Author Archives: sarahparadis

The artworks below represent ten students who have received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and are being trained to teach in secondary schools. Each student created their own digiCOVER.

I created this piece to show grief and loss during COVID-19. I had lost my Kokume (Grandmother) to the pandemic on December 21, 2020. She came to Winnipeg from our home community of Norway House Cree Nation to seek medical treatment. While she was in the hospital from November 1st, 2020 to her passing, sheContinue reading “Kokume”

I remember opening my grandmother Lilly’s matryoshka dolls on the carpet of her apartment when I was just old enough to walk. She taught my mother to sew, and then me. In my adult hands, these nesting dolls represent family, matrilineality, and the connections that exist across generations. Lilly’s Mask addresses the vulnerability of seniorsContinue reading “Lilly’s Mask”

Stress Levels Rising, is an artwork in which I speak about COVID-19 and the educational system. COVID has made an impact on students and not in a positive way. Using Photoshop, I represent the struggles of people in education feeling so overwhelmed they feel as though they are drowning. Young people in high school areContinue reading “Stress Levels Rising”

Inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, my work is an exploration of mental health and the concept of toxic positivity that is stifling the workplace. Employing the essence of the avant-garde movement, Dadaism, in this piece I use satire to point out the hypocrisy of mental health advocation within the education system. Clichés are the band-aids,Continue reading “Toxic Positivity”

In this digital collage I aim to address issues surrounding education while moving through a global pandemic. Our world is under crisis, education policy makers are trying to make decisions based on the needs of economic stability while seemingly placing the health and wellness of those in the actual schools aside. While people in schoolsContinue reading “Circus School”

This work was inspired by a report from UN Women about the rise of gendered violence due to the pandemic and accompanying circumstances. After further research my intention in creating this series was to shed light on what is being called the “Shadow Pandemic”. The black and white imagery serves two purposes for me. One,Continue reading “Shadow Pandemic”

Among the incredible challenges and strains healthcare workers face daily, COVID 19 has had a tremendous impact. Burnout, fatigue, anxiety, stress, and the overall well-being of our healthcare workers is steadily impacting their lives. In my artwork, RED, I am unveiling the suffocation that our healthcare workers face during COVID-19. Through portraiture and manipulation, IContinue reading “Red”

This chaotic imagery provides a look inside a teacher’s mind while teaching during COVID-19, and highlights the fact that life is stressful. There are many new precautions: so much so that the once-normal day in educators’ lives is now blurred. Teachers and school staff have added stresses on top of their regular duties contributing toContinue reading “COVID Teacher’s Brain”

I’ve always been drawn to making works that take on a visual and poetic tone. My artwork is about the loneliness and anxiety people have experienced during the isolated time of the COVID 19 pandemic. Nostalgia became a kind of narcotic, where people streamed movies and television endlessly re-watching and consuming media. It was veryContinue reading “I Carried A Watermelon”