Achievements + Accolades 2012
For 87 years, our esteemed faculty and distinguished alumni, staff, and students have made significant contributions to the world of art, design and media. We reflect on some of the highlights of 2012.
Luigi Allemano (current Low Residency MAA candidate) composed the music for the Oscar nominated animation Dimanche/Sunday.
Heather Anderson (’98) was recently appointed as the new curator at Carleton University Art Gallery.
In November of 2011, Sonny Assu (Kwakwa’wakw) (’02) was one of five recipients of the Annual BC Creative Achievement Award for First Nations’ Art. As part of Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary, the City of Vancouver commissioned Sonny to design a street marker to be installed along Kingsway from Main Street to Boundary Road. The signs mark Kingsway’s shared history as an aboriginal foot trail and wagon road.
Associate Professor and former student Marian Penner Bancroft was the recipient of the 2012 Audain Prize for Visual Arts for Lifetime Achievement (worth $30,000). For two months this summer, Marian was also featured in a prestigious solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Spiritlands:t/here Selected Photography Works 1975 – 2000.
Britain’s National Portrait Gallery announced that Kitty Blandy’s (’09) bronze portrait of British Olympian, Sally Gunnell (part of the permanent collection), would be on display from July to November 2012.
Kristen Campbell’s (’12) film Swift received Best Animation at the TIFF 2012 Student Film Showcase. Kristen and Sitji Chou (’11) participated in a 48-hour Animation Jam – Crazy Horse Session, at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film in Germany. One of only five teams selected to compete, their animation Trixie Goes to the Moving Pictures won the top prize in their category.
After a worldwide launch and online call for imaginative and unconventional ways to improve urban comfort, Rodrigo Caula’s (’12) grad project, Ingrain, which utilizes reclaimed wood, was selected as one of five finalists for the BMW Guggenheim Lab.
Emily Carr’s academic journal Current won an Award of Excellence from the 42nd Annual UCDA Design Competition, A Silver Award from the 42nd Creativity Print Awards and a Semifinalist Certificate from the 2012 Adobe Design Achievement Awards. Current 03, Design Research Journal was published in May 2012 both as a print journal and mobile app journal for iPad and is available at Apple iTunes.
Associate Professor Charles Dobson, along with city planners Christina DeMarco and Ted Sebastian, won an Award of Excellence in the City of Vancouver’s Re-THINK Housing Open Ideas Competition. Their proposal Thin Streets: Turning Asphalt into Affordable Housing was one of seven selected from a field of sixty-eight received by the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability.
Former sessional faculty member Margaret Dragu was named as one of eight winners of the 2012 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts. The $25,000 award recognizes career achievement in the visual and media arts by Canadian artists.
Lisa Fraser (’10) received IDEA Awards for her wearable sensory tools for teens with autism. Lisa was awarded a Gold for her project Smart Squeeze and Silver for Bear Hug.
Health & Wellness (The Power of One) created by Giant Ant Media, alumni partners Jay Grandin (’04) and Leah Nelson (’06) was nominated for TED’s Ads Worth Spreading.
Juan A.Gaitán ('02) was appointed Curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art which will take place in the Spring of 2014.
The 2011 winner of the $25,000 Joseph Plaskett Award was Jessica Groome (’02).
Taralee Guild (’10) won the 2012 IDEA Art Award Competition for her piece Galiano Forest. The painting is now a part of the VGH and UBC Healing Arts permanent collection.
Ceramic artist Lisa Henriques (’99) received a Carter Wosk BC Creative Achievement Award.
Jeremy Herndl (MAA ’11) was awarded a second grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation in the amount of $18,000.
At the end of her third year, fourth year Communications Design student Cheryl Loh was the recipient of the first Ray Hrynkow Scholarship for the “thinking designer” through the GDC National Scholarship Awards.
Sessional faculty member Shinsuke Minegishi (’98) received the Prize of Excellence award at the 3rd International Screen Print Biennale at Japan Artists Association Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.
David Nguyen (’11) won the Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s 2012 Gerry Brunet Memorial Award for his short film Insert Credit.
Toan Nguyen (’12) had his work selected to screen at the TIFF’s Student Film Showcase.
Sean Mills (’10) was awarded first place in the Painting: Works on Canvas category for 28th Annual ARTS 2012, presented by the Arts Council of Surrey and Surrey Art Gallery.
Erik Olson (’07) was one of only 55 artists – out of a staggering 2,200 initial applications – selected to be part of this year’s prestigious National Portrait Gallery of England exhibition.
Former student Catherine Regehr was awarded the BC Creative Achievement Award of Distinction, which celebrated her significant and sustained contribution to the field of applied art and design in British Columbia.
Corn Sworn (’02) was selected as one of three artists to represent Scotland at the prestigious 2013 Venice Biennale. The exhibition will be presented in the Palazzo Pisani, Venice from June to November 2013.
J. A. Tan’s (’10) work was selected to appear in a series of postage stamps for the United Nations Postal Administration’s Autism Awareness Campaign. Tan’s design, Victory, is one of eight stamps that appear in the series.
Xwalacktun (Rick Harry) (’82) received the Order of British Columbia in a ceremony at Government House in Victoria in September 2012. His work is recognized both locally and internationally and includes jewelry, glass works, woodcarvings, paintings, design and stone carvings.
WRAP, a collaborative public art project between Emily Carr’s Faculty of Culture + Community, and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association was awarded a Best in the West Award in the Private + Public Spaces category of the Business Improvement Association of BC.
Jacky Kaho Ling (’10) and David Dong-Hee Suh (’11) were Professional Winners in the packaging category of the 2012 Core77 Design Awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Wild Life, an animated short by Amanda Forbis (’81) and Wendy Tilby (’86) for an Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards.
dOCUMENTA (13) features the works of Geoffrey Farmer (’92), Brian Jungen (’92) and Gareth Moore (’04). The German exhibition is one of the biggest and most influential art exhibitions in the world.
At the end of their third year, current fourth year students Samuel Lee and Cléa Lautrey, were recipients of the Senior and Junior (respectively) Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) NW Student Merit Awards.
Jacky Ka Ho Ling (’10) and David Dong-Hee Suh (’11) were the recipients of The Dieline Package Design Awards. Their work NuBone Package won first place in the Home, Garden and Pets.
Nicole Ondre (’10) was named the winner of the $3,000 2012 Contemporary Art Society Emerging Artists’ Prize. The other four finalists included Scott Billings (’07), Jeremy Hof (’07) and Natalie Purschwitz (’01). Each finalist received a prize of $250.
Sessional faculty member Bruce Sweeney's newest film, Crimes of Mike Reckett premiered at TIFF and was also shown at VIFF. With a "stunningly evocative and creepy" musical score and sound design by Associate Professor Dennis Burke, this neo-noir procedural "subverts the conventions of the genre with humor and subtlety". Alumnus Kevin Eastwood ('99 was Executive Producer of the film. VIFF recently announced the film has been shortlisted for the Best Canadian Feature Film Award.
Blaine Campbell (’07) and Megan Wilson (’01) presented a large-scale installation of their collaborative video project Chase as part of this year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto. This annual one night arts event has an estimated attendance of over one million!
At the 2012 Mayor’s Arts Awards, current fourth year student Soledad Munoz was awarded Emerging Artist in the Craft and Design category. Christopher Auchter (’02) was awarded Emerging Artist in the Film and New Media category and Continuing Studies instructor Samuel Roy-Bois was awarded an Emerging Artist in Public Art. Former Dean and Associate professor Jim Breukelman was awarded Honouree in Visual Arts while Hua Jin (’12) was awarded Emerging Artist in the same category.
Briana Garelli, Caitrin Wootton, Claire Balderston, Grey Vaisius, Matthew Kim, Patrick Wong and Sarah Kozlowski were all winners in the Applied Arts 2012 Student Awards.
Both faculty and alumni were honoured at the 2012 Leo Awards: Jonny Ostrem (’10) won Best Visual Effects in a Short Drama for The Tron Lebowski; Sitji Hou (’11) won Best Student Production for Peter & the Space Between; Kunal Sen (’08) won Best Direction (along with Marv Newland) in an Animation Program or Series for CMYK (produced by Associate Professor Martin Rose); and Associate Professor Dennis Burke along with Raphael Choi (’08) won Best Sound Editing in a Documentary Program or Series for 40 Days at Base Camp.