Tami Vaisman
Un Inento de Entrar

For this piece about personal identity, I wanted to explore familial ties. My heart holds the key to the first apartment my family and I lived in, and the slab has messages carved in from old birthday cards. The included objects are tied to my culture, history, and memories, as they feature old magnets, one of my grandparents’ nesting dolls, gifts from my uncle, and a cat cut out from a childhood shirt.

Imogen McLarnon
The Selkie Sisters

As children, my sister and I always loved stories about selkies, which are Scottish mythological creatures. I recently visited Scotland with my family and grandfather who is Scottish. The trip was an exploration of my cultural heritage. I collected these shells along the seashore on the west coast of Scotland. This piece holds deep personal meaning as I explore themes of family connection and identity.

Katherine Harris-Fruchter
Childhood Cross-section

As a child, I spent my time hunting for magic.

It’s not that I was aware of what “magic” was. Still, I searched. Inside of a locked drawer, hiding behind a thick curtain, or in the small crevice between the wall and stairs — an invisible, fantastical world hidden just out of sight.

My ceramic, Childhood Cross-section, represents the magic I hoped to one day find, composed with a collection of my old artworks.

Gaia Hall
Mutation

Mutation is about my heritage and my mom’s family’s journey to Canada from Vietnam. My Chinese family name Pong means house of the dragon, which sits at the center, showing tradition and the old values of my grandparents. The “mutations” on its face and base represent the growth, evolution, and change living in Canada has done to my grandparent’s traditions. The melted glass is a mirror, reflecting both the horror and beauty of mutation.

Aina LaBonte
My Horse

My Horse is my relationship with my body and societal expectations that affect how I see myself. The pig is for my Malaysian background, and my Chinese zodiac. This misunderstood animal rests in bliss on the back of a horse (an animal of strength and beauty). The protruding teeth are mine. My smile is a point of pride against expectations of beauty. The shame of society’s views on women’s body hair is also presented.

Esme La Lusis
Fragments of My Heart’s Garden

Flowers are the labels of the sleep medicine I must take, a nightly ritual.
An angel, useless, shattered. I don’t go to church anymore.
Broken language of a porcelain bowl my Pau Pau would feed me from.
Rivers of Latvia, Vietnam, the Philippines, places my ancestors fled.
My existence is owed to greedy men who gamble with soldiers’ lives.
The rivers are filled with blood.

Nityapriya Biswal
Peacock in the Rain

My artwork showcases elements of Indian culture by featuring a central piece of the national bird and flower of India on a floral-patterned base. The lotus in the center represents resilience and purity, but also embodies the peacock’s feathers, which represent beauty and protection. The beads hanging from the arch represent rain in which peacocks come out and show their magnificent feathers while dancing in the rain.

Nandini Annadurai
Merlion on Water

This work explores identity through perception and perspective, with ceramic shards forming the Merlion, a symbol of my Singaporean heritage. The Merlion is a mythical creature with a lion’s head and a fish’s body. It represents Singapore’s origins as a fishing village and its strength today. Using perceptual art and anamorphic perspective, the image only appears from the right vantage point. This reflects how identity is often hidden at first glance and only revealed when someone knows what to look for.

Nathan Jagan
I am Alive

Human life is so fragile. Each one has unique experiences and upbringings, many hindered from artistry, like myself. I once heard that a flower has value only due to its ephemerality. This work exhibits figuratively together parts of broken ceramic items that encompass the blossoming floral aspects of myself (art, academics, talent, and feelings) that simply cannot stay dormant any longer, regardless of societies’ say; I will continue to grow, breathing in my existence.

Maira I.
The Journey Towards Finding Myself

The prompt that I have chosen is “What objects or materials could represent or symbolize one’s identity.” I selected this specific topic because I believe that I would be able to connect myself to this work by displaying aspects of my culture, my religious beliefs, my hobbies, and goals that I have set in life. By doing this prompt I would also be able to link it to Linda Sormin’s artwork, and how she weaves in pieces of her family heritage, and ancestors into her artwork.

Sophie E.
The Floral Calendar

Inspired by Linda Sormin’s exhibition, Uncertain Ground, my identity is the main point of my piece. Growing up in a culturally diverse space, it’s always been interesting to learn about culture, but what does it actually mean? My piece is to represent exactly that, the splattered understanding, the borders in between families, and how environments can bring people together. Roses, Bunchberries, or Dahlia’s, they are all connected just like we as humans are.

Eva M.
After WWII

War uprooted both sides of my family: through British Columbia’s Japanese internment camps and prisoner-of-war camps in Germany after being taken from Ukraine. In Ontario, the Moris and the Pushkars rebuilt their lives, and their descendants’ paths eventually crossed. War, represented by the soldier helmet, created the foundation for me and my brothers – biracial children shaped by history. Inspired by Linda Rotua Sormin’s Uncertain Ground, my work reclaims identity through memory, displacement, and resilience using clay and found materials.

Ruqayyah Malcolm
Bloom From Within

This artwork shows my love of fashion and expresses what makes my internal flower bloom. Creating a new design is much like growing a flower and when a new creation is worn, is when the flower fully unfolds and shines. My sculpture, a dress incorporated with flowers in bloom, reflects this process, symbolizing how creativity and self-expression emerge, grow, and finally unfold, revealing the beauty and joy of bringing an idea to life

Alisha Sky
Taste of Spring

This sculpture represents my favorite fruit and shows the feeling of eating watermelon in the springtime. The fresh taste brings me joy and reminds me of my family laughing and having a cooling healthy snack together. I show happiness through the bright colours and flowers surrounding the slice. By combining nature with a slice of watermelon, I turned a simple fruit into something remarkable that brings me so much pride

Chelsea Persaud
A Wish That Stayed

I created this shell to hold what the tide never returned. Tarnished coins spill outward like quiet echoes of wishes once cast into water – small hopes I imagine being surrendered to time. Each coin carries a moment when someone believed in possibility. Now they rest here, aged and forgotten, suspended between memory and outcome. The piece lingers in that uncertainty, where memory and possibility meet, and where the quiet weight of past wishes remain

Tesnim Abdi
Mote Gufta Mogad

I made a mote gufta mogad, a special space in traditional Harari family homes in Ethiopia, where I am from. Traditionally crafted from grass and straw, an unmarried Harari girl keeps her personal items inside. Each of the five colours hold meaning: black represents strength and protection, green, growth and fertility, white, purity and peace, yellow brings happiness and energy, and red is for love and vitality.

Dezso Hollosoy-Reid
Filter

My life is in a growth stage, like the trees that grow in the woods and the flowers that bloom, then fade and die. Saint Moses carried a sack leaking sand on his back, saying “My sins run out behind me and I do not see them”. The vessel at the top has a hole in the bottom, so water that filters through falls onto the lizard creature below.

Elliott Clark
Tea

Tea in a container. Is the tea now the container in which it lives? No, of course not. It’s tea. Why must I be confined to exist solely as my container? It is deeply frustrating having to explain the validity of my trans identity. I have to prove my suffering over and over just to receive recognition. Can’t the tea just be tea?

Lijie Zhao
Dragon’s Den

The Dragon’s Den is a curved ceramic wall sculpture inspired by Linda Sormin, exploring my Chinese-Canadian identity. Featuring swirling Chinese-inspired patterns, clay beads, a blank plaque, and a fragment of my childhood doll’s scarf, it uses slab construction. The curved wall shows my identity is not fixed or one-sided, the dragon symbolizes cultural resilience, and the scarf anchors my past to my present, reflecting how cross-cultural experiences shaped my open worldview.

Isabella Sutandar-Pinnock
貔貅

貔貅, or the Pixiu, is a Chinese mythical creature, believed to be a powerful attractor of wealth, good fortune, and protection against evil. Like my ancestors, my 貔貅 acts as a guardian, protecting my family from their hard pasts and creating new memories filled with good fortune. Ironically, my symbol of power exploded in the kiln, so it now stands supported by a piece made by my friend Greg. By combining our pieces together, we choose to represent the creativity, collaboration, and sense of community we have built within our classroom.

Michaela Urbanova
Kladrubsky

Kladrubsky is a ceramic bust of the national horse breed of the Czech Republic: the Kladruber, adorned with a rough red rope halter. After the fall of the Habsburg empire, the Kladruber breed faced eradication at the hands of a newly independent republic hoping to purge any ties to the Habsburgs. With a contrasting pale ceramic body and red rope halter, ‘Kladrubsky’ expresses the blurry and often conflicting nature of Czech cultural identity and history.

Ayomide Omowaye
Rooted Identity

My ceramic piece represents my identity using Yemoja, the Yoruba water goddess. The small symbols such as the heart and cross show my beliefs and values, while the beads and jewelry represent my traditional culture. I used clay to sculpt the figure in a knees-to-chest pose to show self-care and comfort. Adding small objects elevates the meaning of the piece. The rough texture and branching hair represents imperfect roots, growth and how my identity is intertwined with traditional origins.

Mehria Dos
Warmth of Home

My artwork is a cat-shaped tandoor (mud oven) that represents my Afghan heritage as well as my memories. Naan (Afghan bread) made in a tandoor was a part of my daily life in my family, making it a symbol of my culture. I was inspired by a personal memory of a small cat-shaped tandoor my uncle made when I was still a child. I included sheen khaal, ethnic tattoos, on the cat’s cheeks to honor traditional Afghan tattoos and the older generations of women in my family that I am inspired by.

Ruth Subendrakuma
Warm Beaches

This piece draws inspiration from the work of artist Linda Sormin, and the concept of deconstructing our identities. As a second-generation Tamil, language is a big part of my identity. I always spoke Tamil at home, but I gradually lost the ability to read or write Tamil. Through this piece I decided to try and relearn how to write in Tamil, starting with my middle name, “Roshini”. It may not be perfect, but I feel a tiny bit closer to my identity now. Learning how to write in Tamil, allowed me to gather further knowledge on my identity and history.

Tiombe Joseph Nock
Inner Outer Space

The universe is so greatly unknown. Similarly, nobody knows you how you know yourself. Inspired by themes of the unknown, identity, form, and relationships between objects and space, I created ‘Inner Outer Space’. I was fascinated by the coils in the original Uncertain Ground and wanted to emulate that here. I noted how they resemble forms we see in space, and used that connection to inspire the tiles, colours, shapes, and motifs that I used.

Soren Gatto
Untamed
Untamed represents my experience with a fire in my childhood home. The piece shows how uncontrollable fires are and how quickly life can change. Fires are something you don’t feel until you’re in their blaze until one second everything is normal and the next it’s all gone. Inspired by Uncertain Ground, my work explores feelings of anxiety and the unknown. Using the fluidity of clay and my hands, I shaped a piece that reflects both chaos and resilience.

Chloe Sadavoy, Danna Vargas, Eyual Eshetu, Maisy O’Brien, Meredith Ganpaul, Mimi Gunning, Komii Smith-Simpson, Mossana Tadesse, Nargis Omar, Sabine Milke, Sulwen Dorfman, Tigerlily Rajic, Tabitha Smith, Sumaya Grey
Out on the Tiles

Through ceramics and the creation of tiles, students at Central Toronto Academy crafted pieces to reflect the fragility and resilience of the ground beneath us. Through the juxtaposition of geometric shapes typically placed on flooring, combined with wires allowing the tiles to float, we invite the viewer to reconsider the boundaries between order and chaos, certainty and doubt.