OCAD University honours top students with medals

Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - 5:15pm

(Toronto—May 2, 2012) Twelve graduating students have been honoured with OCAD University's top accolade this week: the OCAD U medal. Awarded annually by a faculty jury to the top achieving students in each of the university's undergraduate programs, medal winners are recognized as ambassadors for their respective programs.

"Whether it is inventing fashionable armour for the urban bike-rider; using found materials to refurbish a community struck by disaster; creating mobile art for joggers, or blending sensual colours through dynamic brushwork, OCAD University's talented students provide unique design solutions and compelling art work that addresses our complex world," said OCAD University President, Dr. Sara Diamond. "I invite everyone to join us this weekend for our graduate exhibition, to celebrate the work, invention and imagination of our graduates."

This year's medal winners will showcase their thesis works alongside more than 550 of their peers as part of OCAD University's 97th annual Graduate Exhibition, which opens to the public on Thursday, May 3 at 6:30 p.m.

The 2012 medal winners are:

Faculty of Art:
Myles Borins (Integrated Media)
Arielle Gavin (Criticism & Curatorial Practice)
Erin Loree (Drawing & Painting)
Annyen Lam (Printmaking)
Aamna Muzaffar (Sculpture/Installation)
Setareh Zakeri (Photography)

Faculty of Design:
Edward Buchi (Advertising)
Theresa Duong (Material Art & Design)
Antonio Lennert (Graphic Design)
Milena Milicic (Industrial Design)
Marc O'Brien (Illustration)
Lily Samerkhanova (Environmental Design)

The Graduate Exhibition runs Thursday, May 3, to Sunday, May 6. Everyone is invited for Opening Night, Thursday, May 3, 6:30 to 11 p.m. For details, visit www.ocadu.ca/gradex.

The 12 winners will receive their medals at OCAD University's Spring Convocation Ceremony on Friday, June 8, at Roy Thomson Hall. Medal winners will also be invited to contribute their works toward the university's award-winning visual identity.

Background Information: 2012 OCAD University Medal Winners:

Faculty of Art:
Myles Borins (Integrated Media)
Borins's interests include music theory, programming and human interaction. His thesis work, The Autonomous Speaker-Bot, is a "self-sufficient integrated media command centre" in which the audience explores physical and digital space, and interacts with the work to change it. Borins is the recipient of a research scholarship at the Center for Creative Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University.

Arielle Gavin (Criticism & Curatorial Practice)
Gavin's writing addresses irony and sincerity in contemporary art and culture. Her thesis paper "Honesty Competitions" takes the proposed binary pair of irony/sincerity as the starting point for an analysis of postmodernism's trajectory and current questions surrounding authenticity, self-expression and subjecthood.

Erin Loree (Drawing & Painting)
Loree's paintings are characterized by sensuous colour, with brush strokes ranging from beautifully smooth blending to thickly textured, purposeful lines. Her series Inner Strangers explores internal transformation and self-identity.

Annyen Lam (Printmaking)
Using stone lithography and hand-cut paper, Lam has created an installation work that acts as a portal to transport viewers from the gallery into an imagined landscape, creating a dialogue around the mutable characteristics of perception.

Aamna Muzaffar (Sculpture/Installation)
Muzaffar's thesis works play with concepts of registration and extrusive translation of gestural information. 24 Jogs is the combined result of a training program for beginner runners and spontaneous design on a Smartphone 3D rendering app. Her work 15656 - Studying Permutation arises digitally on a vector dot-matrix and is made on 3-Pass Blackout fabric. The compositions are revealed through impulsive gesture-based selection and deletion of points, prior to realization as paintings.

Setareh Zakeri (Photography)
Zakeri's heart-wrenching photographic works explore themes of pain, suffering, brutality and the persecution and oppression of women.

Faculty of Design:

Edward Buchi (Advertising)
Buchi's thesis re-investigates the notion of honesty in advertising through the creation of an integrated campaign for Old Dutch chips. The message to chip-loving consumers is that it's a brand that's not afraid to poke fun at itself nor hide the fact that it's just an ordinary potato chip.

Theresa Duong (Material Art & Design)
Duong's works challenges ideas of wearable art using unconventional materials to stimulate a visual dialogue with the human figure. In her body of work Bound, she recreates, repurposes and repositions the form of the book to emphasize the concept of binding.

Antonio Lennert (Graphic Design)
Born and raised in Brazil where he studied industrial design, Lennert later studied interactive media in various cities around the world. He is now is co-director of the OCAD U Student Press. His thesis work, including a research paper, investigates issues of identity and belonging, Brazilian culture and design.

Milena Milicic (Industrial Design)
Milicic has created a line of fashionable "armour" for the female urban bike or scooter commuter. Her apparel designs strive to link fashion, comfort, storage and safety to better suit the lifestyle of the urban city rider.

Marc O'Brien (Illustration)
Genius! is an ongoing series of illustrations by O'Brien that investigates the creative spirit behind some of the world's most celebrated, and often tormented, creative minds. Sprinkled with whimsical macabre, Genius! parodies society's romanticizing of tragedy in the souls of "inspired people".

Lily Samerkhanova (Environmental Design)
Samerkhanova's thesis is a response to the tornado that severely devastated Goderich, Ontario in August 2011. With sensitivity to the town's heritage, Samerkhanova envisaged the use of local and refurbished material, sustainable design approaches and innovative technologies to rebuild the town centre, including the addition of a farmers' market and a centre for performing arts.

About OCAD University (OCAD U)
OCAD University (www.ocadu.ca) is Canada's "university of imagination." The University, founded in 1876, is dedicated to art and design education, practice and research and to knowledge and invention across a wide range of disciplines. OCAD University is building on its traditional, studio-based strengths, adding new approaches to learning that champion cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and the integration of emerging technologies. In the Age of Imagination, OCAD University community members will be uniquely qualified to act as catalysts for the next advances in culture, technology and quality of life for all Canadians.

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Sarah Mulholland, Media & Communications Officer
416-977-6000 Ext. 327 (mobile Ext. 1327)

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