By John Semley

Students and administrators at the Ontario College of Art and Design have come together to remember Ming Yang, a student in the Environmental Design Program who was killed in the kitchen of New Generation Sushi on November 7.

Located in the fifth floor lobby and exhibition area of the Sharp Centre for Design at 100 McCaul Street, a memorial exhibition features drawings, paintings, and design mock-ups created by Yang since he came to OCAD from Shenyang, China in 2005 to study Environmental Design.
Accompanying the exhibition of Yang’s impressive work is a memorial placard, which describes his contribution to OCAD’s artistic community. “With a pensive stare, a slight grin and clever remarks,” the inscription reads, “he was a constant observer and admirer, unique in every single way.” Sentiments like those can also be found in a memorial book placed at the centre of exhibit. Inside it, close friends, classmates, and strangers wrote of Yang, both in English and Chinese characters. According to an inscription on its front page, there are plans to forward the book to Yang’s family overseas.

Among the pieces included in the display are a detailed sketch of a man dressed in what looks to be traditional Chinese dynastic robes, a sketch of a hypermodern outdoor plaza, and architectural models that embody the Environmental Design Program’s aim to (as an OCAD program guide states) “transform conceptual ideas into spatial realities.” There is both a delicacy and deliberateness in Yang’s work that reflects the kind things written about him in the memorial booklet: one piece resembles what it might have looked like if an organic architect such as Laurie Baker had designed a Swiss Family Robinson–style tree house oasis.
It’s a small but warm gesture on the part of the students, teachers, and administrative staff at OCAD, and one that adds a much-needed human face to a story about a young man who may have otherwise been remembered for how he died rather than how he lived.
All photos by Joel Charlebois/Torontoist.