Event:  OCAD DNA

Date:  May 10, 2008

Location:  OCAD

Seeing new talent from graduating students at Ontario College Art & Design's DNA show makes one wonder which of them will fulfill the promise of commercial success to back up their imaginations and skills. There are a lot of strange minds in art schools, probably more in the arts installations side, than the prototype designs for mainstream tastes for future products. However, imagination does show growth and change which is needed for mental stimulation.  Tinka Magocsi's dress gown designs made of native grasses and fibres would probably be a high fashion mark for natives in tropical islands such as Hawaii and Polynesia.  Definitely unusual for those materials!  Jacqueline  Pytyck's illustrations for a cookbook 'Cold Shoulder and Other Recipes' were complex and unique, probably worth framing on walls.  Benjamin Lemar's school chair desk designed for collaborative, rather than competitive, interaction between student peers, would be wonderful in open space concept schools!  He said he's approached a school board for potential funding.  It would work for team work in schools and corporations he said where no one really can do work entirely on his own, but has to collaborate with others.  His business card is a clear disposable plastic eyeglass shape cut in one flexible piece.  Maybe if these 3 succeed in the mainstream, imagination does have its place in society, like building blocks of dna that eventually form an entire living being.