The Learning Zone

Make A Page For Our Zine is a participatory zine installation, installed in the Learning Zone Gallery for the summer. Inspired in part by Collage This Wall: Interactive Collage Experiment Installation (2012) and International Zine Month.

Collage This Wall was an interactive collage experiment installed in the Learning Zone during the summer of 2012 which drew participation from members of the OCAD U community and public to create and share a personal collage.

International Zine Month represents a global participation of DIY ethos that encompasses zine making and independent publishing. Various events like zine making workshops, readings and festivals are held and celebrated annually in the month of July.

Make A Page For Our Zine engages with this same process, inviting interactivity and collaboration in the zine making process.

At the conclusion of this project, the pages will be compiled, stapled and made into a zine then added to the OCAD Zine Library collection.

The process facilitates the creation of ideas, and captures the collaborative work.

On until August 15

Image citation: Between Friends/Entre Amis. National Film Board of Canada, Still Photography Division, Ottawa, Canada, 1976. McClelland and Stewart Limited, Toronto.

This past October, the Writing & Learning Centre (WLC) hosted visiting artist Chantal Gibson , A Historical In(ter)ventionist and educator from Vancouver.

During her visit, Chantal worked on a collaborative interactive altered book installation, called Between Friends. This event was held at the Learning Zone from October 30 to November 3.

Chantal invited OCAD U faculty, students and visitors to participate in the writing of this book by weaving, braiding and linking their shared stories from past to present, across borders between the US and Canada.

Image credit: Chantal Gibson

To learn more about the inspiration and the book Between Friends please follow this link or contact Stephanie Dayes (WLC) sdayes@ocadu.ca.

Textile artist Lizz Aston’s Pattern / Study Exhibition curated by Tori Maas is on now at the Learning Zone.

Pattern / Study—a series of paper cutting designs digitally modified and hand-cut, combine technology with traditional materials and methods.

Aston’s hand-cut patterns originate from handmade objects, digitized then transcribed onto Japanese Kozo paper, which are individually hand dyed and formed into 3 dimensional sculptural paper installations.

Similar traditional and contemporary processes are employed in Aston’s series Antiquated Notions. Involving machine embroidery on layers of paper, then burning out the paper creating delicate and sculptural paper lace patterns.

Focuses on themes of knotting and interlacement, finding a middle ground between technology and tradition

Aston holds an Advanced Diploma in Crafts & Design from Sheridan College and completed a three-year artist residency in the Textile Studio at Harbourfront Centre. She is currently studying Industrial Design at OCAD University.

On until February 28th

From Dec. 16^th-Jan.31^st, a new exhibition, Responding to a Historical Aesthetic, will be on display at the Learning Zone.

From left to right: Rachel Lee, Erika Lee, Apoorva Varma, Rebecca Markus, Connor Gillet, Domenic Sgambelluri

The students of Lynne Heller’s third year Material Art & Design course Fibre History Since 1800 have created textile art pieces that use distinctive characteristics from different periods in art history. By learning about the work made by others, the students used their research to inform their own techniques and create something new and contemporary in the process.

Meaghan Lacroix – Deco inspiration

Techniques such as embroidery, crocheting, sewing, and quilting are used to create a diverse range of fashion aesthetics. Together, these production methods demonstrate the evolution of the use of fibre from natural animal and plant based fibres to the introduction of artificial and synthetic materials in the 20^th century. It’s interesting to examine the materials used and their functions throughout different socio-cultural movements. Within a fashion framework it’s fun to see how dress, as a form of self-expression, progresses throughout history and how in many ways we have to look back in order to move forward.

Miranda Victoria

Hillary Dubé

Domenic Sgambelluri

Here’s an excerpt from Domenic Sgambelluri’s write-up: “My piece is a unisex blouse that draws its motif from the art deco period. It features a band of trapunto quilting at the bottom of the piece which resembles an architectural frieze that might be found on a skyscraper built during the 1920s. […]For me, the piece contributes to a trend of designing degendered clothing that are not solely designed for functionality, but create a new aesthetic and silhouette that is appealing to both genders.”

Alyssa Manalo – Welcome to the 70’s

These pieces have a life of their own and reflect the spirit of an era. Stop by the Learning Zone today to check them out!

LZ: Tell us a bit about yourself and the art that you create?

MM: My name is Mary Ma, I’m a 4^th year student from the Sculpture and Installation program at OCAD U. I’ve always grown up in large cities, very human made places and I recently came back from an exchange in Portland Oregon. There I saw things that were kind of larger than our human world, in the forests, and mountains, and the ocean, and that has inspired the work that I make.

My projects are an attempt to find out for myself what it means to connect and be a part of these larger things in the landscape, and to reconcile a personal sense of loss or disconnect to the natural world to be in a forest, to really see the sky or to sit at the edge of a body of water. What can that tell us about ourselves? What can that tell us about the nature of the world? I take inspiration from those experiences and bring them back into my work and construct large, minimal structures that try to play with our experience of space, and use the imagery that I film from my excursions to create immersive light based work.

Could you describe your experiences going through the OCAD U Mobility and Exchange Program?

I went to a school called the Pacific Northwest College of Art. It was small, about 500 students with programs in design, animation, and art. They had a program there called Video and Sound, and that was where I started learning how to use video projectors as an art material. I took a course called Projection, Sound, Space, and also one called Video Installation, and they really taught me how to get comfortable with technology, and to use media in a malleable way to make work. We put on a media art show in this large gallery that was painted completely black inside, and we had this outdoor projection project where we drove out at night with an electricity generator and projected our work onto buildings. It was really exciting stuff.

Being in Oregon, I realized how influenced I was by my environment and the places I live. My previous work drew inspiration from the density and diversity of people in large cities, and my relationship with the architecture and people surrounding me were a big influence. I needed to renegotiate a new relationship in this new place, because in the beginning, none of the strategies I had were working and I couldn’t make anything. Your peripheral interests start to shift into focus, things that were latent before could now come alive.

What influenced your decision to major in Sculpture & Installation?

Sculpture and Installation appealed to me because I felt it was the most open program and the most conceptually rigorous, where I could do anything that I wanted to do materially and conceptually. It was a place where I could express my thinking in a critical way, while not being limited in terms of what process you take on. I like the diversity of peers and professors, you get to see a lot of interesting projects and talk about big ideas.

How long have you been interested in art? How long have you known that this is something you want to pursue as a career?

I’m not sure I’ve always known what art is. It was like this elusive quality that had been hard for me to define for a long time. I always loved drawing. I remember being a child of 4 or 5, and I wanted to draw this pear, so I started drawing it in chalk on the wall of my parent’s bedroom. My father was sitting in the corner, and he saw it and said it looked nice. I was really dissatisfied with that image so, I drew another one and he didn’t stop me. After that I thought that I had free range to draw anywhere I wanted to in the house. I felt that was an important experience even though I made a mess, that you can do something creatively and not have anyone limit you for it.

What inspires you?

Being by the sea.

Do you have a best time of the day to work on your projects?

I usually wake up the same time everyday, and work the whole day. I like this quote from Charles Dickens who said,

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time

and I try to live by that.

Where are you the most productive? Tell us about your creative space?

Everything I do right now is at school. I make everything here but I am looking forward to finding new places to make work after I graduate.

What materials do you work with primarily? Why?

A Canon 70D camera, a tripod, my wide angle lens. A lot of projectors! And video adaptor chords, media players, power cables, that kind of stuff.

 The video projection for me is a reflection of something in reality, although I’m not trying to recreate reality. Technology doesn’t always to have to be antagonistic to the natural world. Perhaps it can be something that points us back to that world.

Is there any artist from the past or present that you appreciate a lot?

Sharry Boyle, Maya Lin, Björk.

What advice would give first year students?

There are so many things you have to know when you first get here. When there is a problem, try to remember to be calm and focused and examine the scope of the problem that you are trying to solve, strategize and learn where you can ask questions.

I think it’s important to do one thing at a time, solve each problem, one after the other otherwise you can become overwhelmed. If you take a step back from the fact that you are here at OCAD for the first time, and that you will be here for a long time past this one problem, and that there is a whole life after that, maybe that perspective will help you feel less crazy about first year.

You recently had a solo exhibition at Katharine Mulherin’s NO FOUNDATION Gallery. Tell us about your experience around the exhibition?

The show was a part of our thesis exhibition series in the Sculpture and Installation program, where we applied to galleries across the city and mounted work outside of school. It was a very exciting thing to do. I had never really worked so hard and so long on something like that before, but people were very kind and enthusiastic. It was nice to see the public’s response to your work and I feel very fortunate to have an opportunity to work with the gallery.

What are your plans when you graduate?

I will be participating in an artist residency at the University of Windsor and living there for a month in May. After that I am going to come back and hopefully find a job.