About Us

Animate Materials Workshop (AMW) is a research hub dedicated to animation as a valuable method of interdisciplinary material exploration that brings together the arts and sciences.

The Alchemist’s Workshop

AMW returns science and technology studies to their roots in the alchemist’s workshop, where the study of materials and their applications was closely intertwined with artisanal craft and philosophical inquiry. 

Our work is dedicated to understanding the transformative impact of materials on scientific and cultural knowledge. Rather than approach materials as inert resources, we turn to animation to explore the tactile, sensory, and cultural lives of materials that shape our lives.

Project Highlights

Our projects include arts-based material research, curated film and gallery exhibitions, and hosted guest talks or visits. Much of our work is supported by funding from the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Making multiplane animation accessible

Our workshop developed a portable multiplane animation stand that is adaptable to a range of environments. Our open-access design, developed and prototyped by Erik Asia, can be manufactured by anyone with access to plywood, glass/plexiglass, and a makerspace that has a laser cutting machine.

The animation stand is meant to be easy to construct and ready for an artist with any level of animation experience.  The stand works with a cellphone camera or a lightweight camera. It allows for temporary animation setups in a variety of locations and is ideal for artists who don’t have dedicated studio spaces, or who want to try fieldwork animation.

Partnership with GIRAF festival

Our workshop is committed to raising interest in material culture and aesthetics among creative professionals and the public. Graphite! Animated Traces is our inaugural curated film programme, first developed for the 2022 GIRAF animation festival in Calgary. Artists featured in this programme embrace graphite as a material collaborator. Gestures of sketching, tracing, and erasing transform graphite into a medium of light and shadow, memory and forgetting. 

This project included workshop experiments with animating graphite and the production of a new film, Cameron Kletke’s You Feel Soft (2022). An accompanying publication written by Alla Gadassik and published by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre is forthcoming (December 2024).

Partnership with OIAF festival

The second film programme curated by the workshop was first developed for the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 2023. Dots, Lines, Washes underlines the impact of ink on the history of animation and illustrates the creative possibilities of this medium for contemporary artists. The diversity of included techniques and approaches reveals how the process of animation can amplify and transform the material qualities of ink, activating both the medium’s fluid openness and its binding permanence. 

An essay in the festival book accompanied the screening, while three workshop members (Mia Milardo, Weiwei Wu, and Cameron Kletke) presented their films as part of the festival competition series.

Curatorial project exhibiting workshop experiments

Our workshop develops curatorial outreach projects that communicate the history and temperament of different materials using animated films and their related production materials. “Refractions,” which was hosted in the Michael O’Brian Exhibition Commons in January 2023, showcased new moving image works by Mia Milardo and Weiwei Wu, both AMW members at the time. 
Each artist exhibited a trio of moving image works developed during their time as research-creation assistants in the workshop. Milardo considered pigment through a special interest in gouache and watercolour paint, while Wu explored the fascinating properties of glass in motion. Included in Refractions were objects and materials associated with their productions. A short curatorial text by Alla Gadassik accompanied the exhibition.

Focused collaborative study

Small cohorts of student research-creation assistants join the workshop each summer to explore the science, history, and culture of materials through scholarly study and arts-based experimentation. 

Our intensives begin with identifying and reviewing relevant literature, researching and watching animated films, and arranging studio visits or interviews with artists and scientists. Research-creation assistants then focus on a material collaborator before developing, proposing, and making their own animation experiments. We document our work and try to make resources that will be helpful to others.

Survey exhibition of moving-image and textiles

Opening in December 2024 at the Len Lye Centre in New Zealand, Interlaced: Experimental Animation and Textile Art explores the historical and contemporary intersections of animation and textile practices. Curated by Alla Gadassik in her capacity as the Len Lye Centre’s International Film Curator in Residence (2023-2025), the exhibition surveys historical, modern and contemporary practices through works by over 30 artists including Faig Ahmed (AZR), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (UK), Sione Faletau (NZ/TO) and Jodie Mack (US).The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with a text by the curator. 

Current Workshop Members

Under the direction of founder Dr. Alla Gadassik, this workshop brings together collaborators working in animation, interdisciplinary arts, material science, and material culture. Workshop research assistants are current students or alumni of Emily Carr University of Art + Design.  

Alla Gadassik

Workshop Founder


Dr. Alla Gadassik is a media scholar, curator, and lifelong cinephile. Her main area of expertise is animation, covering a wide range of historical, geographic, and production contexts. Additionally, she researches and writes about histories of cinematography, film editing, and experimental cinema. Dr. Gadassik is an Associate Professor of Media History and Theory at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she founded the Animate Materials Workshop.

Martin Rose

Workshop Collaborator

(he/him)

Martin Rose is an artist, producer, and educator with a passion for independent animation and a special interest in cutout animation across analog and digital methods. After working with the National Film Board as an animation director and producer, Rose joined the faculty of Emily Carr University, where he is an Associate Professor and dedicated teacher. Rose’s knowledge of local animation history and practice, as well as his generous mentorship approach, have been integral to the success of our summer research-creation intensives.

Celina Doubleday

Project Coordinator

They/Them


Celina Doubleday is an animation artist, line producer, and production coordinator. Celina joined the workshop as a research assistant during their studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. After graduating, they moved into the role of project coordinator. The workshop’s accomplishments owe much to Celina’s organized, systems-oriented, and collaborative approach.

Past Workshop Members

Our past workshop members include our first summer research-intensive cohort, as well as talented communication and industrial design research assistants who have helped us expand the reach and scale of our work.

Cameron Kletke

Senior Research-Creation Assistant

She/her


Cameron Kletke is an animation artist who works with a variety of physical materials, with a focus on 2D media on paper, including ink, pencil crayon, and pastels. As a senior research-creation assistant, Cameron focused on exploring graphite in animation. In addition to researching the material’s history and interviewing animation artists, Cameron conducted many experiments with animating graphite. These experiments led to the production of the short film you feel soft (2022), which has been screened nationally and abroad. During her time in the workshop Cameron was a student in the 2D + Experimental Animation program at Emily Carr University. Her films have since screened internationally across North America, France, and New Zealand. 

Mia Milardo

Research-Creation Assistant

she/her


Mia Milardo is a Canadian animator based in Vancouver, with a special interest in stop-motion and experimental animation methods. As a research-creation assistant, Mia focused on the scientific and cultural histories of gouache and watercolour pigments. Her material experiments in animating gouache and watercolour were featured in a group exhibition and contributed to her award-winning short film Fruiting Bodies (2023). Additionally, Mia contributed attentive curatorial notes to our media catalogue. Mia is a graduate of the 2D + Experimental Animation program at Emily Carr University. She enjoys a mixed-media approach to animation, creating handmade and tactile aesthetics by experimenting with intriguing materials. 

WeiWei Wu

Research-Creation Assistant

she/her


Weiwei Wu is an experimental animator with a fondness for tactile materiality experimented through stop motion animation, set construction, and unconventional materials. During her time as a research-creation assistant, Wu focused on studying the role of glass in histories of scientific observation. In her animation experiments Wu combined multiplane under-the-camera techniques alongside motion-rig camera setups to develop elaborate glass sets and puppets. Her materials included found and recycled glass objects, glass screen protectors, and flame-thrown glass. Alongside Mia Milardo, Wu exhibited her work in animated glass in the exhibition “Refractions” (2023). During her time in the workshop, Wu was a student in the 2D + Experimental Animation program at Emily Carr University.

Evan Swain

Research-Creation Assistant

They/Them


Evan Swain is an artist interested in experimental cinema as a practice of ecological investigation and community organizing. During their time as AMW research-creation assistant, Evan focused on the history and materiality of film celluloid, particularly its connection to plastic petroculture. Evan studied and then applied techniques of eco-processing and contact printing on celluloid.

Erik Asia

Design Research Assistant

(he/him)


Erik Asia is a Filipino industrial designer, who creates meaningful experiences through visual perception and tangible interactions. As our design research assistant, Erik developed, prototyped, and manufactured a portable and flexible multiplane animation stand, which can be constructed using digital fabrication methods. His achievement made our workshop’s projects more technically accessible and applicable to a range of locations. Erik holds an MDes degree from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His design philosophy extends beyond physical engagement with objects, encompassing how users perceive and cognitively engage with them. 

Marina Levit

Research-Creation Assistant

They/Them


Marina Levit is a painter, whose practice centres on navigating between figuration and abstraction as a response to everyday micro-narratives. Drawing from everyday experiences and from cell-phone photography, Levit combines planned compositions with intuitive immediacy. As a research-creation assistant with AMW, Marina tested our designed portable multiplane stand from the position of an artist who was completely new to animation. They proved to be a gifted animator, whose interest in gestural spontaneity and painterly translucency was a natural fit for the multiplane. Levit also spent their time in the workshop studying and making handcrafted pigments. They used the multiplane to experiment with on-location animation using handcrafted ochre.

Clara Ngie

Design Research Assistant

she/her


Clara Ngie is a multidisciplinary brand designer based in Vancouver. As the graphic designer for Animate Materials Workshop, she developed a strong visual identity for the workshop that reflects the artisanal, collaborative, and organic facets of material exploration. Clara designed the AMW logo and established the graphic vocabulary of the website. In addition to her interest in branding, Clara also enjoys dabbling in print media and self-publishing. Our workshop was very lucky to have Clara’s communication skills and brilliant design sensibility at a key early stage.

Celina Jade de Leon

Senior Research-Creation Assistant

she/her

Celina Jade de Leon is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker from the Bay Area. She embraces feminine irreverence through multimedia depictions of mischievous characters. Celina’s films have screened internationally. With the support of the Animate Materials Workshop, she exhibited her first solo exhibition I am the same, I am always changing (2023). As a research-creation assistant, Celina also investigated the history of indigo through working with artist Valerie Walker.

Celina has a Bachelor of Media Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and co-runs XINEMA, a recurring experimental film series in Vancouver. Celina is also a recipient of a 2024 Canyon Cinema commissioning project called Print Generations, wherein she will investigate and animate the mythical Filipino Manananggal figure through stop-motion and direct cinema techniques.

Robin Fernando

Curatorial Research Assistant

She/They

Robin Fernando is a Sri Lankan-Canadian animator based in Vancouver, BC. At AMW, they have helped edit and finalize interview transcripts with a focus on research and accuracy. She has also helped with other projects such as putting together an animation study guide and writing material for AMW. Aside from AMW, they also serve as the main lead for the Women in Animation collective at Emily Carr University. 

Acknowledging Place

Our workshop is located in Vancouver (Canada) on unceded traditional lands of the Coast Salish people – the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. We are situated on what was once a bountiful inlet that the Coast Salish people called sqʷachàys (Skwachàys). A saltwater marsh, mudflat, and large network of underground springs made this coastal wetland rich in diverse plant and animal life. Coast Salish people consider the network of underground springs to be a portal to the spirit world and a site of transformation.

Following European settlement, the mudflat was drained, filled with soil and construction waste material, and paved over. Settlers renamed the area False Creek Flats, and much of its diverse ecosystem was extinguished. Today this artificially built industrial zone includes Emily Carr University of Art + Design, which houses our primary workshop space. 

Acknowledging this history reminds us that modern industrial applications of scientific and technological knowledge have often denied reciprocal relations to land and have impoverished life-sustaining ecosystems. By taking up animation as a portal and site of transformation, we acknowledge and honour the animate material world that underpins Coast Salish cosmology.

Get in Touch

We are eager to hear from visitors to our virtual workshop space. Send us a note. Make suggestions and film recommendations. Propose collaborations with artists, scholars, and researchers from any discipline interested in the animacy of materials.

Contact Us