This summer has been one to remember, not because of activities or sitting by the beach, but because I had the privilege to be asked to be a part of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s (KPU) Inaugural B.F.A Alumni Exhibition, CONFLUX.
I received an e-mail at the end of May/early June by one of the faculty members, Dorothy Barenscott, at KPU inviting me to participate. In the e-mail she mentioned that only a number of alumni from each graduating class was asked to be a part and I felt extremely honoured that she thought of me to be a part of this.
Over the summer on my spare time from working two jobs, I documented garbage that was littering the forests and creeks near my house. I collected the garbage and made sculptures of animals to comment on how we are destroying their lives by being disrespectful to our surroundings.
The opening reception was on Friday September 13th, 2019 where myself and twelve other talented artists got to show our most recent works to the KPU community, family, and friends. It was a great evening and having had the opportunity to show next to such talented and wonderful artists was spectacular. Being able to see all the work my fellow graduates have produced was such an inspiration, we’re all still very passionate about our practices.
Below you will find my entry for the online catalogue, http://www.dorothybarenscott.com/conflux, where I answered questions that Dorothy sent out earlier in the summer.
Tell us a little about yourself, your background, your area of art practice, how you came to study Fine Arts at KPU, when you graduated, and what you have been doing in terms of education/career since leaving the BFA program.
I grew up in Whistler, British Columbia, where I was always out exploring nature. I moved down to North Vancouver when I was 10 years old. Having access to all things outdoors, I developed a love for nature and this has been a recurring theme in my art. From a young age, I have had many mentors in the art field within my family and social circles. Due to this, I strongly felt that I wanted to pursue a degree in something that I love and enjoyed. I came across KPU when looking for post-secondary universities that offered the full bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and thought it would be a good fit; not only because it was close to home, but also for the smaller class sizes, which I hoped would focus on the students and would give constructive criticism and feedback to them about their art and development in their practice. Turns out I made the right choice. While studying, I experimented with different mediums, but overall, I choose to focus on photography for my art practice and towards the middle of my BFA experience, developed a love for it. Since graduating from KPU in May of 2016, I have been mostly working in Administration and Supervising. These roles I find important for running a business and I have been getting experience in order to better prepare myself to hopefully one day start my own photography business.
What matters most in making art for you? Has this changed over time, and how have you sustained your art practice (by whatever means is important to you) since graduating your BFA program?
Art is something that everyone in able to enjoy, but as I ave grown and matured, I have found that making art for myself is what drives me to be a better artist. This is because I have found you are not able to make everyone happy and art is subjective to the viewer; not everyone is going to like your work, but as long as you enjoy it and love what you have produced, then that is what matters the most. When I first started my university career, I thought that if no one enjoyed my work or that if it didn’t spark conversation that I would to be considered a good artist, but as the years went by I learned that I needed to be the one to enjoy my work the most in order for me to create one of those works that caught the viewer’s attention. Overall, I learned to be confident in myself and my work. Since graduating, I have not been in any art showings, but I have continued to go out and take photographs and work on my photography skills, further enhancing my confidence ad enjoyment in my art practice.
Looking back at your KPU grad show, reflect upon and describe for us your final project, why you chose to make it, and how you view that project today.
Nature and wildlife have always had my heat. From a young age I was always out in the forest and wilderness, exploring every stone, tree, lake, and animal. My final project was a reflection on this love of nature and how we, as human beings, seem to take advantage of it. For this project, I went out and photographed my own feet alongside litter that had been dumped in the forests. I then made wooden frames, which held litter I had fund, and placed them in front of these large photographs, speaking to the destruction we are causing to our beautiful landscape. I am very proud of this work, as I feel a lot of my developing ideas I had thought my time at KPU came together to create this large scale, photographic installation. I was looking forward to creating something outside of my comfort zone, and having the opportunity to work at the Cloverdale campus, alongside talented artists in my graduating class, pushed me to create my biggest work to date. This theme of the impact that we have on our environment is always making an appearance in my art practice.
Looking now to the alumni grad show, reflect on and describe for us your final project, why you chose to make it, and how this latest work relates (or does not) to the art you produced for your grad show.
For the alumni grad show, I am keeping up in the similar theme of looking at how we impact the environment, but looking more at how we are affecting wildlife. I am taking my idea of documenting the litter that I find within my own neighbourhood in the Canyon Heights and Highlands area of North Vancouver. I have collected the garbage once again, and have been making sculptures of wildlife native to the Vancouver area. I am working to comment on animals we are killing in our city (there have been over 50 black bears that have been killed due to human activity in the past four months alone). When autopsied, many of these animals are found to be containing items that belong to us, namely plastic. This is tough to conceive as I have learned to co-exist with all the wildlife (as when I lived in Whistler) and as taught that we are in the animals’ territory, and no the other way around. We need to be more aware of how to co-exist with all beings, and my current work comments on this and how we are not only destroying their natural habitat, but also their lives with out own waste.
What was the most valuable lesson or lessons—whether in the classroom, during a crit, or from a fellow student—that you learned at KPU? Why? Who taught it to you? If you could go back in time and visit with the younger you in the early phases of your BFA program, what advice or words of wisdom would you offer? What do you know today that you wish you would have understood back then?
A valuable lesson that I learned at KPU is to always seek advice from your peers. In high school, I thought asking for help or advice was a sign of weakness, and that I wouldn’t be seen as an independent person. However, at KPU I learned that asking for these things was not a weakness at all, but a better way to grow as a person and learn. Kira Wu and Dorothy Barenscott that me this early on. They made me ore confident in my studies and my art practice. In their classrooms, I never felt judged and learned from them that in art, there is no right or wrong answer. Two others who I looked up to, and still do, are fellow students Hapreet Kaur Mandher and Aksha Suri. We all graduated in the same year, and as we grew as artists, so did our friendship. We all have different art practice, but if it weren’t for these two, I do not think I would be the person I am today. I could always go to them during our classes and seek advice on what they thought could use improvement or what was working. These mentors and friends told me the truth and never made me feel uncomfortable or disappointed in my work. If I could, I would tell my younger self to not be afraid and to take risks. This is something I wish I had learned earlier on in my studies.
If you are local to the Greater Vancouver area, I urge you to go take a look at the work in this exhibition. It is on until October 4th, 2019.
- Liv