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2021 OCAD U Pollinator Photo Exhibit Happy National Pollinator Week! Thank you to all who contributed photos of pollinators existing out and about, doing their important work in this web of life.

National Pollinator Week is an annual event celebrated internationally in support of pollinator health. It's a time to celebrate pollinators and spread the word about what we can do to protect them. Let’s celebrate the important work of moths, hummingbirds, bees, beetles, and all the pollinators that carry out crucial ecosystems work.

Pollinator Partnership Canada states that pollinating animals travel from plant to plant carrying pollen on their bodies in a vital interaction that allows the transfer of genetic material critical to the reproductive system of most flowering plants – the very plants that:

Bring us countless fruits, vegetables, and nuts,

½ of the world’s oils, fibers and raw materials;

Prevent soil erosion, and

Increase carbon sequestration

Learn more at https://pollinatorpartnership.ca

For this year's June 21-27, 2021 National Pollinator Week, OCAD U students, faculty and staff celebrated pollinators by submitting photos to the 2021 OCAD U Pollinator Photo Exhibit. Please enjoy this collection! Congratulations to Ryan Whyte for submitting the winning photo of the "European honey bee (Apis mellifera), familiar and beloved, but increasingly outcompetes native pollinators". All photos were enthusiastically welcomed by judges and gardeners Heather Evelyn (Learning Zone) and Elaine Chan-Dow (Faculty of Art). Ryan will receive a prize pack from Beam Paints, sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity & Sustainability Initiatives. All participants who contributed a photo will receive a one-of-a-kind Sun Print by Faculty of Art instructor Elaine Chan-Dow.

About Elaine Chan-Dow's Sun Prints, from her photographic series "Path":

"Blue is a conflicted colour, a colour that represents calmness, bravery and peace, perhaps even order and stability for some. Yet in contrast, it also carries a sense of mystery, cold, status, melancholy and depression. Blue is a colour and feeling that is symbolic of my current states . . . a colour that evokes pathways of authority, hierarchy, restriction, oppression, and intimidation. Pathways of feeling arrested and imprisoned within my own city. Pathways of the injustice of feeling frightened of being accused of being a virus carrier because of the colour of my skin. Path. is a photographic series created from a historical photographic process called Cyanotype or commonly known as Sun Print. The process is part science, part nature; a collaboration with the sun and what surrounds us; part restrictive, and yet partly serendipitous and nostalgic. This process is important to this series, as it carries many symbolic inferences. The process itself requires the sun to illuminate the print, symbolic of power, and taking back power: control and ceasing control, yet also letting go. The end result is a simple yet nostalgic monochromatic blue imprint of found objects exposed by the sun on a watercolour paper. The hues of blue which the sun touches upon, and the whites it did not penetrate, creates a duality of positive and negative space emphasizing the connotations of the colour blue."

“You’re gonna need a longer straw”. Photo by Julie Thompson.
"What’s up, buttercup? What we might consider weeds are food for pollinators, like this honey bee." Photo by Beverly Dywan.
Aphrodite Fritillary. Photo by Bev Dywan.
European honey bee (Apis mellifera), familiar and beloved, but increasingly outcompetes native pollinators. Photo by Ryan Whyte. (Winning entry)
Giant swallowtail butterfly with zinnia. Photo by Sarah Mulholland.
Monarch Butterfly 1. Allan Gardens, Toronto. Photo by Brent Everett James.
Monarch Butterfly 2. Allan Gardens, Toronto. Photo by Brent Everett James.
"BUZZZZz OFF!". Photo by Reece McCrone.
A tiny (approx. 4-5 mm) metallic sweat bee (subgenus Dialictus) in flight. Photo by Ryan Whyte.
Giant swallowtail butterfly with zinnia. Photo by Sarah Mulholland.
Genus Hylaeus (masked bee), one of the eleven or so species of Hylaeus found in Toronto. Photo by Ryan Whyte.
Photo by Julie Thompson.
“If I fits, I sits” or “I’m stuck!”. Photo by Julie Thompson.
“My saddlebags are full, should have brought my carry-on”. Photo
“For allergy sufferers, echinacea can easily become “echin-achoo”. Photo by Julie Thompson.
Monarch butterfly. Photo by Sarah Mulholland.
A pretty paper wasp on a pink flower. Most likely polistes stigma. A paper wasp from South Asia. Local name "Bhamri" Usually not aggressive, but will defend themselves spiritedly if provoked. Their sting is painful! Photo by Parth K Shah.
Graceful Overview. Photo by Christina Yang.
Summer Days. Photo by Christina Yang.
Bumblebee Breeze. Photo by Christina Yang.
Pollinators when it rains. Photo by Silvia Morgado.

Credits:

Cover photo by Ryan Whyte.