I am a fashion designer.
I am an art historian.
I am a programmer.
But I am also neither.
I despise the waste and capitalist hierarchy of the fashion industry.
I despise the colonial past and present of museal institutions.
I despise my dependency for digital tools and entertainment.
I like to think of where these disciplines intersect.
I ask these questions:
Can the history of clothing inform largely on the spirit of an era?
Can digital artforms benefit museums in their display of historical clothing?
Can digital video games be included in traditional exhibition spaces and art education?
Can my art practice answer these questions?
I am a designer.
I am someone who likes problems: thinking, evolving, solving.
I am someone who prefers written words to images and who thrives with logic gates.
I am inspired by human beings, their beauty, their flaws.
I am a firm believer in beautiful things as necessary, never dismissible.
I am, also, an anaphora lover.
I am creative and curious. When I look back at my academic path, I feel like I had to be creative and curious to land where I am today.
In high school, I was a talented violinist and was encouraged to pursue this avenue in CEGEP. Yet, music was a relief to me, and I could not imagine losing that over financial needs.
I asked myself what I could make instead. Fashion was my answer. I believed – and still believe – that clothes are wearable art with the ability to be loved in ways other art forms cannot.
I pursued this avenue past CEGEP until my experience at the École Supérieur de Mode suggested that to sell my designs I had to sustain a persona and that creation and marketing were intertwined more than I knew.
Luckily, the summer before I enrolled at ESM, I won this training opportunity by volunteering at Vestech Pro research center. They taught me about intelligent fashion garments and their potential. They brought us to Concordia’s Textile and Materiality Labs and introduced the Computation Arts Specialization.
I had this idea to attend St Martins in London for their master's in fashion history. Because if now fashion design was not in line with my aspirations, I still found clothing history fascinating. But, for this to come true, I needed an undergraduate diploma.
The degree I was introduced to at Concordia was the bridge I needed. It allowed me to keep in touch with fashion design and technology. I joined the Art History Minor and focused on classes where I could research and learn about fashion and textile history.
I did not expect to find programming and logical gates that attractive. I never thought I would regret not taking mathematics in CEGEP, but here I was. I liked the potential of digital artifacts and their interactivity. I loved how fashion was interactive, but the array of experiences I could create with code was so wide I could not resist.
So, I dived in. I discovered various technologies and found myself in procedural texturing and WEBGL environments. It felt like I had unlocked new powers within myself.
As I could see my degree coming to an end, I had to consider my next step.
The things I dislike most about digital creation are that blue light burns my eyes and makes my head ache, I temporarily forget how to interact with humans, and it gives me the worst posture.
For my last year as a student, I decided that UX design had the potential to satisfy my love for interaction, and my comfort in logic gates, but, moreover, to put my experience in customer service to use. Because from 16 to 25 years old, my jobs have always been in that sector.
I am at ease with the public and like to understand the needs of others to provide help or solutions. I suspect that UX may balance it all and provide new opportunities to learn about user needs and realities I never encountered. I think it should keep me creative and curious.
I am not only a student and will not only be an employee in this life. I pride myself in being these things too: a martial artist, a ballet dancer, a video game player, a weaver, a foodie, a traveler, a knitter, a plant mother, a bonsai enthusiast, a sister, a girlfriend, a daughter, and a caring friend.