing earth and technology. This year, her piece is a small eco-system that Kristen intends to “represent the life and death of our planet.” She hopes that her showcase will leave an impression on the students who come out, and understand the importance and value in learning the “need to do something to make a difference.” She hopes they find inspiration to “strive to have their work showcased, whether they have a story published, make a scientific discovery or, like us, have their works showcased in a public art show.”

For Ajayen Paramalingam, META is more than the end result of a four year Image Arts Media program, it is “what we as students together have gone through, and what we learned from each other”. His theme was inspired by the children he worked with at a special needs camp in Toronto this past summer. “The main aspect of the piece is to create an environment that can be used to help kids with special needs in order to stimulate and develop senses affected by their particular disorder,” he said. “My hope is that a child will begin to notice patterns in my piece, which will prompt exploration of the environment and the formation of new associations.”

Check out the shows’ websites:

http://imagearts.ryerson.ca/maxex/

http://massexodus.ca

http://meta2011.ca/

Leave a Reply