Artist Buttons

For my artist buttons, I decided to focus on Kendrick Lamar’s song “Reincarnated” and the themes within it, such as reincarnation feeling conflicted. Kendrick shifts perspectives in the song, first telling stories from other artists’ viewpoints and then reflecting on his own career and his relationship with God. There are many biblical references and imagery in the song, particularly the connection to the story of Lucifer’s descent from heaven in the book of Isaiah. Kendrick’s back-and-forth conversation with God and growing frustration in the third verse made me reflect on my own beliefs and how I feel conflicted at times. I think the message in this song speaks to how a lot of people feel and the thoughts that cross their minds on a daily basis. 

A Conceptual Portrait of Grief

This is a conceptual portrait of grief. Above are two letters and an audio recording of a conversation between my grandma and grandpa shortly before my grandpa passed away. My grandfather Jim wrote one of the letters to my grandmother in 1978 when they first met. At the time, due to some complications, my grandmother wasn’t sure if she would be able to have any children. My grandfather wrote to my grandma, consoling her and telling her that even if she couldn’t have any children, that wouldn’t affect their relationship already.

Fast forward to the future, I wrote a letter responding to my grandfather. My grandfather was a massive part of my life and raised me to be who I am today. These two letters are a portrait of two individuals grieving. The first letter is about my grandmother grieving, and the other is about myself grieving. I will never be able to get over the loss of my grandfather, but I am starting to learn how to live my life without him. When he wrote that letter to my grandmother, he said, “Our future.” He is writing from the past, talking about the future, and I am the present, talking about the past. Not only is this a reflection on the impact of grief, but it is also a reflection of the interconnectedness of time.

Horror Sounds

For my audio piece, I combined clips from famous horror movies with other terrifying sounds. It begins with slow, ominous creaking noises that gradually intensify, resulting in an abrupt stop. My goal was to evoke the emotion of fear through the overwhelming sounds of screams that consume your ears.

One Feat, Three Ways: Ice Cream

The experimental videos Matei and I created were inspired by the Burger King video featuring American artist Andy Warhol. In that video, Warhol sits awkwardly alone, eating a Whopper. I felt uncomfortable when I first watched it, yet I also thought I was sharing that moment of awkwardness with him. We also wanted to incorporate food into our video, so we chose ice cream. Initially, we planned to record the ice cream melting in our hands. Before we even started filming, I wanted to capture moments of awkwardness similar to Warhol’s burger video while allowing for unpredictability in my movements and decision-making.

Some people may watch our videos and find them boring because we don’t do much, and there isn’t much happening, but I believe that’s the point. Nowadays, people are so accustomed to constant external stimulation that we often forget what it’s like to be fully present in the moment. I’ll admit it can be uncomfortable to sit still and do nothing, but those moments of boredom and stillness are important. Life goes by in the blink of an eye, and I’m still learning to appreciate those moments of being still.

The unpredictable movements in the video, where I interrupt Matei’s stillness, are a metaphor for the unexpected events in our lives. The ice cream looks delicious, innocent, and beautiful in a sense, yet as shown in the video, what is beautiful can quickly and unexpectedly be disturbed. Our videos are compelling artistically because they are almost interactive pieces. The viewer experiences this absurd moment and shares it with us.

A thoughtful reckoning.

Toronto Field Trip Blog Post

The exhibit that caught my attention during our field trip was Ear Worm (2024-2025) by Alex Da Corte. The room’s ominous red and green lighting made the whole experience feel surreal and mesmerizing. There were objects, videos, and images from pop culture that I recognized right away. The main idea of De Corte’s exhibit was to use these familiar objects and visuals, imagine them in new and innovative ways, and repurpose them into their cultural significance. One of the videos projected showed a person drawing a scary pumpkin face on the back of what appeared to be a Charlie Brown figure. This was striking for me because I remember watching Charlie Brown as a kid, and the design of his character has always stood out to me as unique. To see a different face drawn onto the iconic character adds a new layer of uniqueness, which made me think about the significance of the character. Charlie Brown is one of the most recognizable characters in cartoon history. He’s even been around since my grandma was a kid (a very long time). It’s refreshing to see how the character is still relevant today and how others add their creative touch to create a new layer of meaning. Alex De Corte’s exhibit is impactful because people resonate with his iconic visuals/images. How Charlie Brown is personal is also personal for somebody else because they hold a memory of it that brings back feelings of nostalgia and timelessness. Timeless is the word I would use to describe this exhibit because these iconic scenes live on, and people will continue to talk about them for a long time.

Hold Up- Beyonce vs Rist

“Hold Up”

In the video titled “Hold Up – Beyonce Vs Pipilotti Rist,” singer-songwriter Beyoncé and Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist are performing in a mash-up of Beyonce’s music video and Rist’s 1997 performance “Ever is All Over.” The video opens with the first frame, with Rist’s walking down the street wearing a blue dress and holding a long wooden object in her hand. The footage is shot on an older camera, which looks grainy and has a lower resolution. The scene then transitions to Beyonce walking down steps fully submerged in water. You cannot see her face until she steps onto the sidewalk, where her face is revealed. The colours in Beyonce’s music video are warm and saturated yellows and gold, contrasting with Rist’s performance, where the colours are cooler, with the blue and grey hues evident throughout her segment. Beyonce and Rist’s movements are almost identical as they walk up the street, holding objects in their hand. Beyonce is having, and Rist’s is holding what appears to be a long stick. The most apparent action both artists perform is using their objects and smashing the windows of the parked cars on the street. When Beyonce smashes the car window, her facial expressions and body language appear more powerful and intense, whereas in Rist’s performance, she is smiling and seems more light-hearted. Beyonce’s video uses a variety of angles to show her actions and facial expressions, which, in my opinion, tells more of the story compared to Rist’s performance, which only shows two different angles, one of her side profile and the other from the front.

Rist’s Ideas

Pipilotti Rist’s performances and ideas, specifically about women’s bodies, sexuality, and exposure, add to the peculiarity and strangeness of her art innovatively and boldly. Her performance ‘Ever is Over All” Shows her as the subject happily smashing car windows, which adds to the boldness of her ideas and transforms this performance in a strangely beautiful way. There are certain expectations and norms for people to act a certain way in public. Rist challenges that notion in her performance, particularly the expectations of women’s behaviour. I forgot to mention this in the first part, but her performance is surreal, and the stark blue hues feel pretty dreamy. This quality adds to the ideas of beauty and femininity portrayed and expressed in her work.

Inside Out

Wearing my shirt inside out school made me more self-conscious and awkward because I usually do it unless I am rushing out of the house at 7:30 in the morning, half asleep. It’s funny because you think that people will care or notice that your shirt is inside out, but the truth is that nobody notices, and if they do notice, they will not say anything because they don’t care as much as you might. I don’t think it changed how other people treat me that much. Yeah, it was awkward, and I got a few looks, but like I said, people don’t care as much as you do. That goes for almost everything in life. I am not just wearing a piece of clothing the “wrong” way. Sure, it’s a performance if you say it’s a performance. Everything I do is a performance. I am performing all the time.

For my kilometre, I used a thousand photos from my digital camera from the past two years and projected them onto my wall at home. I represented one kilometre to equal 1000 photos instead of one kilometre being equal to 1000 metres. The meaning behind this idea was to show how fast time goes by, the distance between the past and the present, and the present and the future. Scrolling through the photos quickly tied into this core idea. Each image was a special moment in my life, and I wanted to capture how fast time goes by and look into the parallels of time and space and how the two work together in our lives. It is fascinating that when I revisit the past, in my mind, the distance from now to then seems so far away. Similar to how one kilometre is far once you start walking it. Looking back on these core memories from the past couple of years has given me the time and space to look forward to many more beautiful moments in the future.