WRITING
Academic Paper: Analyzing Cindy Sherman’s 1984 Fashion Photographs with Donna J. Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto
Relevant Disciplines: Art History; Media Studies
Written in 2020, this paper was composed as coursework for ARTH480, an art history class on Visual and Digital Media Theory at UBC. Ultimately, the work proposes a new method for examining Sherman's artworks. In particular, I posit that Donna J. Haraway's concept of the Woman as Cyborg should be used as a frame of reference when analyzing the artist's self-portraits in relation to feminist politics and to the idea of the simulacrum.
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Having written extensively on Sherman's oeuvre throughout my undergraduate degree, this paper largely represents a culmination of all my research on the artist in the past couple of years.
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A Novel: The Quiet and the Warm
Genre: Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Mystery
In 2010, I set out to write this novel, setting a personal goal that I would finish a first draft in six years. In December 2016, I completed my first manuscript, one that bears a total word count of over 200,000 words.
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The Quiet and the Warm is duology that revolves around a secret family history and a discovery of true identities. From the early 1900's, to the mid 1950's to the modern day, it shifts in between different time periods and generations. Moreover, it shifts between two worlds-- the bustling and contemporary city of Vancouver, B.C. and the hidden and utopian-like valley of Myrtledale. Ultimately, it is in the hopes of uncovering forgotten past events that the novel's protagonists eventually achieve individuation.
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A Short Story:
What the Water Gave Me
Genre: Historical Fiction
This is a short story that I wrote for a creative writing class. As part of the project, a fictional book cover was created to supplement the composition.
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The story opens in 1890, when the district of Spitalfields in East London has become the epitome of crime, prostitution, and destitution in Victorian England. Living under such conditions is a young woman... from the upper class. After being accused of bearing an illegitimate child and cast out of all polite society, she has been residing in the slums as a penniless prostitute and mother, holding onto life only because of her will to protect her son. As the difficulty of doing so increases at an alarming rate, she soon grasps onto decisions that will ultimately alter the course of her and her son's life forever. Suspenseful and spiritual, the tale confronts questions of human existence by addressing the themes of redemption and self-growth.
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