CORH 499: Communication Capstone
Course Description from UBCO: “Team-conducted project that identifies and addresses a professional, community, or academic topic, demonstrating an awareness of audience and context. Integrates knowledge and skills acquired throughout the certificate program.”
Capstone Project: Destigmatization Campaign for Women’s Substance Use
In collaboration with the Karis Support Society, a campaign was developed to raise awareness on Women’s Substance Use in time for Karis’ destigmatization event on September 7th to celebrate Recovery Day—an annual Canadian celebration of those in recovery.
Moving Through Dissonance: Making-sharing-healing Workshop for Global Justice
Blog excerpt from the FEELed Lab: “On March 9th, 2024, a group of 18 interdisciplinary research partners, faculty, students and members of intersectional community activist groups came together at the FEELed Lab for the workshop “Moving Through Dissonance: Making-sharing-healing Workshop for Global Justice”. Together, we made zines, shared a meal, and collaborated on posters, postcards and other materials to distribute in the wider community.”
I was an artist-researcher for the FEELed Lab, a collaborative and interdisciplinary feminist environmental humanities field lab at UBCO. My job was to document a workshop and design distributable materials from the artwork made such as zines, posters, postcards and social media content. I also liaised with the printer, delivery of files and collection of printed products
Self-directed Project: Okanagan Geographic
These photos of urban wildlife were taken in walkable and public-transport accessible areas. It showcases how wildlife can be found anywhere if one has the dedication and patience, and perhaps some luck. As a photography class project, it was viewed in contemporary and fine art contexts where animal documentation and conservation are uncommon subjects.
Inspired by National Geographic, Okanagan Geographic is a fictional magazine prototype I produced, in hopes to explore the scientific and artistic fields of wildlife photography in a singular mixed medium. As a Visual Arts major and an executive of our school’s wildlife club, my wildlife photography was able to flourish in a way unique to my multidisciplinary practice. Okanagan Geographic was evidence of that culmination as an artist and being more acquainted with the wildlife in Kelowna, which can only grow from there. This open project was an opportunity to bring in the photography I do outside of a fine arts setting and make wildlife a part of it, since my previous projects had little or nothing to do with wildlife, it’s a chance to showcase what I do best. By blending modern and classic magazine layout styles, there’s a brand new context for my type of work to belong, via visual storytelling. I found Wildlife and Fine Art to collide in a sense where there’s always an undeniably overwhelming conflict between documentation, aesthetics, and technicality. Okanagan Geographic was a chance to experiment, gather knowledge about what makes a scientific record and a fine art print from both areas of expertise, and “even” out the playing field by bringing them together, and achieving cohesiveness. Since many of the photographs we see in fine art museums are different from those of natural history or science museums, my aim is to bring wildlife into what’s been considered an “elite” or “high class” space. What makes Okanagan Geographic appealing is that all the photos featured in the magazine are taken within public transport accessible locations. This in turn created an urban wildlife discourse in the process, and my images facilitate a most necessary discussion(s) in spaces where animals are not common subjects. One of which is about how the wildlife around us has learnt to adapt in order to live by us. Another is being able to see wildlife despite not having private transport, which is something I’ve struggled with during the duration of my stay in a place where driving is essential. Due to the general assumptions that we have to be in the middle of nowhere to see wild animals; I personally thought it was extremely important for people to learn that wildlife is everywhere if one has the dedication and patience, maybe a bit of luck but hard work gets rewarded. I realized there’s so much I did and still so much to discover, because no day occurs twice in the wild. The photos produced from this were later featured on the official National Geographic Photo Camp Instagram for World Wildlife Day.
CULT 390A: Environmental Justice, Epistemic Justice: Cultural Practices and Possibilities
Course Description from UBCO: “CULT 390 is a series of courses that examine various themes related to identities and power. This particular course examines systems of knowing constructed through colonialism, racism, capitalism and anthropocentrism and explore “epistemic” or knowledge interventions that permit different ways of creatively constructing community.”
My Environmental Justice Autobiography
This autobiography goes into how my relationship with nature has changed overtime, reflecting how my interest in photography deviated from nature to wildlife. It demonstrates how progress is not linear and how I eventually went back to my roots – appreciating nature without expectations.
CULT 272: Feminism and Environment
Course Description from UBCO: “Examines contributions of feminist theories and practice to understanding and addressing environmental change. Foregrounds the role of decolonial, anti-racist, disability justice and queer feminist perspectives in environmental justice, policy, art, and activism.”
Unfiltered Queer Animals: A Personal Field Guide
A zine I made for my final project discusses queerness as a natural phenomenon, how queerness exists in nature and the queerphobic arguments made against queer wildlife.
Nature’s Gatekeepers: A Research Blog on the Un/Natural
This is a research blog that dives into who and what is considered as natural. It exposes how the similar discrimination of urban wildlife and disabled folk in nature is intrinsically linked to the dichotomy of natural/unnatural being ableist and speciesist.
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CORH 331: Social Writing: Studies in Multimodal Communication
Practice-based approach to social media through writing studies’ scholarship, with a focus on rhetorical analysis of social writing in digital platforms that inform self-representation and connect with groups/communities.
Narrative
Based on Chella Man’s TED Talk, “Becoming Him,” my focus is how LGBTQ+ issues aren’t talked about enough due to misconceptions of queerness being a choice and an abnormality. I broke down how queerness is seen as a choice and not a natural phenomenon and discuss expectations of gender performance and going beyond the gender binary with terms like genderqueer and non-binary, a.k.a “non-conventional” gender identities that don’t align with male and female. I’ll also go into the importance of visibility for future generations and how queerness grants freedom cishteronomativity has suppressed, and those who conform to gender norms feel threatened by the “audacity” of queer people loving themselves.
Research Project Proposal
According to ICBC, it is reported that an estimated number of 25,000 animal deaths are caused by wildlife vehicle collisions in BC annually (WCPP, n.d.-a). In a hypothetical collaboration with the British Columbia Conservation Foundation (BCCF), the Wildlife Collision Prevention Program was founded in 2001 to address the regular occurrence of these accidents (WCPP, n.d.-b). As a wildlife photographer and lover, this is an issue I want to resolve. Therefore, I will take advantage of social media as a digital learning resource (Bezemer and Kress, 2008) and assist the WCPP in growing their existing media campaign #IBreakForWildlife — creating educational posts on various information such as: the animals commonly involved, what type of roads they frequent, why wildlife collisions happen, and how to prevent them; as well as: fun facts about wildlife collisions, why people should care and provide guidance on good tourist and wildlife photography ethics. Additionally, I will expand that campaign offline with posters and infographics for non internet users to access. The range provided raises maximum awareness for road safety, brings out the altruism in people to care for others and non-human animals, and eventually cause lesser wildlife collisions.
CORH 321: Personal and Professional Identity and Interpersonal Communication
Multidisciplinary concepts of and approaches to identity and agency in personal and professional interpersonal communication settings, face-to-face and online. Fosters application of communication skills and enactments of agency in dyadic and collaborative contexts.
Community Service Learning (CSL) Project
Along with a few other classmates, we were tasked to create a total of three social media posts and a poster for the Karis Support Society. These were to raise awareness about the work Karis does and promote the Recovery Day event they’re co-hosting with other similar organizations and sponsors. These assets were mostly catered to those in recovery, and the people directly related to them such as loved ones (friends and family). However, the target audience was not to be limited to people who are already involved, for as long as one supports the cause and wants to find out more, they are our ideal target audience.
The first post was an invitational post directed to all that would like to support and want to raise awareness about the issue by gathering with a like-minded community for the occasion. The second post is saying thanks to those that attended the event or supported the event through other means.
The motifs implemented are accurate to what the event envisions and what the posts are trying to express respectively: while the invitational post has more fun, love and family day atmosphere, the right has more community and support driven motifs to showcase that same sense received from the event.
Speech Making
I decided to talk about zoos and the negative misconceptions around them as I was inspired by my own life experience with them. Although our two speeches did not have to be related, I decided to keep my persuasive speech on zoos. I personally felt that following up with a speech that brought zoos to justice after my informative speech will only make both of them stronger.
My informative speech consisted of teaching audiences about my chosen subject, the zoo. I explained what a zoo is by connecting it to people’s various experiences of interacting with non-domesticated animals. Whereas my persuasive speech hopes to change peoples’ minds about zoos being bad. I address concerns about zoos stuffing animals in cages for the public to gawk at and elaborates on what role zoos play in animal well-being.
Conflict Management Paper
I assessed the father-son conflict between Benjamin and Dylan Mee from the movie, “We Bought a Zoo” using concepts we learnt in class. This fictional conflict represented many realistic conflicts between parents and children. I was able to present conflict management strategies by explaining the context of this conflict, why it happened and how it could have been prevented.
Writing this paper reminded me of how difficult cultivating argumentativeness by remaining dispassionate is since intermediate family members are the people who should be there for you no matter what. I also came to understand the struggles of a parent who has to cope with loss while still bearing the responsibility to ensure their kids can get by. The necessity for both parties to be vulnerable because teenagers are rebellious and parents are also only human, requires compromise through respecting boundaries and accommodating each others’ needs.