Skip to content

Author: yiaramagazine

Dressed for the Gods: Women, Modernity, and Neoclassical Fashion in Post-Revolutionary France – Mackenzie Aker

In art and in life, the past is consistently revived to speak to concerns of the present. In the late 1700s, interest in the Classical era was stimulated by significant archaeological discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum, placing the art and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean at the forefront of European cultural discourses. These discoveries led to a movement of both male and female makers who drew inspiration from art, literature, and utopian ideas surrounding antique cultures and incorporated them into their contemporary practices.

The Subversions of Angel Zárraga: From Saint Sebastian to Soccer Players – Sam Lirette

Angel Zárraga (1886–1946)  is a Mexican-born painter who spent most of his professional life in Paris. After establishing roots in Cubism, the artist abandoned the style in favour of a more classicist style. Characterized by a desire for a retour à l’ordre, this return to classicism became a recurring theme with European (especially Parisian) artists of the early twentieth century1. Particularly, this outlined increasing anxieties concerning the degradation of traditional gender roles, such as the emasculation of men and increased social mobility of women2. I argue that Zárraga’s formal shifts do not speak of such anxieties, but rather illustrate an exceptional critique of the aforementioned expectations.  I aim to demonstrate how the homoeroticism present in Zárraga’s paintings subverts traditional norms and provides an intensely modern viewpoint, namely through role reversals and a play with sexual ambiguity.

Interwar Anxieties Through Female Representations, Between Paris and Mexico – Alice Pessoa de Barros

The interwar period saw many social and political changes in Europe and Latin America. Europe suffered countless deaths during World War I, women were increasingly present in the workforce, and Paris, as the center of the art world, became home to numerous foreign artists. These changes brought anxieties with regards to depopulation and xenophobia, as this new influx of foreign artists was well-received, but not without compromises.

I am/becoming the stories I tell – Matt Sanderson

Throughout my time at Concordia, my studies in Art History have served as a way to both inform and inspire the work I do in my studio practice. In particular, I have always been fascinated with the tradition of portraiture in painting and photography, and its intimate relationship with ideas of performativity in gender and sexual identity. Through costume, setting, and body language, the subject of a portrait is capable of visually embodying a kind of mysterious and indescribable energy, one that is able to speak to the viewer’s own experience of gender and sexuality.

A Spotlight on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Artists – Meera Raman

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists are often left out of the conversation, especially when it comes to representation in the media. “There has been a very long-standing history of invisibility and narrow representation of Asian Americans in media,” says  Chriistine Minji Chang, the global executive director of Kollaboration, in an interview with NPR.  Kollaboration is an organization that works to create spaces for Asian American musicians. In the spirit of creating space, this article highlights four upcoming and established AAPI artists, as well as their incredible work.

“La source de la honte est aussi celle des plus grandes voluptés”. Horreurs et puissances du désir – Léa Beauchemin-Laporte

Le roman Méduse (2020) de Martine Desjardins donne à voir « l’expérience subjective de la laideur, considérée dans sa double polarité : d’une part telle qu’elle est vécue par ceux que l’on considère comme laids et, d’autre part, telle qu’elle est éprouvée par celui qui ressent une impression de laideur et désigne une personne comme laide ». La narratrice, surnommée Méduse, y est désignée comme un être abominable. À travers son récit, elle nous donne accès au regard que celleux qui la trouvent hideuse portent sur elle, mais aussi au sien, rempli de honte.

Lire la romance – Lune Wagner

Il est parfois reproché à la romance de perpétuer des stéréotypes misogynes comme la glorification de la féminité (au désavantage de l’esprit, de l’intelligence ou de l’humour), ou bien la soumission des femmes dans les scènes érotiques. Alors, pourquoi lire la romance lorsqu’elle semble participer à l’enracinement d’une société sexiste  ? 

Study of a Dream – Gazelle Bastan

Study of a Dream documents my personal experience of being creatively inspired by a recurring dream. While painting, I felt like I was almost meditatively probing into this dream, reimagining it in deeper detail in order to depict it visually. The Persian carpet motifs in this piece are based on my own lived experience and interpretation of Persian social traditions and stereotypes.

Women I love in their Bedrooms – Magali Bélair-Boileau

Magali Bélair-Boileau is a Montreal-based artist, born in 1998, who is currently pursuing a BFA in Painting and Drawing at Concordia University. She is interested in the domestic environment, specifically the symbolic meaning embedded in the objects that surround and occupy a place in our lives as well as the relationship we develop with them. Through her painted portraits, Bélair-Boileau creates visual testimonies of people’s interpersonal relationships and bonds with their personal space.

Le Lin, 不要泄露或隐瞒我 / don’t reveal or conceal me

Back in 2017, I dedicated a month to myself. I screen-printed 6 blank shirts with the words “不要泄露或隐瞒我 / don’t reveal or conceal me” and wore them every day throughout that month. This project reflected the places my mind was going to – places of internalized gender disorientation and of navigating the performative aspects of walking through the world in a Chinese queer/trans body.

Taking the Spotlight: A Conversation with Journalist Wendy Lu – Meera Raman

Wendy Lu was destined to become a writer. “I have always wanted to be a journalist,” she said over Zoom, with a smile on her face. “I was on the newspaper back in high school and middle school and before that, when I was very little, I created my own neighbourhood newspaper. It was just something that I always wanted to do, mainly because I loved writing.”

Parlons punk ? – Lune Wagner

Prends un café et ton imagination, je t’emmène à Olympia, capitale de l’État de Washington. On est dans les années 70 lorsqu’un nouveau campus pointe le bout de son pavillon : l’université publique d’Evergreen.