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From studio to spotlight: inside Canada’s largest student art show

Each May, nearly 800 graduating students from OCAD University showcase the culmination of their undergraduate journeys. The 110th instalment of Toronto’s largest free art and design exhibit, GradEx, welcomed more than 40,000 people to celebrate work by emerging artists, designers and media makers. Graduates explored themes such as eco-grief, gender and the immigrant experience – among myriad others.

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Hannah Liddle & Monica Zhang

July 18, 2025
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Ana Serrano, president and vice-chancellor of OCAD U, launched the event. “All of our students are poised to join thousands of our alumni working across every sector, from fine arts to health care to film and gaming, and they contribute over $500 million annually to Ontario’s economy,” she said.
Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, an OCAD U alumna, remarked: “To the students, your body of work will be so important to help us imagine and reimagine our city.”
Futility Bench explores the resurgence of traditional ideologies of masculinity – the alphamale, macho man, protector-turned-aggressor – and how these representations alienate and even harm young men. “It’s essentially a death rattle – where as soon as an ideology is dying out, it reaches a spike,” said Mr. Robinson. “I hope that young men see through what is being sold to them and what alpha-influencers are doing. …  Are they making money off your insecurity and your belief that you’re not good enough?”
Working with sculpture, modular systems and motion, Jason Mendiola’s Caesura blends metalwork, emergent technology and sonic elements to build responsive environments that explore perception, proximity and relational space.
Supriya James, a woman of Indo-Guyanese and Canadian heritage, uses interdisciplinary materials and methodologies to “decolonize landscapes” and to advocate for the careful stewardship of the land. Inspired by post-colonial theorists, Ms. James contrasts western art tools with ancient materials like bright-yellow turmeric and charcoal to reflect her hybrid cultural identity.
After They Leave, a photography exhibition by Manny Wood Lynes-Ford, shows how the mining industry has damaged the land near the town of Wells, British Columbia, which resides on the traditional territories of the Secwépemc people and Lhtako Dene nation.
The Denim, by Queenie Qin, explores how explores how the material – which was once used mainly for utilitarian workwear – can be transformed into wearable art while maintaining its historical significance. The two garments in her display are made entirely of repurposed denim.
On the exhibition’s opening night, OCAD U hosted an outdoor party for attendees, featuring food trucks, drinks and a lively dancefloor.

Hannah Liddle & Monica Zhang

Yaxuan (Monica) Zhang is a student of film and photography at OCAD University. Hannah Liddle is the assistant editor at University Affairs.

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