In the Moment

Works by Laura Alcazar Prada, Zi Yan Bai, Andrew Chan, Kelly Chan, Xiao Chen, William Chow, Jaihan Dean, Andy Fang, Michelle Huang, Hyebin Kim, Bethany Lam, Sejin Lee, Fiona Li, Michelle Lim, Jiaqi Lin, Yunting Liu, Honpan Lung, Ujwal Mantha, Sophia Parker, Noah Qin, Sylvie Stojanovski, Katie Tang, Lydia Tippins, Yu Wu, Qingya Yang, and Zeyu Zhang

We are pleased to announce In the Moment, the 2021 U of T Scarborough Studio Art Graduate Show, featuring the research, creative, and production work of twenty-six of our students.

This past year has been a difficult and transformative time in our history that has changed the way we interact and learn from one another. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light significant political and environmental challenges for us to face as a society. From protests led by movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, to environmental catastrophes like the hurricanes in Central America and massive flash floods in Afghanistan, our planet has been in desperate need for healing.

Throughout the chaos, our students have demonstrated resilience and creativity as young emerging artists. With great enthusiasm and skill, they have worked in isolation and created networks of collaboration and comradery to organize and design a virtual exhibition and catalogue. Their perseverance and hard work has shown what is possible when creative minds work collaboratively, resulting in thoughtful and timely individual projects that come together in a virtual group exhibition entitled, In the Moment.

Together, the works in this exhibition share an intense awareness of this moment in time and the hope and potential for the future. In the Moment highlights this acute sense of urgency for this particular moment that we find ourselves within. Individual projects face the world head on and grapple with important concepts such as the climate crisis, race, survival, and connection.

As faculty, we are extremely proud of our students for their resiliency and persistence to work through some of the most challenging problems of our time. They have given it their all and used their own lived experiences to offer alternative perspectives for the future. This is a new era, one that may be more difficult to navigate, however one thing is certain, these students are ready to launch their unique vision in the world, to re-imagine it, and contribute to making it better in their own way.

We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Doris McCarthy Gallery, and the department of Art Culture and Media for their collaboration and financial support. This exhibition and catalogue would not have been possible without their invaluable support. Although there were many people involved in various supporting roles within our department, we would like to extend special gratitude to technicians, Christopher Dela Cruz and Josh Cleminson for building a virtual world for the art, Erin Peck from DMG for your wisdom and guidance, and Muskoka Dittmarr-Maccallum for her supporting role through the semester, and finally to our Program Director, Marla Hlady for holding us all together during this unconventional semester.

Professors,
Sanaz Mazinani & Hiba Abdallah