pile of work by Leia Fahe Villeneuve, Justine Dupont-Lavigueur, Caroline Grainger, Sophia Burke, Farnaz Waheed, Claudine Lamothe and Natalie Pan

Over the fall I had the opportunity to teach two classes in Concordia’s Department of Design and Computation Arts; DART 441: The Culture of Images and CART 444: Portfolio Studio. These were very challenging classes to teach, despite being the first time I’ve taught without having to go back to work at an agency the next day.

The classes addressed divergent subject matter (looking outside vs. looking inside) that I care deeply about, yet had not taught before, and they both required a lot of self-initiative from individual students. 441 aimed to teach students to critically examine the visual environment around them, and determine how to construct messages within that context, whereas 444 forced students to deeply examine their own work and practice, bringing forth a cohesive presentation of their identity from it.

work by Pablo Aracena, Aaron Kaufmann, Marie-Noelle Hébert, Emma Wilkie and Regina Rose

At the end of three months of stress, hard (and sometimes not so hard) work, and even some very real tears near the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the work submitted. As always, I learned a lot from my students and I hope it was a rewarding experience for them as well.

If you’re out there looking for some fresh talent, check out some of the portfolios produced by my CART students: Claudine Lamothe, Emmanuel Lalande, Magalie Coulombe-Noel, Hyun Cho and Vincent de Belleval.

And a nice little video essay by Carlos Zuniga, for some silkscreen goodness:

Happy Holidays!!!