As part of a group of third-year Visual Studies students at the University of Toronto, I took part in a studio practice course which facilitated space for the development of individual art practices.

Under the guidance of beloved professor and artist Kara Hamilton, each student worked with the theme of practice and failure. This theme was inspired by the issue of failing, notably in an academic setting. The fear of failure often holds us back from the journey of artistic process; the worry of making something good overwhelms the joy of creation.

In the fall of 2023, this group of about thirty students from different backgrounds, worked alongside one another to create a collection of pieces which explores this issue of practice/failure through the lens of each unique lived experience.

My contribution was a suspended textile installation. Working with a delicate base of tissue paper, I built up textiles, scent oils, paint, beads, and thread, forming a skin‑like structure that tore and mended as I worked, echoing the ways the body holds both trauma and care. Bright yarns, playful beads, and sweet scents like strawberry were layered over more visceral, flesh- and wound‑like elements, reflecting the tension between adornment and the raw realities of living in a body. Techniques like sewing, felting, dyeing, crocheting, weaving, knitting, burning, and embroidering let me shape the piece as an extension of the flesh: a textured, visceral form that holds both beauty and grotesqueness. Hanging in space, the work reflects on failure as an embodied experience, asking whether our attempts to mask the “ugliness” of the organic body are themselves a kind of beauty.