OCAD University is proud to announce the 2025-26 recipients of the OCAD University Medal, awarded annually to one student from each undergraduate program in recognition of their creativity, innovation, mastery of technique and high academic achievement.
Works by the 18 medal recipients are on view as part of GradEx 111, Toronto’s largest free art and design exhibition, featuring work by more than 800 emerging artists, designers and digital media creators.
GradEx 111 is open to the public from May 6 to 10 at 100 McCaul St., with the Industrial Design program exhibits at 115 McCaul St.
This year’s presenting sponsors are Hullmark and BGO.
Join us in celebrating the OCAD U Medal recipients and learn more about their work below!
Advertising
Vivian Si Zeng is an art director fueled by a love of documentaries, endless questions and an obsessive design brain. Her work has been recognized by The One Club for Creativity and the Advertising & Design Club of Canada.
Creative Writing
Artemis Reed is a writer and artist currently residing in Toronto. They specialize in long-form fiction, with a knack for the fantastical and otherworldly.
Criticism and Curatorial Practice
Asia Ruggiero is a T’karonto-based artist-curator whose work bridges socially conscious curation with playful, imaginative artmaking. Her curatorial practice centres on the immense powers of the senses to uncover what lies within us, waiting to unfold. Ruggiero focuses on work that brings forward methods of care and reflection on the world around us.
Cross-Disciplinary Art: Life Studies
Diana Silla is a Toronto-based artist who works primarily in sculpture and painting. She is driven by a passion for hands-on making and material exploration. Through her business, Diana Silla Designs, she has developed a practice in polymer clay sculpture, skills she also brings to her fine art practice. Her work examines contemporary issues of surveillance, scrutiny and social pressure, using humor, mimicry and playfulness to invite viewers in while revealing deeper layers of meaning.
Digital Futures
Meicen Zhou is an experience designer and creative technologist. She works across installation, wearable tech, games and interactive media, combining physical computing, sensor-based systems, generative AI and real-time graphics. Zhou’s practice centres on turning passive encounters into embodied ones, building systems where people don't just observe technology, but move, play and feel through it.
Drawing and Painting
Arina Kalantar Hormozi is an Iranian artist based in Toronto. She initially studied petroleum engineering in Iran before shifting her focus to art. She completed two years of training in drawing and painting before she enrolled in the BFA in Drawing & Painting program at OCAD U, with a minor in Art History. Her practice spans painting, installation, sculpture and digital media. Grounded in research in art history, philosophy and contemporary discourse, her work engages themes of modernity, decolonization, materialism, spirituality and the sociology of art, translating complex ideas into visual form.
Environmental Design
Heart Valen Bolivar is an aspiring architect with a strong interest in urban, interior and landscape design. She explores how thoughtful spatial design can foster relationships among people, movement and the environment through adaptable, human-centred approaches. Her thesis design project reflects this idea, engaging with temporality and rethinking urban spaces as flexible environments that respond to change, movement and evolving community needs.
Experimental Animation
Stella Dipieri is a multimedia animator and illustrator. Born in Costa Rica and raised in Panama City, Dipieri moved to Toronto to begin her undergraduate degree in Experimental Animation. Through stop-motion, she explores the complex realities of Latin America and develops unique approaches to contemporary issues like neo-colonialism and authoritarianism in the region. Dipieri has worked as a set and prop build assistant on the Canadian Screen Award-nominated show Go Togo! and co-directed and wrote the independent web series Psock-Op.
Graphic Design
Aaryan Pashine is a graphic designer and programmer based in Toronto. His work is focused on exploring new and alternative tools, interfaces and processes to produce graphics.
Illustration
Max Mancuso is an illustrator based in Toronto with an affinity for narrative art and a proficiency in draftsmanship. His practice revolves around the use of line work and extends to digital work and traditional painting. Mancuso’s love of various media and art forms, combined with his skill in drawing and painting, produces quality illustrative work rooted in emotional narrative storytelling.
Indigenous Visual Culture
Liv Sydney is an Nunataagmuit and Gwich’in artist from Inuvik. Practising in printmaking, painting and textile arts, Sydney explores themes of love, beauty, familial connection and navigating the world as a carrier of generational trauma caused by the systemic oppression of Inuit and First Nations.
Industrial Design
Jenny Chan is an industrial designer focused on UI/UX, health-care design and med-tech. Her work is grounded in human-centred design and driven by a strong sensitivity to how people navigate systems, products and everyday experiences that are often overlooked or difficult to access. She is particularly interested in creating thoughtful physical and digital solutions that respond not only to functional needs, but also to the emotional, social and practical realities of the people they are designed for.
Integrated Media
Olivia Reynolds is an artist-filmmaker who loves to work with elements of film, video and design. She also likes to write, read and create in her nonexistent free time.
Material Art & Design
Pearl Koblinsky
Biography to come.
Photography
Carson Weifenglong Yang is a Toronto-based Chinese Canadian photographer and artist whose practice spans portraiture, conceptual and documentary photography. At the core of his work is a deep concern for emotion and feeling, how they are expressed, perceived and carried between individuals. Rather than seeking agreement from viewers, Yang creates images that invite reflection on the self and the changing world around us. Drawing from Eastern Asian philosophical and spiritual traditions, his work considers the subtle relationships between human experience, perception, nature and everyday life.
Printmaking and Publications
Lea Ovčina is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of printmaking and textile processes. The visual concepts in her art are informed by the natural world and themes of memory in its various manifestations. Ovčina’s work, a direct result of her Bosnian heritage and growing up in Austria and Canada, questions and explores place and belonging that can’t be answered in a singular way.
Sculpture/Installation
Shawn Vieron is an artist working in sculpture and installation. His practice examines how militarized infrastructures, competitive sports and the distribution of pirated media permeate everyday life. His material approach considers the entanglement of these systems in disciplining and conditioning cultural identity, desire and survival. Vieron completed an exchange semester at HDK-Valand in Sweden and has undertaken residencies in Mexico and Estonia.
Visual and Critical Studies
Kai Hu, 胡凯贻, is a writer, curator and artist graduating from the Visual and Critical Studies program with a minor in Integrated Media. Primarily focused on academic writing, he also experiments with lens-based mediums and creative writing. The themes which embody both Hu’s academic and creative works include leftist politics, East Asian culture and personal experiences with immigration and grief.
