Alice Wang (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
This piece focuses on how our relationship with land changes with time. The photo is a diptych capturing land that has been important to me in two different seasons for much of my life. Through spending time on this project, I was able to reconnect to nature and my childhood self.
Because I live in a more industrialized area, highlighting the beauty and potential in my
neighbourhood has become a personal mission. This has become increasingly imperative with urban development rapidly expanding, and I wanted to show the connection I feel to this land and how it has grown and changed with me throughout my years of living here.
Bethany Williams (Agincourt C.I.)
Twice Removed
Why do we treat the land the way we do? I can’t understand it. This jarring separation we’ve created between ourselves and nature. A divide that’s occasionally beautiful but mainly unnerving. Why does it exist? The reluctance to fix that separation, a refusal to mend the brokenness in our relationship with the natural environment. Why? We move past the scarring and ignore the divide. Completely complacent and content with our current lives. My work is a manifestation of my inner thoughts. I often imagine that stretch of the 407 indistinguishable from the land on either side. As if it never existed. I wonder what the land would have looked like without us. I wonder what it would look like if we looked at it differently.
Emily Dillon (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
I began doing photography about a year ago, and I fell in love with it. I love creating different atmospheres through my art. I use it to convey feelings of glamour, fear, sensuality, and illusion. I love art that challenges our perception of reality. Through this piece, I want to capture a feeling of freedom and make people question how they view the world in comparison to the atmosphere and beyond. Are they that different? Why?
James Grant (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Drill
The piece you see before you is one that I really like. Taking pictures without any humans is my forte, which is why I like making art in that style. What I'm trying to convey with this piece is how our land has been completely covered and obscured by human-made creations, and is no longer fully "natural". The image depicts a drill used for large-scale construction, with the bottom being hidden behind a large chain link fence. The drill represents the rise of industrialization, and how we're destroying the naturally occurring things that we take for granted. The fence shows how we as a society try to cover this destruction up and ignore it. Instead of acknowledging the harm we're doing to our land, we'd rather be blind to it, and not have to face the issues we've caused for ourselves. I wanted my piece to be a bit on the dull side, to show that if the industrialization of our once completely untouched land keeps up, our future will be dreary.
Jayden Giraldi (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Unseen
As humans, we often overlook the small things and in taking the series I have gained a new appreciation for the small pleasures that make up our day-to-day lives.
The sheer size and complexity of nature can often be overwhelming, but by zooming in on these individual components, the series creates a sense of containment and security. The viewer is able to appreciate the beauty of the natural world without feeling intimidated by its vastness. The images are also incredibly tactile, as the textures of the various plants and flowers are brought to life through a high level of detail.
Overall, this series of photos offers a unique and captivating perspective on the natural world, inviting the viewer to slow down and appreciate the beauty that is often overlooked in our fast-paced lives.
Lilian Brussé (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
The Roadblock
This piece is about the insidious nature of the oppression of women in the modern world, and how that limits us from being able to fight for the land around us. As misogyny has become less acceptable in mainstream media, many oppressive forces have rebranded themselves: an expensive beauty regime is self-care, overworking is productivity, and dieting is health conscious. Oftentimes mainstream feminism enforces these ideas, it frames regression as progression and makes women believe that we are choosing to conform to patriarchal standards, we are choosing obedience. In reality, no option aside from an active fight against patriarchy is available to women. How can we collectively fight for the land we live on when fighting social constructs takes up so much of our energy? This confinement and false sense of choice is something that I wanted to highlight in this piece. This was shot digitally in natural light with very minimal editing.
Lucy Cash (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Meandering, her mess
My artwork is an exploration of girlhood in all its loss and beauty. I find the time between adolescence and adulthood such a rich grey area to explore, and I find I gravitate towards making art of that sort. I believe that with photography I am able to capture the unknowing and mess I strive to find in myself, past, present, and future. The balancing act that girlhood tends to become is complex and messy as one grows too old for scraped knees and ruddy cheeks. This period of time tends to be sexualized in our widespread culture when, in reality, it is raw and wild. The art I make, seek, and explore addresses the absurdity of the confines forced onto young girls when they’d much rather be messy in mind as well as body.
Marlowe Morren (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Coming and Going
Through this image I want to convey a sense of change and newness along with respect for the past. To ask how our land has changed through time and the history it holds. When looking for locations to take photos, I think of places that hold significance to me. This photo was taken at the Don Valley River, a very local spot where growing up my dad would take my siblings and I biking, and where I find myself visiting when I feel disconnected from not only the land but the people around me. How has the land changed since I was small, and how have I changed in comparison? If we all come from the land and return to it, we owe it something in return. I believe knowing where I come from is crucial to the person I am and the art I create.
Mia Contessa-Chopra (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Redirect
Immediately when I heard the prompt, “This Land” I thought about comparing nature and buildings. I have an interest in architecture and architectural photography and used this in my image. My image is a digitally manipulated print of a building with electrical wires crossing over it. I cut out pieces of the building where the electrical wires cross and underlaid an image I took of a beach. It has imagery almost like a mosaic, with the pictures of this wired-up city and towing, huge building over the peaceful, empty-looking beach, This contrast represents the diversity of the land here in Canada and even just Toronto, where you can find heavily urbanized areas as well as forests and beaches just outside (or even inside) the city. As well as this, it is also a commentary on how large buildings and condos are going up rapidly near and in Toronto's last few remaining natural spaces and almost “consuming” them..
Natalie Postolache (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Together Despite Our Differences
My trip to Arizona made me reflect on family dynamics and how they contrast. I expressed this through layering a photo of a mountain and a canyon. Mountains and canyons are quite the opposite, however, they are similar in a way of sharing the same ground, which I relate back to my family dynamics. We connect with each other through travelling but there is still a distance between us, such as one between a mountain and a canyon.
Paige Campbell (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Woven Earth
As an artist, my work is focused on exploring our relationship with the world around us and our place within it. I am interested in the interconnectedness of all things, both natural and cultural, and I aim to challenge preconceptions and open up spaces for play and ambiguity in the understanding of the world and ourselves. I draw inspiration from the complex relationships of the overlooked and often dismissed aspects of modern life. Notions of wonder are grounded in the mundane, to keep this supposed wonder you have to keep up the mundane. Ultimately, my goal is to create a dialogue between the viewer and the world around them, encouraging reflection on our place within the larger scheme of things.
Rachel Donaldson (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Reliance
I return to nature as a resort to make things real. I tend to lose touch of myself, and everything
around me when cooped up in a space, especially when I am going through a bad time. Nature
feels like one of the only things real to me. Even at a young age, I connected with nature so much, so many of my best memories are in nature enjoying the space around me and being
who I am. This is an appreciation for what nature has done for me, and one of the only things that I always come back to knowing it will provide me with the same feeling and moment of Reflection. It is as well a disappointment in myself for this reliance as the land is getting worse, and it becomes hard for nature to be one of the only things that ground me and makes me feel real.
Rachel Tischler (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Kiss it Better
Kiss it Better explores the complexities of emotions that are experienced in a confined space. My goal was to convey a sense of isolation, while also highlighting the significant moments of beauty and hope that can still be found within these constraints. I wanted to reflect on the usage of the land we stand on and how even with so much space we often confine ourselves to what we know, ultimately leading to dissatisfaction with the lives we lead. This piece was shot on 35mm film.
Shreya Shah (Agincourt C.I.)
Destructed Memories
The image is of the aftermath of an apple blossom tree that had grown in my backyard for longer than i’ve lived. This tree stayed as a strong foundation through my entire journey from the day I was born to recently when it was cut down for the subway expansion. Not only was a piece of our land taken, a piece of my identity was too. It’s beautiful textures are elevated by the sunlight, creating shadows. The result was a moment that yearned to be captured. The apple blossom tree signifies the everlasting impacts of this land on those who reside, such as myself.
Sophia Andrade-Gomes (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Tags
To me, land has become greatly about property and ownership. This can be seen with the significance of land ownership throughout history as well as how we choose where we call home today. These paper tags, made from manipulated scans of my belongings, are emblematic of this relationship. They show how what I own creates my own personal world. Written on each tag is information about the item. This process of researching everything I own helped me reconnect with my belongings. The tags create a self-portrait of me and what I value through ownership.
Sofia Lebovics (Etobicoke School of the Arts)
Terranean Detachment
The image is of the aftermath of an apple blossom tree that had grown in my backyard for longer than i’ve lived. This tree stayed as a strong foundation through my entire journey from the day I was born to recently when it was cut down for the subway expansion. Not only was a piece of our land taken, a piece of my identity was too. It’s beautiful textures are elevated by the sunlight, creating shadows. The result was a moment that yearned to be captured. The apple blossom tree signifies the everlasting impacts of this land on those who reside, such as myself.
Zek Peters (Agincourt C.I.)
Growing Old
I’m getting older, but I’m still acting like a child. I’m living a childish lifestyle in hopes that it will delay growing older.
Playing in parks was a huge part of my childhood. Making memories with my friends made those days even better. Two aspects of my childhood that would form the person I am today and still continue to shape who I am, as I grow older they continue to do so but now in different ways. Growing up is a scary thing and a lot of people like me attempt to delay the inevitable, but sooner or later we have that sudden realization that we can’t always be young. Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. In this land, everyone has their own special places from their childhood, and the park just so happens to be the place for quite a bit of people. So to be able to come back to these places even as we grow older is a very special thing. I hope that by looking at this photo people will be able to reminisce but also have that sudden realization if they have not already.
