Class 106

Labored for the Better
- Ammi Kim

“That’s how the world works. You can’t do anything about it.” I’m enraged how this saying has put me back in place for criticizing an improper cause to be wrong. Pick anything you consider as immoral, yet attractive of support: beauty standards, addiction, stigma, whatever; insert that into the focal point. Around it is a “support system”. Some support by suffering from beneath, some force others to join along, some enable focus on it, some yearn to join without knowing its reality, and few escape that system to seek for another. Many relapse back into that cycle because maintenance seems much simpler than opposition. Whether they’re companies, ideologies, substances, etc., we enable its expansion because we accept its ways, despite being aware of its inequities. I do not yearn for a world like this and I’m desperate to do something about it. This drawing mimics my concern regarding this issue.

Materials: Laptop, mouse, "Wacom Intuos Pro" tablet & pen, "Paint Tool Sai" drawing software

Typewritten in Cardboard
-Cameron Spence

‘Typewritten in Cardboard’ is an exploration of the creative process. Unlike its more modern and therefore more digital successors, a typewriter portrays the creative process simply and effectively. The keys can be likened to the inspirations we act upon – the thoughts and imaginings that start the creative process in the first place. The typewriter’s mechanism – its inner workings – represent the medium we choose to take our inspirations to and make them into something physical -the page – the final product. This represents the artwork itself. Like keys forming words, it is the combination and permutation of all one’s inspirations that create the final piece.

Materials: cardboard, paper, foamcore

Withering
-MyungJun Sung

‘Withering’ is a short film about a sculpture I’ve made. My topic is the decreasing interest in the relationship and reunification of South and North Korea. As generations go by, people’s interest in reunification between them continue to decline. However, everyone simply says good things like “peace and coexistence,” since this is a very sensitive issue. I tried to express a more realistic relationship between South and North Korea, using a map I made of them using props such as flowers, candles and cotton that gradually disappear or change given certain conditions This is a way to express the realistic relationship between South and North Korea and the declining interest between them. By making a short film of my artwork, I’ve conveyed changing objects and gradually deteriorating relationships using colors that darken throughout the video. I would like to metaphorically express this Korean social issue using props with implications.

Materials: Flowers, Candles, Cotton

Nature in Focus
- Jessica Pawlowski

“Nature in Focus” features three collages of different nature scenes transitioning day to night. I went to beaches and forests taking pictures of bits and pieces of the environment throughout the day and then I combined them all together to create a whole new scene. I wanted to do this project because we are always so caught up with technology to the point where we forget to stop for a moment and appreciate the natural world that’s around us. If you are struggling on your work or if you had a hard day, take a look around you and maybe you will see things in a new angle. I remember in my childhood my father would always take me out on walks in the forest to remind me of how important it is to stop and smell the roses.

Materials: Photography

Below the Line
- Chandra Shekhar Vyas

Little do we all think of a life where every breath we take in could be the last. The cost of one breath is never clearer to us until we are below the line. Water, the giver of life and all things good is as harsh as it can be calm and gentle. Drowning is the 3rd leading cause of unintentional injury death. In this project, I wanted to explore the world of the submerged. My project evolved from making a motion picture documenting people underwater to capturing the motion of objects underwater in pictures. The video is a showcase of a few pictures I selected from a total of about two thousand pictures and 150 gigabytes of raw data. The two accompanying images show what a couple of hours of editing can bring out from each of these images and how I managed to bring them to fruition, respectively.

Materials: Maya/Zbrush/Substance Painter/Photoshop

The Oldies
- Clover Nguyen

We are now living a modern life with big houses, huge buildings, large roads, traffic jam and pollution. Sometimes, it is good to look at the past of the 80’s or 90’s when houses were still small and people still interacted with people and not through technology. I was born in the 2000’s when life was modernizing and I did not have the chance look at the beauty of the streets of Vietnam in the 80’s or 90’s. But I have seen some photos from my parents, from the internet; and I really like that time. Especially, the vintage signs. The way they use colour and the fonts are totally different from now. The colours are less saturated and do not look that fresh or bright but when put together, they look attractive and outstanding to me. The fonts are mostly bold and unique. For this project, I searched for Vietnam streets in pictures from the 80’s and 90’s, put them together and created a small street corner out of ice cream sticks, making it easier to visuallize than looking at the pictures.

Materials: ice cream sticks, cardboard, acrylic paints, paper

If You Go Back In Time and Tell Yourself Something, What Would It Be?
- Charlie Hwang

“If You Go Back In Time and Tell Yourself Something, What Would It Be?” is a fake biographical interview. I wanted to be ready before moving onto the next step in my life. I know which field I’ll go into for the remaining terms at VFS, but I have no idea what to do after Foundation. Therefore, I need to plan for my future quickly. As an international student, one of the many disadvantages is that I can’t get a job. Even if I’m to graduate VFS, I can’t get a working permit, meaning that I might have to go back to my country. However, I really want to work in Canada in the film industry. Honestly, I looked into other universities and talked to people about my future, but their conclusion was, “It’s your decision.” I wanted the future me to tell the current me of the many concerns that I don’t have to worry about, that it’s ok.

Materials: Camera, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Audition, Beauty makeup kits, Brushes

Vancouver in Infrared
- Carter Ree

I have lived in Vancouver since a young age and have gotten to know it very well. I know it so well that I nearly instantly recognize it within major and minor motion pictures. Although in recent years I have become quite bored of looking at the same things every day. When I started my project "Vancouver in Infrared" I was confident in myself and gave myself such a high bar that I was sure I could achieve. Well, unfortunately, I didn't quite meet my standards but I enjoy what I ended up with. "Vancouver in Infrared" is made up of a select few infrared photos of various locations within Vancouver. Using an infrared filter makes taking photos much more challenging but also more interesting. I wanted to use this project to look at the city in a different way and hopefully have others see it in a new way.

Materials: DSLR, Adobe Photoshop

Over-Packaging
- Levi Yu

This project is a digital 3D model. It is a shipping box with only one cherry inside and many foam peanuts. This shipping box floats in the ocean like garbage. The title of the project is Over-Packaging. Over-Packaging means a product that is wrapped in multiple layers of materials, such as foam or plastic. After the packaging is used it gets thrown away. Unfortunately, many times discarded packaging ends up in rivers, streams, and oceans. This causes many problems for the environment and ocean animals. The theme of the project is protecting the environment. Nowadays, packaging waste equals about one-third of all trash. Protecting the environment is the responsibility of everyone on Earth. The objective of this work is to let more people realize over-packaging is wrong.

Materials: Maya

Intact
- Michael Santiago

"Intact" is more than what it looks like. You see a rose on fire. But what does it mean? What does it represent? When I was creating my artwork, I thought more on the emotional and representative side, though everyone will have their own opinions and thoughts on the piece. To me, Intact shows how something fragile like a rose can go through being burned, heated, and set on fire, yet still survive. This is just how me, you, or anyone can overcome anything if we persevere and continue on, go forward, and don’t let problems or chance events in our lives change us for the worse, but for the better. We can do anything, no matter how hard or what it demands of us.

Materials: Maya, EmberGen, Arnold, Photoshop

The Vegan RATS
- Jeff Lin

The Vegan RATS is a group of fanatic cultists, all members of this cult are dwarves. They are extremely dangerous and believes in a god of Herbivores. The ancient legend tells that a rainbow-coloured god descended on the world and saved this dying tribe of dwarves. Those dwarves got sick from eating rotten meat, the price for saving them is that these dwarves need to make all the carnivores pay. In the beginning, the dwarves would only warn the carnivorous people and creatures, but centuries have passed, and now the dwarves are enthusiastic enough to eliminate and slaughter all carnivores. My paintings are usually all black and white. I rarely try colour painting. Colour is a big challenge for me. In addition, I hope this painting can be fuller in composition.

Materials: digital illustration

The Stillness
- Chris Kan

Today’s society is impatient and fast and people rarely sit down and take a moment to think about something. We are just in so much hurry to make money and try to make ends meet, so I made this 3D scene to bring back a peaceful mind. As you can see in the pictures, a man is sitting under a tree like he has all the time in the universe, not worrying about his job, career, and all the tedious things in the world.

Materials: Maya/Zbrush/Substance Painter/Photoshop

Transparent Fish (Dried even in Wet)
- Timmy La

Transparent Fish captures the image of myself who suffers from cognitive dissonance and isn’t good at hiding it well. I had the belief that I would grow like a flower even in the underwater environment which I think of as a breathtaking world, but I couldn't. So it dries up inside. It was intended to show through the transparent material that this fact cannot be hidden from my face.

Materials: silicone, gypsum, resin

January in Squamish
- Kaya Miles

Growing up in Squamish has had a very positive influence on me. Every day I get to enjoy the beautiful scenery around me. When I was 16 I got my first professional camera and immediately got hooked with capturing my home town’s beauty. Recently I’ve become more familiar with painting and wanted to share an interpretation of Squamish. I used a photograph I took around February 2021 as inspiration for my art, with changes here and there. All the time I hear people saying how beautiful Squamish is so I created this in hopes of sharing it with people who are and aren’t familiar with Squamish.

Materials: acrylic paint on 11 x 14 canvas

Backwash
- Travis Du

Wang kar-wai, Wong Jing, Johnny To, Chan Muk Sing. This is the list of my favourite Hong Kong movie directors. I have been watching Hong Kong movies for over 20 years now. I was and still am impressed by the maturity of their movie lighting, scene structure, background music, and script writing. In this video clip, I am trying to think like I'm a combination of all the directors that I like. For that, I drew 13 pages of story board for a 1 minute video. Using Afterimage, dolly zoom and the filming techniques I learned at VFS this was challenging due to a low supply of equipment. All I had was an iphone 12 from my friend and both of my arms. Enough said, just play the video.

Materials: video

Legend of Love
- Aurora Zhang

The Cowherd and the Girl Weaver: On the east bank of the Heavenly River lived a girl weaver, daughter of the Emperor of Heaven. She worked hard year in and year out, weaving colourful clothes for gods and goddesses. Since she lived all alone, the emperor took pity on her and allowed her to marry the cowherd on the west bank of the river. However, she stopped weaving after she was married. Greatly outraged, the emperor forced the girl back across the river and allowed her to join her husband only once a year. On the seventh day of each autumn, magpies would suddenly become bald-headed for no obvious reasons at all. According to legend, that day the cowherd and the weaver met on the east bank of the river, and magpies were made to form a bridge for them. And for this reason the down on their heads was worn out.

Materials: wood, paint