Theme: New Voices

From vibrations to waves to sound, we are always evolving and learning from fresh, unique voices. With a community so dynamic, you are bound to hear something from them that you have never heard before. Let these new voices reframe your context, introduce you to unfamiliarity and challenge your perspectives.

Emily Carr University of Art + Design
520 E 1st Ave
Vancouver, British Columbia, V5T 0H2
Canada

Andrew Lowell

Composer / 3D Artist and Trainer

Andrew Lowell has worked professionally for decades in visual effects and sound engineering. Since authoring a book on the generation of sound with graphics programs, he's well-known in visual effects circles for bringing the graphical and musical worlds together. He maintains heavy involvement in creating workflows and software tools to combine the visual and musical spheres, and he often delivers lectures on his developments. His continuing goals are to form bridges between visual phenomena present in movie-making and aural phenomena in music and sound, as well as pursuing his personal work in generative music and sound synthesis.

Anne Shand

Occupational Therapist

Anne has an extensive history of working as a Mental Health Practitioner with individuals of all ages and in a variety of clinical settings. This history includes a passion for understanding the depths and complexity of mental illnesses that go beyond stereotypes and assumptions. While working on a qualitative study in 2004 about the lived experiences of men residing in an inner-city shelter, she realized the ease to which she made assumptions to the exclusion of understanding the complexity and depths of individuals trapped in a cycle of homelessness. Her talk is about the personal experience of challenging assumptions that led to new discoveries.

Casey Hrynkow Shewchuk

Design Researcher/Design Strategist

Casey Hrynkow Shewchuk has made a profession out of her curiosity. She is constantly asking “Why?” and “Why not?”. Working as a Design Researcher and Design Strategist, Casey uses Design Thinking tools to help communities imagine different and better futures. These disarming tools help people think in unfamiliar ways. Out of this work comes fresh and — sometimes —ground-breaking thinking. Casey is Senior Design Strategist with Ion Brand Design in Vancouver and a member of Emily Carr University of Art and Design’s Sessional Faculty, where she has taught for the last 15 years.

Deepali Raiththa

Visual and Performance Artist + Creative Director at DRC

Asserting vehemently the power of now, and juggling her time in travelling to and fro the cultural localities, the artist claims the significance of being perpetually in the state of now rather than contemplating over history. Pondering over the answers to the questions that daily life unfolds to her, she is in a constant process of dropping delusions developing within herself that binds any individual. The virtue of unexpected happenings and the experiences that are generated being stranger is delicate and momentary, the feeling is fragile and withers immediately. It is the same moment that is expected by the artist to capture but not seize and keep aiming towards the same by not clinging to them.

Eric Tsoi

User Experience Designer

Eric Tsoi is a Vancouver-based user experience designer and a Master of Design candidate at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His childhood experiences working as a close-up magician, educational background in computer science and psychology, and passion for optimizing health have led him to explore how behavioural insights can be applied in interactive technologies to improve health and wellness in everyday life. Eric’s graduate research investigates how these techniques can be used to facilitate the habit formation process and aims to teach people how they can use behavioural insights to achieve their own self-defined goals.

Jiaqing Chen

Filmmaker + Dancer

Jiaqing Chen is an independent animator, photographer and dancer. Born in Guangzhou, China and raised in Canada. She graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2018 and directed the animated theme reveal short film for TEDxEmilyCarrU 2019 “Greater Than You”. Aside from filmmaking and dancing, she has an interest in observing human behaviours and finding phenomena, as well as exploring a wide span of hobbies including photography, songwriting, singing and travelling alone. She believes that life should be a fun adventure of exploration and experiments and she strives to do the same in her creative process.

June Tang

Interaction Designer

Moving from Ho Chi Minh City to Vancouver to do a Bachelor's Degree in Interaction Design, June is interested in how design and her cultural background can be combined to reconsider social structures, both in personal and public spaces. June is constantly finding ways to negotiate the cultural differences in her life through design, illustration, music, and food. When she is (rarely) not working, she can be found illustrating, writing sad fiction, or trying out various coffee places that Vancouver has to offer.

Kenneth Chang

Customer Success Associate

Kenneth Santos Chang is a graduate of the Singapore Management University where he completed his Masters Degree in Business Management. Having lived in Canada, Singapore, and the Philippines, his passion for philanthropy and self-development led him to work with global brands and non-profit organizations. He has seen first hand the consequences a business faces when empathy isn’t cultivated and authenticity is lost. With the exaggerated emphasis on social media metrics and quantifiable measures, people have lost sight of the emotional and human connection. This pushed him on a mission to bring awareness of this topic in the community.

Natalie Gagnon

Art Director, Publication Designer, Brand Strategist + Design Educator

Natalie Gagnon is a Vancouver-based art director, publication designer, and design educator who brings brands, content and minds to life. For her, strategic design and crystal clear communication must always intersect regardless of medium, place, or audience. Successful communication—visual and non-visual—is achieved through the creation of immediacy and icon. Immediacy, the need to communicate information effectively, and icon, a strong and memorable form, are interdependent. Whether in her classrooms at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and Simon Fraser University or designing for clients in the private sector, Natalie inspires students to be passionate designers and empowers brands to live their most distinct life. nataliegagnon.ca

Stephanie Carter

Illustrator + Entrepreneur

Stephanie Carter is a Vancouver based creative entrepreneur and illustrator who works with agencies and brands to communicate through the voice of illustration. After spending 15+ years in the illustration industry Stephanie knows how illustration can bring concepts to life in marketing and communications. Illustration can add mood and impact that can truly engage the viewer in a different way than photography. Stephanie has worked with many Fortune 500 companies including Time Inc, and is a two-time winner of the Lotus Award for “Best Illustration in Advertising”. In addition to Stephanie’s illustration business, she is the owner of www.imagezoo.com a stock illustration company representing over 400 artists worldwide. Stephanie is also the creator of an art licensing brand under the pseudonym Lily Ashbury with a range of products including stationery, fabrics and gift items. Stephanie has also taught at both Emily Carr and Capilano University.