By Nadine Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 9, 2014
“It was quite intimidating at first,” UFV student David Seymour says. “There was a lot of people from McGill, from Concordia, and from bigger universities.”
Seymour, a history major and art history extended minor, was the only student in British Columbia to have his presentation accepted by the Quebec Universities English Undergraduate Conference (QUEUC). Seymour represented the West Coast in the conference this March.
“Coming from a smaller university that’s not as well known, you feel like you have to make your mark,” he says.
Seymour found out about the conference through history instructor Ian Rocksborough-Smith. Out of the Canada-wide submissions, only about 25 per cent of entries are selected. Seymour’s paper came out of his art history background. The opportunity to attend was made possible through SUS funding which he applied for prior to the trip.
“It was an art history essay about basically juxtaposing the male-oriented surrealist photography, the heterosexual gaze, such as Man Ray, and juxtaposing that with a lesbian surrealist photographer called Claude Cahun,” Seymour explains.
Cahun, a French artist and photographer, is known for toying with concepts of gender, beauty, and sexuality.
“She’s basically challenging the male gaze through her photography, the stereotypes of women that were being perpetrated by the surrealists during that period,” Seymour says.
The conference was set up in panels, where papers were presented followed by a question and answer period and discussion.
Despite his initial nerves, Seymour says his paper was well received, and the subsequent discussion enjoyable.
