Illustrations and visual key elements for the 2024 Vancouver Writers Fest Campaign.
VWF is a year-round exploration of books and ideas through programming that connects, promotes and celebrates a passion for words and the world around us.
Artistic Director: Leslie Hurtig
Creative Agency: We Are ZAK
"Echoes From This Land: Visioning - Revisiting Truth and Reconciliation" is an initiative by the School of the Arts at MacMaster University that aims to visually represent the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's 94 Recommendation Calls to Action by engaging Indigenous and non-Indigenous artist/creators from education institutions and communities across Canada.
Participants were asked to express their own perspective by visually contextualizing one of the calls to action through the media of prints/multiples. All images will be complied in a portfolio containing all 94 calls. These editioned portfolios will be exhibited throughout Canada to continue the critical dialogue and action of conciliation through a visual lens of knowledge sharing.
My contribution to this project is the Call for Action #62
"Develop Aboriginal Content in Education"
62. We call upon the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, in consultation and collaboration with Survivors, Aboriginal peoples, and educators, to
i. Make age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions to Canada a mandatory education requirement for Kindergarten to Grade Twelve students
ii. Provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms.
iii. Provide the necessary funding to Aboriginal schools to utilize Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods in classrooms
iv. Establish senior-level positions in government at the assistant deputy minister level or higher dedicated to Aboriginal content in education.
In my illustrations, birds often symbolize journeys, freedom, and harmony. Birds possess a unique vantage point; they can see beyond our human perspective, communicate seamlessly, and move in perfect sync within their groups and nature.
For my editioned prints, I positioned a bird standing firm and strong with one foot atop a stack of black and white books, representing the curricula, while the other foot opens the pages of that book. The bird faces with its beak open toward the bright sun, almost as if it's beckoning the sun and its rays to shine in that direction. There's a tension between the simplicity of the book, depicted by simple black and white lines devoid of detail or ornamentation, and the sun with its organic rays of bright magenta, blue, and yellow, evoking movement and change also making a reference to primary colours use in early childhood classrooms. These rays overlap, creating three new colors that symbolize the myriad new learnings and opportunities emerging when dialogue, shared experiences, and teaching methods are included.
Vancouver BC
2020
DVBIA open call to design the Granville Street banners.
My design was shortlisted and selected as a winner among many other amazing designs. The inspiration behind my design goes back to 2011, the year I relocated to Vancouver. My first impression remains with me to this day: The Art Deco style architecture hidden behind posters and billboards of current and past events. A mix of people walking up and down the street all day; locals, visitors, musicians, bike riders and many, many pigeons. My design captures the colours of Granville Street: its people and their stories, the sun-kissed afternoons, neon light evenings and the always present pigeons.
Vancouver, BC
2020
Since the new measures of social distancing are in place all around the world, DVBIA asked me if I could design a series of lawn boards advising people to keep social distance in public spaces too.
One of the boards was designed to be placed at Cathedral Square on 555 Richards Street where the city of Vancouver has a partnership with Hives for Humanity to foster urban beekeeping.
The second board was designed to match the banners along Granville Street.
Vancouver, BC
2018 -2019
Summer tennis and a glass of Rosé with friends, that’s what Rosé League is all about. Capturing the subtlety of rosy tones in a timeless and playful Bauhaus font.
Vancouver BC
2019
Inspired by many stages of grief, this beautiful, colourful and small lapel pins are custom designed for many stages of grief.
“We cannot read minds but we can read pins” -beautifully said by Grieving Advocate Katie Jameson, the brains behind this wonderful project, a subtle reminder to be kind and respectful to one another since we never know what others are going through.
Vancouver, BC
2020
During COVID lockdown, as many restaurants and bars had to adjust and switch to a take-out and delivery mode, Nightingale restaurant reached out to me with the idea of adding a colouring page to their take-out family pizza kits. Every month we will release a new colouring page featuring the new seasonal ingredient.
