At The Show, Emily Carr University students exhibit everything from ink paintings to woven ocean plastics
Graduating artists Wol-Un, Eden Eisses, Asad Aftab, and Claudia Goulet-Blais share insights on the works they’ll have on display
Wol-Un’s The Snow Dance of the Red Crowned Crane, 2025, ink and colour on hanji (Korean mulberry paper) and silk scroll.
Vessel from Eden Eisses’s “Tide Toss” series.
Emily Carr University of Art + Design presents The Show from May 7 to 21
A VR MUSIC-VIDEO experience and a tapestry woven from ocean plastic are just a couple of the works that will be on display at The Show.
Put on annually by the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, the exhibition highlights pieces by the school’s graduating students—and this year, that’s over 420 emerging artists. Offerings range from fine-art mediums like illustration, photography, ceramics, and sculpture to 2D and 3D animation, industrial-design pieces, and beyond.
Among the exhibiting artists is Wol-Un, a.k.a. Sun-Nam Manuel, a Seattle-born international student who specializes in seohwa, which is the Korean term for calligraphy and ink painting. He’ll have his work The Snow Dance of the Red Crowned Crane on display at the Great Northern Way campus. The intricate ink-and-colour painting done on hanji (Korean mulberry paper) and then mounted on a silk scroll took him several weeks to plan, and then just two days to paint. Unlike acrylic or oil paint, ink dries quickly and cannot be adjusted after it’s on the page, so he had to work swiftly and decisively.
“One thing that I want people to know about The Show,” Wol-Un tells Stir, “is that whether or not artists or designers have the intention of working in the commercial field, or whether or not they’re doing it for activism and social justice, or whether or not they’re doing it for personal practice, I think all of us at Emily Carr in this graduating class are quite proud of the work we’re presenting.”
Wol-Un is about to graduate with a bachelor of fine arts degree. Last year, he received an Audain Travel Award, a $7,500 grant that allows full-time fine arts students at B.C. universities to travel abroad and further their creative practices. Just a week after his ECUAD convocation ceremony in May, he’ll put the award to use as he embarks on a monthlong trip to South Korea. Starting in Seoul, Wol-Un will travel south on the peninsula, all the way to Jeju Island.
“For me, it’s such an amazing opportunity—because I work in ink painting, which relies heavily on nature motifs and landscapes—to be able to travel not only in the major capital city, but also through countryside areas and through more natural landscapes and scenery,” he says.
Claudia Goulet-Blais’s Untitled I from the “Hidden Daughter” series, 2025, inkjet print and porcelain.
Claudia Goulet-Blais’s Entre ce qui nous sépare, ce qui nous lie (Between what separates us, what unites us), 2025, porcelain and found archival imagery.
Among the hundreds of other artists exhibiting at The Show is Montreal-born, Vancouver-based master of fine arts student Claudia Goulet-Blais, who works primarily in the realm of photography to explore family dynamics and the complexity of care. Two of her works will be shown in the Libby Leshgold Gallery on campus: Untitled I from the “Hidden Daughter” series, a photograph that shows Goulet-Blais and her mother under a swath of patterned fabric; and Entre ce qui nous sépare, ce qui nous lie (Between what separates us, what unites us), which features found photographs from the Vancouver Flea Market that depict mother–child relationships, set on pieces of porcelain using a decal transfer method.
“The ‘Hidden Daughter’ photograph was basically inspired by 19th-century hidden mother photography, which was when mothers would be covered by fabric to hold their child for long exposure times so that the child wouldn’t be blurry in the image or move,” Goulet-Blais explains. “I thought it was an interesting way to kind of focus on the gesture—the hands and the touch in the image between the two. And I also felt as though it spoke to the woman taking on the labour of care in the home.”
When it comes to The Show, Goulet-Blais says she enjoys the challenge of adapting her works site-specifically—which she’s also recently done for two of her other pieces, Care in Action and Étreintes Maternelles. Both are currently on display at the historic Edward Hotel on Water Street as part of this year’s Capture Photography Festival, in the group exhibition Piggybacks Through the Living Room. Goulet-Blais just received the Griffin x ECU Fellowship Studio Award, and will begin a four-month studio residency and workshop-teaching period after graduation.
Asad Aftab, a master of design student specializing in interactive design, will have his mini-exhibition Isolated Systems on display. It encompasses the trilogy “Dream/State” (which features outer-space ambient sound and cinematography), VR films that draw on music videos for inspiration, 17 stereo 3D photography prints, and more.
“Working in VR, one of the biggest things that I enjoy is showing my work, because it’s a relatively uncommon kind of thing for the general public to experience,” Aftab shares. “You just don’t see it as much, as opposed to more traditional art forms. So it’s really nice to see people put on a headset for the first time. And I have been fortunate enough to give a lot of people their first VR experience, so I’m excited to do that more.”
Elsewhere on campus, fourth-year industrial design student Eden Eisses will exhibit her series “Tide Toss”. It features a tapestry, bag, and vessel woven out of marine plastic gathered by Richmond’s Ocean Legacy Foundation. The series exemplifies her larger practice, in which she uses textiles, metals, woods, and plastics to investigate the balance between humans and their surrounding environment.
Stereo 3D photography print from Asad Aftab’s “Dreams in Stereo” series.
When Eisses speaks to Stir by phone, it’s set-up day for The Show, and she’s starting to witness the exhibition take form after months in the making.
“The Show is a great place to see where so many of our diverse communities in Vancouver come together and create,” she says. “We have just such a beautiful body of people here. And I think it really does come through with the work without anyone really needing to say anything. It is definitely very powerful to see.”
Opening night will take place May 7 from 6 pm onwards, and after that the free exhibition will be open daily to the public during regular campus hours.
Wol-Un, who says his practice has evolved drastically during his time at Emily Carr, calls The Show “a moment of pride” for many artists whose friends and family will get to see their creations for the first time.
“We have one of the largest graduating classes here in the history of the school, so there’s going to be some amazing work there,” he shares. “And just as excited as I am to present work, I’m honestly really excited to be a spectator and an audience member in all of this. So I hope people who come to visit, who are not necessarily related to Emily Carr outside of being in the community, are just as excited as well.” 
Related Articles
