Giulia de Oliveira Borba is a Brazilian designer, writer and educator who lives in Vancouver. She has a bachelor of arts in visual communications from Loyola University Chicago and a master’s degree in design from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Her work is centred around helping people come to terms with how they feel about the changes that our climate is going through and those to come. Full of an informed optimism, through Mente Ambiente (“environment mind” in Portuguese), she seeks to untangle the mix of emotions that can overwhelm people into inaction, and help them instead work towards taking action.
Her work comes from a beautifully poetic space, merging words that help us to reflect on our place in the world with the immediacy and tactility of embroidery and print-making practices that help us to move from this reflection towards making, and the affirmative action that this type of creativity inspires.
-Written by Isla Pedrana, friend
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Which ‘hood are you in?
I live in Mount Pleasant. It has been such a great neighbourhood to be in since I moved to Vancouver. I enjoy walking around the neighbourhood and Main Street. There are so many great places to stop and enjoy, whether it is a store, a café, or simply admiring the scenery.
What do you do?
I am an interdisciplinary designer and design researcher. My research and practice have, during the last two years of the master’s program at ECU, become interlaced. I have found that research can be done through a creative practice and the learnings from it hold great value. My practice consists of embroidery, printmaking, and editorial/graphic design. However, I am interested in exploring different materials that I can work with and enjoy finding materials that speak to the concept of the piece I am trying to communicate. Right now, I am interested in the role a creative practice has in helping us understand the condition of living during a climate crisis and how it can be an avenue for working through climate crisis-evoked effects.
What are you currently working on?
In my personal practice, I recently finished an embroidery series called Landscapes of Connection. This series was made with the intention of inquiring into the connection I have felt and hope to feel with the more-than-human world. It showcases moments in my past, present, and speculative futures.
This last year, I was also part of a project as a research assistant with some other recent ECU graduates (Melanie Camman, Yejin Eun, and Eden Zinchik). The project, called Nature Relations Platform, is composed of the RA team and field researchers: Dr Louise St. Pierre, Dr Kate Fletcher, Zach Camozzi, and Dr Caro McCaw. It has been such an incredible opportunity and honour to work alongside these amazing researchers on the project and learn from and with them. The publication we worked on about the Nature Relations Platform Project will be published by and with the help of the team at Occasional Press soon.
Where can we find your work?
My most current work can be found on Emily Carr University’s website and here.
