Laurel Hart's Master's thesis is an action research investigation entitled Life as they know it: Teaching photography to teens for cross-cultural understanding and identity development within community art education. 

Hart's research investigates how art can be used to aid in community building, individual development and further contribute to social justice - this often leads to interdisciplinary and non-traditional applications of art.  Her artwork and teaching includes photography (both digital and darkroom), community-based interventions, relational artwork, new media and web-based art and installations which involve sound, projection and photographs manipulated and printed on paper and fabric. 

Night Lights, Hart's most recent work as an artist, invites members of the community to contribute lessons they have learned in their life.  These quotes are then made into LED lit installations around Montreal. 

MA in Art Education student

Memory Forest: A Self-Portrait represents Jessica Aylsworth's inquiry into memory as a territory of the mindscape, and how memories contribute to our sense of self.  Memories reveal and speak towards what is important to an individual and one's values, nature and experiences.  With this work, Alysworth wanted not only to reveal some of her own memories, but also to comment on the nature of memories themselves. She created an installation where the viewer can walk amongst her personal memories, while also contemplating the nature of memories in general.

MA in Art Education student Scott Macleod's project documents 21 of the key residential and industrial buildings and historical sites remaining in Griffintown, an historic Montreal neighbourhood that birthed the Industrial Revolution in Canada and was once home to a large immigrant community.  His project was designed to expose the public to an important historic region of Montreal and to celebrate the memories of the people, the industry and the history of Griffintown. 

Building off the approach of his previous projects, Macleod began to research this project by photographing a selection of key buildings and sites of interest within the commonly accepted borders of Griffintown: the Lachine Canal to the south and Notre-Dame, McGill and Guy Streets to the north, east and west, respectively. 

Photography, drawing and animation have been used to create a visual record of these sites.  Combined with brief histories and a Google map, Macleod plans to make images and animations will be freely available online for those wishing to take a self-guided tour at www.griffintowntour.com

María Ezcurra is a student in the PhD program in Art Education. Her research re-contextualize garments, transforming them to create reconfigurations and experiences. She converts clothes into structures that contain the body's absence, reverting the principle of sculpture when placing the meaning in the mold. Recently here work was exhibit at the New City Gas in Griffintown, for the Nuit Blanche 2011 in Montreal. Maria states:

With my work, I often un-make, re-contextualize or I re-group garments, transforming them to create new reconfigurations and experiences. I convert clothes into structures that contain the body's absence, reverting the principle of sculpture when placing the meaning in the mold. Making my pieces is like carrying out an autopsy in which I let see the interior - physical or symbolic- like an external skin, starting from its negative to remit to the body.

To see more of Maria's work, visit the artist's website.