Way Shape or Form

We are delighted to introduce WAY SHAPE OR FORM – a new series of artist-led instructional videos that invite young viewers to take their first steps in making art or jumpstart their creativity with new ideas.

Each short video offers useful and accessible tips, techniques and inspiration for launching into the creative process to artfully reimagine the everyday, transform the present, or envision the future.

Producer & Editor: Dainesha Nugent-Palache
Production Assistance: Patricia Ritacca
Music composed by Dainesha Nugent-Palache

Episode 1: Kendra Yee
First in this series, we have commissioned artist Kendra Yee to produce a brief tutorial on making zines.

Kendra Yee is an arts practitioner based out of Toronto. Yee pulls tales from her personal history, lived experiences and collective narratives to develop site specific installations that carve new archives, seeking ways to materialize the truths and fictions of memory. Through exploring multi-media paintings, ceramic sculptures, and found objects she develops alternative societies to document these conversations.

Yee studied at OCAD U receiving a bachelors in Design, specializing in illustration (2017). Yee is the director of Speech Project, funded by ArtReach and the Toronto Arts Council, which focuses on providing programming to youth through visual storytellings and illustration techniques (held at DPNCHC, 2018-2019). She will be continuing this program fall of 2020, participating with the Artists in the Libraries Residency.

Yee has programmed at a variety of local and international arts organizations including The AGO, Toronto Public Library, OCAD U, TIFF, The Drake Hotel, and Razorbill Publishing. She has exhibited at Xpace Culture Centre, Patel Gallery, The Letter Bet, Chromatic, and recently exhibited at Juxtaprojects, an offsite gallery space in collaboration with Juxtapoz Magazine (NYC).

Episiode 2: Maddy Mathews
Artist Maddy Mathews prompts young creatives to envision and construct their dream room with materials they have around their homes.

Maddy Mathews is an artist working primarily in drawing, painting and installation. Maddy has participated in Roundtable Residency, performed at Nuit Blanche and the performance art show Doored, curated by Life of a Craphead. She has a public access TV show about her sword called Sword Stuff, and in 2018 designed a t-shirt for punk icon Kathleen Hanna's charity Tees4Togo. In 2012 she was the class valedictorian for NSCAD University where she obtained her BFA. Her work has been shown across Canada. Maddy is currently an MFA candidate at Concordia University in Montreal.

Episode 3: Cristal Buemi
Animator and educator Cristal Buemi teaches viewers to create stop motion videos using the 'replacement animation' technique. This imaginative medium can turn everyday things into magical shape-shifters, seamlessly facilitating the transformation of one object into another.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Canada, Cristal Buemi holds a BA from Ryerson University and an MA from Bau, Design College of Barcelona. She has created multilingual works through the use of stop motion animation, collage, photography and digital design. Her work pushes frame-by-frame boundaries by exploring the materiality and inherent beauty found in the minutia. Both her collaborative and individual works have been exhibited in Europe, North and South America.

Cristal’s passion for pedagogy and creative expression has enabled her involvement in the art education community with various organizations such as TIFF, SKETCH, Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS), The Koffler Centre of the Arts and Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada. As a facilitator she has had the opportunity to work with participants of various ages and backgrounds by leading artistic workshops, talks, camps and courses to help advance their creative practices.