OCAD University

SCIN student wins First Capital Realty Public Art competition

Michelle Cieloszczyk, a third year student in OCAD University’s Sculpture/Installation program, is the winner of the 2017 First Capital Realty Public Art Competition.

Cieloszczyk’s sculpture, CAN, is a 5-foot-high cast aluminum crushed energy drink can that will be installed at the Shops at King Liberty in Toronto’s West End. This human-sized sculpture reflects on issues of consumerism and consumption. It will be unveiled in the Fall of 2017.

Twelve proposals were received from students in the Faculty of Art, the Faculty of Design, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies, as well as submissions from recent OCAD U graduates. All of the shortlisted submissions will be on display in the Ada Slaight Gallery for the duration of OCAD U’s 102nd Annual Graduate Exhibition (May 3 to 7, 2016).

Members of the jury:

Xenia Benivolski, writer and curator, OCAD U alumna

Sandra Levy, VP People and Corporate Affairs, First Capital Realty

Gareth Long, artist

Mark Raynes Roberts, artist and architectural glass designer

Erica Segal, owner of the Julie M. Gallery

First Capital Realty, Canada’s leading owner, developer and operator of supermarket- and drugstore-anchored neighbourhood and community shopping centres, has made a substantial commitment to sponsoring this public sculpture competition which is open to third-year and fourth-year OCAD U students, current OCADu graduate students, as well as recent graduates. As this year’s winner, Cieloszczyk will receive a $5000 prize and First Capital Realty will cover the cost of fabrication, site preparation, transportation and installation of her sculpture. In addition, each of the shortlisted finalists will be awarded $350 for the production of a model, plus assistance from an OCAD U digital technician to create a professional 3D rendering of their models in situ for presentation. This year’s competition is coordinated by Paul Aloisi (Faculty of Design, Environmental Design) and Derek Sullivan (Faculty of Art, Sculpture/Installation).

Rouzbeh Akhbari (Sculpture/Installation, 2016) is taking home a $5,000 award for his installation Institutional Stabilizer. Akhbari was one of 248 emerging artists to enter BMO’s 14th annual Invitational Student Art Competition.

From the artist’s statement:

“The Institutional Stabilizer series is the result of a yearlong investigative project on the genealogy of the Greco-Roman column as an imperial signifier of political will and social power on two local sites including the Canadian Heritage site, the Grange, and the art deco façade of the Bank of Nova Scotia’s former headquarters in Toronto’s financial district.”

Akhbari is also the recipient of the 2016 OCAD University Medal for his program.

Presented annually, the BMO 1st Art! Competition recognizes visual arts excellence in post-secondary institutions from across Canada.

Deans and instructors of undergraduate arts programs from colleges and universities across the country were invited to select three outstanding graduating students from each of their studio specialties to make submissions to the competition.

All of the BMO 1st Art! winning works will be displayed at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, 7 Hart House Circle, University of Toronto, from November 17 to December 17, 2016.

2016 BMO 1st Art! winners

National Winner ($10,000 prize)

• Nathan Levasseur, University of Alberta

Regional Winners ($5,000 prizes)

• Alberta: Joel Warkentin, Alberta College of Art & Design
• British Columbia: Elizabeth Villalva Granda, University of British Columbia
• Manitoba: Zahra Baseri, University of Manitoba
• New Brunswick: Jennifer McInnis-Wharton, New Brunswick College of Craft & Design
• Newfoundland & Labrador: Lucas Morneau, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Nova Scotia: Jordan Blackburn, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design University
• Nunavut: Alookie Alikatuktuk, Nunavut Arctic College
• Ontario: Rouzbeh Akhbari, OCAD University
• Prince Edward Island: Dylan McQuaid, Holland College
• Quebec: Alexandre Ménard, Université du Québec à Montréal
• Saskatchewan: Kristen Auger, First Nations University of Canada
• Yukon: Tyler Anderson, Yukon School of Visual Arts

See BMO Financial Group's website to view the winning works.

Dora Poon (BDes, Industrial Design, 2015) and Zhi Gao (fourth-year Graphic Design student) emerged victorious at the 2015 student design competition organized by the Packaging Consortium (PAC), beating out rivals from Durham, Seneca, Humber, Mohawk and George Brown colleges. This is the second year in a row that an OCAD University team has scored first place.

Professor Stuart Werle offered the contest as a project option for his Packaging Design 2 students in winter 2015. The competition rules stipulated that each team design packaging for a 710 mL bottle of Walmart’s Great Value Eco toilet bowl cleaner. Werle encouraged participating students to demonstrate how their branding and packaging for that product could translate to other items in the Great Value Eco line.

With only one entry permitted for each institution, Werle formed a committee — including Mhairi Robertson, who won the 2014 competition — to select OCAD U’s entry. Members chose Poon’s effort as the top design; however, seeing great strength in Gao’s design, Werle encouraged the two to collaborate.

On June 17, Poon and Gao pitched their work in a seven-minute presentation to more than 200 packaging-industry leaders at the PACEX Toronto packaging show. After all the teams had spoken, the audience voted in real time, with Poon and Gao coming out on top. For Werle, “the key to their design was the blending of very strong branding, packaging graphics and bottle form with truly unique and innovative sustainable elements, including a 5X concentrate EcoPak® that would enable consumers to reuse each bottle without having to recycle them.”

David Constantino Salazar (BFA, 2007), a graduate of OCAD University’s Sculpture & Installation program, is the winner of the 2015 First Capital Realty Public Art Competition.

Salazar’s sculpture, One-and-All, is intended to be cast in bronze and will be installed in Georgetown, Ontario. Situated on the Credit River and part of the Niagara Escarpment, Georgetown has a thriving wildlife ecosystem. Salazar says he chose to represent the community conservation areas and diverse businesses by using symbols of local wildlife, a squirrel and dove alongside an enormous acorn (representing prosperity).

Twenty-one proposals were received from students in the Faculty of Art, the Faculty of Design, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies, as well as submissions from recent OCAD U graduates. All of the shortlisted submissions will be on display in the Transit space for the duration of OCAD U’s 100th Annual Graduate Exhibition (April 29 to May 3, 2015).

Members of the jury:

• Anda Kubis, Associate Dean, Outreach & Innovation, Faculty of Art
• Alex Correia, Corporate Administrator, First Capital Realty
• Erica Segal, owner of the Julie M. Gallery
• Colette Whiten, Sculpture & Installation faculty, OCAD U (retired)
• David Pelletier, Sculpture & Installation faculty, OCAD U (retired)

Associate Professor Francis LeBouthillier was the faculty coordinator for the competition, while Professor Eldon Garnet integrated this initiative into the curriculum of the Sculpture & Installation Public Art course.

In September, Salazar will begin his studies towards a Master’s of Fine Art in the Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design (IAMD) program in September 2015.

First Capital Realty, Canada’s leading owner, developer and operator of supermarket- and drugstore-anchored neighbourhood and community shopping centres, has made a substantial commitment to sponsoring this public sculpture competition which is open to third- and fourth-year OCAD U students as well as recent graduates. As this year’s winner, Salazar will receive a $5000 prize and First Capital Realty will cover the cost of fabrication, site preparation, transportation and installation of his sculpture. In addition, each of the shortlisted finalists will be awarded $350 for the production of a model, plus assistance from an OCAD U digital technician to create a professional 3D rendering of their models in situ for presentation.

Amy Satterthwaite, MDes, is OCAD U’s 3MT competition winner for her three-minute presentation, “Foresight for Every Kid.” Runner-up went to JP King, MA, for his talk, “The Journal of Disposability and Ex-Possession.” Amy will represent OCAD U at the provincial competition in London, Ontario, on April 23, 2015.

The 3MT (three minute thesis) competition, developed by the University of Queensland in 2008, gives each graduate student presenter three minutes in which to distill her or his research project, with the help of only one static slide.

Lisa-Marie Bissonnette, a recent graduate of the Sculpture/Installation program, was named the Ontario winner of BMO’s 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition. She is among 12 regional winners and one national winner selected from 272 entries.

Her work, Soak-Stained Fleece (2014), was designed in Corel Painter and then dye-sublimation printed onto an Ikea fleece blanket. She describes it as a “juxtaposition between the canons of 'high art' and the banality of well-used objects of living. It simultaneously reads as an object that has been stained and altered through personal use and one that has been designed with care and digital sensibility to echo the tropes of soak-stain minimalist painting.”

The national winner of the competition receives $10,000 and regional winners each receive $5,000. All winning BMO 1st Art! works will be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), 952 Queen St. W. in Toronto from October 2 to October 26, 2014. For a complete description of winning works visit BMO’s website.

Bissonnette is taking part in the Fresh Paint, New Construction exhibition at Art Mur in Montreal and plans to continue to work and live in Toronto.

Winner Announced at Urban Ecologies 2013 Conference

June 21, 2013 (Toronto) – OCAD University and smart Canada today announced the winner of the smart City Project: Motion competition. Through the competition, students in art and design were challenged to envision smart City: Motion, a place where the movement between home and work aspires to meet twenty-first century design demands for healthy living and intelligent travel.

The winner of the competition is Maximillian Wessman, whose project, entitled “Thought Velocity”, outlined an adaptive road infrastructure “for a city that thinks on its feet”. Second and third place awards were given to Calvin Kuo for his project “Smart Swarm” and Patrick Kroetsch for “The Hub”. Finalists for the competition displayed posters of their projects at Urban Ecologies 2013, where academics and practitioners in a various fields are meeting to further the practice of urban design.

“smart Canada is proud to partner with OCAD University to challenge the next generation of urban designers to envision a more sustainable and intelligent way to move people and goods around Canada’s cities in the future,” said Nicole Israng, Head of smart Marketing. “We were thrilled with the quality of submissions by the students, congratulate the winners and thank each one of the participants for their creative and insightful submissions.”

“Sustainability will only be achieved through excellent design. smart Canada has provided an excellent opportunity for OCAD University students to provide solutions that can solve the grand challenge of urban transportation and energy efficiency through excellent user experience design,” said Dr. Sara Diamond, President and Vice Chancellor of OCAD University.

Mr. Wessman received $5,000 as the Grand Prize winner of the competition. Mr. Kuo and Mr. Kroetsch received $1,000 and $500 respectively. Projects were reviewed by a panel of judges, including Lisa Rochon, Architecture Critic, The Globe and Mail; Matt Blackett, Co-Founder, Publisher, Creative Director, Spacing Magazine; Matthew Browning, Transportation Consultant, ARUP; Beth Kapusta, Executive Technical Advisor - Design Excellence, Metrolinx; and Nicole Israng, Head of Marketing, smart Canada.

About the competition
Can you imagine a city where movement in any direction is a seamless, timely, efficient human experience?

As the scale of cities grow exponentially, so do transportation systems and the dependency on energy to drive the economy. Is it possible to work with what we have and reinvent better ways to move people and goods more efficiently and more enjoyably? How would you envision the thresholds, the movement, the interconnectivity, and the user experience of transportation in the city? What connections would you make? What new experiences of motion could you design?

About OCAD University
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.

About smart Canada
smart Canada is responsible for the sales, marketing and service for the smart brand in Canada. Produced in one of the most modern and environmentally friendly plants in the world in Hambach, France, the smart fortwo is a safe, comfortable and extremely versatile vehicle. Since its launch in Canada in the fall of 2004, smart Canada's nationwide network of 53 dealers across the country have sold over 23,000 smart fortwos. Further information about the smart can be found online at http://www.thesmart.ca/, facebook.com/smartCanada and twitter.com/smartCanada.

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