graduate research

Emily Carr students are involved in Research projects across the disciplines; Design, Visual Arts, and Media Arts.  Here are some examples of current work...

Ana Mejia / MAA Candidate
Sustainable Furniture for Social Housing In Mexico

For the last few years, the construction of social housing in Mexico has increased considerably. Authorities as well as agencies involved in this housing expansion have not focused on designing adequate furniture for this style of dwellings. The objective of this project is to provide a design solution to this problem. I will propose a new style of furniture designed specifically for Mexicans living in social housing.

Bruce Emmett / MAA Candidate
Mill Project

The Mill Project has a definite "aboutness" to it: it is about the history and heritage of the Mill site, it is about the memory of a space, it is about subculture, and it is very much about a recent artifact, the buried skatepark. But more than that, the Mill Project is concerned with the way a space might be produced and then activated by the knowledge of something about that space, hidden or otherwise. More broadly, it is about the nature of spaces and how they are activated and contested through their appropriation and use. This interest in the appropriation of spaces relates to a way of thinking about the built environment, and about materials and their (mis)use and repurposing.

Joanne Lindemulder / MAA Candidate
Skin Tags

My current project is concerned with finding a way to make art that is reflective of, or challenging the cultural construct of whiteness. I am researching the work of other artists who have engaged with whiteness as a subject in order to locate methods and methodologies which begin to dismantle it without its reassertion as a dominant hegemony. This research will overlap with the creation of a body of work finding ways of speaking which aims to do the same. My goal is to situate myself as an artist who is aiming to work against notions of whiteness in a racially conscious way. The challenge for this project is to determine how one can call attention to the place one lives in order to demolish it, without rebuilding that site by perpetuating its myth.

Katherine Soucie / MAA Candidate
(zero.O.lab) / Collaborators: Chan Tao & Shannon Lazzarotto

(zero.O.lab) is a space for artists, designers and creative thinkers to conduct research on zero waste art and design concepts. Using collaboration as method for exploration and dissection on fashion production and consumption, this project will serve as an incubator into the conversation between art, fashion, and the commerce of identity.

Myron Campbell / MAA Candidate
Fragile Circus

The Fragile Circus draws on material from dreams and the subconscious, transforming fantastic and absurd ideas into new mythologies. The research explores animal human hybrids, using cryptozoological bestiaries as the groundwork for understanding the relationship between humans, animals, nature and civilization, and to challenge the borders between the real and the fantastic, and the divisions between human and animal.

Marten Sims / MAA Candidate
Darwin's Surfaces

My primary research goal is to assess whether participant-driven experiences (such as World Cafés) can be designed to catalyse massive change in ocean conservation. It is my hope that my research can discover whether participant-driven experiences can provide impactful environments that inspire participating members of the creative class to use a variety of communications skills to reach out to audiences through creative practises such as design, art, dance, music and photography. With Darwin's Surfaces a distinct effort has been made to create wonder and fascination towards apparently familiar things. I believe that it is only when we being to look at ourselves within the context of nature, that we recognize that we are a part of it, and therefore responsible for ourselves and our actions towards our world.

Nathalie Lavoie / MAA Candidate
Mackenzie River

I am currently pursuing graduate studies while living in a small remote community in Canada's subarctic, a unique opportunity offered via the Low Residency Master of Applied Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Central to my thesis project and research is the investigation of places as locus for artistic creation. With the Mackenzie River as the main site for artistic interventions, the study explores multiple responses to a site, and various modes of audience participation, including collaboration based on ethics of engagement.

Sean Arden / MAA Candidate
Whizard Motion

The Whizard Motion is a programmable system for use by amateur or professional photographers and film-makers to create time-lapse photographic sequences. The Whizard Motion is a user friendly system that allows for controlled camera moves on a 3 axis (pan and tilt with extendable dolly). There are many systems out there that are harnessing the power of the Arduino microcontroller platform to create similar motorized time-lapse systems, but the 2nd generation of Whizard Motion takes it to the next level. Whizard Motion is part of Sean Arden's Master's research into 3D stereoscopic video and animation techniques. The project is fully integrated with Dragon Stop Motion software to capture 3D stereoscopic stop motion animation and time-lapse. The research has been a collaborative endeavor with software developer Kris Fortune.