Introducing Akin Collective Career Launcher Award Winner Natalie King! →

Congratulations to Natalie King, recent OCAD University Drawing & Painting graduate and winner of the 2018 Akin Collective Career Launcher award! We look forward to having Natalie join us at the studio! Natalie will receive a free 50sqft foot studio space for a 4-month period at one of Akin's shared workspaces in 2018-2019.

The Career Launchers are unique, high-profile opportunities for graduating students of OCAD University, developed in partnership with industry organizations such as Akin in order to help new graduates start their professional practice after school. 

Currently based in Toronto, Natalie's work is influenced by colour, form, shape and identity. Her practice ranges from drawing, painting, print-making and installation. Centered through a queer lens involving portrayals of femme identities. Natalie King’s works are about embracing the ambiguity and multiplicities of identity within the queer femme experience. King’s works are a portrayal of life with it’s both harsh realities and the resilience of the human spirit.

TRACE - works by OCAD University’s Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design candidates

TRACE is happening at The OCAD Graduate Gallery (205 Richmond Street West). There is a reception on November 16 from 5-9pm with catered refreshments where you can meet, chat, and mingle with the curators and artists. We hope you can make it!

“A trace may be small—a hint to the existence of something, a residue we can’t ignore. It is the beginning of a process, to subvert assumptions and discover intentions. It is the evidence that an investigation is taking place—revealing the hidden and acknowledging the ghosted. The absence of presence is where the trace reveals itself.”

Curated by the Criticism and Curatorial Practice first year program (including Jeff Tallon of Akin Sunrise), TRACE brings together the works of OCAD University’s Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design candidates to explore the contingent experience of presence as trace evades the ‘real,’ pointing to its constitutive outside: the unreal. Trace, a sign for everything elusive, has no site, but rather is change of site marked by its erasure, making it disappear in its appearance.

Featuring Artists:
Sarah Carlson
Lingxiang Wu
Vanessa Jackson
Tal Sofia Braniss
Ellen Snowball
Randa Reda
Philip Sparks
Kirstie McCallum
Coco Guzman
Shannon Lee
Adrienne Matheuszik
Lida Shanehchiyan
Kristi Poole-Adler
Dori Vanderheyden

Curated By:
Elizabeth Claire Handley-Derry
Liz Ikiriko
Erica Jane Cristobal
Panya Clark Espinal
Jeff Tallon
Keiko Hart

Art Design & independence: How to start your creative business, Alumni talk at OCAD U

Join Imagination Catalyst and the Centre for Emerging Artists and Designers on Wednesday, Nov 23 to hear presentations from four OCAD U alumni talk about how they started their businesses.

Natalie Catania, Founder of Ms. Dress Up, Brian Deck, CEO of SmoothPay, Christina Guo, Founder of U-Dimensions, and Tanner Short, Founder of Bowtie, Team Building Solutions will talk about how they got started, what they learned through the process, and share the best and worst advice they ever got!

You'll also hear from special guest Oliver Pauk, Co-Founder of Akin Collective and representing the Toronto Studio Commons.

Agenda
615pm - Networking with refreshments
630pm - Introductions
645pm - Presenations, Q & A
8pm - Networking

Organized by Imagination Catalyst, OCAD University’s entrepreneurship and commercialization hub.

OCAD U & Akin Collective Career Launcher Winner: Emma Aurelia

The Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers is excited to announce that Emma Aurelia, a recent graduate of OCAD University’s Material Art and Design program, is the recipient of the first AKIN Collective Career Launcher! Emma will receive a period of free studio space at AKIN’s inspiring shared workspaces in 2016–2017, valued at $2000, as well as a $500 cash award.

The AKIN Collective Career Launcher is an amazing opportunity for graduating Material Art and Design students to become part of a larger creative community and gain access to the excellent multidisciplinary facilities that AKIN Collective has to offer. Applications were reviewed by AKIN's Directors, faculty members, and staff from the Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers.

Congratulations Emma! Check out some of Emma's work below, or visit her website www.emmaurelia.com

Into the Blue and Back (Again) Full Installation from Emma Aurelia on Vimeo.