Students Meighen Whitehead and Melissa Moody model some of the artistic creations displayed during Wednesday’s BioArt Bouffant.
The Olde Walkerville Theatre was alive with actual living art on Wednesday, December 10, as students showed off their interdisciplinary creations at the BioArt Bouffant cabaret.
“This is an event for students to showcase their wearable art works that they wear on their head,” says Alana Bartol, who teaches the BioArt class in the LeBel Building’s Incubator lab. She says the course is a cross-discipline collaboration between the School of Creative Arts and the biology department.
“When the project was initially announced it was met with excitement and fear because the artists would have to get up on stage,” says Bartol. “It was great to see the students taking their ideas and really pushing their own personal boundaries and coming up with these amazing projects.”
Melissa Moody, a hair stylist and UWindsor part-time social work student, took the class as an elective. She and Bartol came up with the idea of making mixed media works of art as wearable head pieces.
“This is not my usual forte,” says Moody. “I don’t typically fasten large objects to people’s hair, but it was a fun learning experience seeing how other people come up with their vision and inter-mixing our skills.
“To see it come together is pretty awesome. It’s a lot more amazing then I could imagine.”
Moody donned a candy-inspired piece called “Crystal Treats” created by classmate Anthea Chan. Moody’s own creation, dubbed “Garden on the Go,” looked like a garden growing out of a woman’s head and was made in part of peppers and lotus leaves. Moody says they had some difficulties getting into the car and walking down stairs but it all worked out.
The night saw students parading their wearable art across the stage. Other unique creations included an incubator with a light shining on an egg, a large nest that covered a student’s head and half his body, a waterproof container with a live fish and a massive sun hat embedded with real leaves.
To round out the cabaret, the packed house was entertained by whip juggler Seb Whipits, opera singer Erin Armstrong and female impersonator Juice Boxx.