Ben Callaghan -- Five After Nine

The main inspiration for this collection, Five After Nine, is the extreme sense of community I witnessed among the people of Nova Scotia, my home Provence, in light of recent natural disasters. Being away from home and experiencing this as an outsider gave me a new perspective of my home, and made me appreciate it in a way I have never felt before.

I felt deeply inspired by the people of Nova Scotia, and I found myself wanting to investigate more into the history of Provence. As a result of this research, I learned so much about the cultural development of Nova Scotia, from the arts, to sports and key industries that shaped not only Provence, but also me in a sense as well. Acting a reflection of the community members gathering to rebuild both physically and mentally, the collection highlights key local personas as they unite to protect the land and culture from impending disasters.

As each look focuses on a unique persona, each look in the collection takes into consideration different factors which guide the design process. These factors include the history of each persona's "uniform" or any garments closely associated with them, what is the function of each persona, in society and in a working and ergonomic sense, and what does a study of their material culture reveal about each persona and what objects are important to them. This research acts as the basis for all design decisions and results in silhouettes and detail that are specific to each persona.

In January 2023 I began learning Autodesk Maya and Houdini. Gaining a foundational understanding of these softwares unlocked my imagination and led to new ways that I can present my work and tell stories in a world that is becoming increasingly digital. In this project, I modeled one persona from the collection as well as an environment, and I animated a short scene that gives more insight to the background and personal story of the character. This character is inspired by Frank Fredrickson, captain of the falcons hockey team, the top amateur team in Canada, who all left their success behind and enlisted in WWII. The short scene depicts Fredrickson, in the look I designed, train hopping his way to boot camp with his hockey equipment.

For me, learning and utilizing these digital softwares has been an incredible way to share more about my work in a new and fun format. As my collection builds out the lives of these characters mainly in a physical way through the clothes I make, I can let my imagination run wild to build the stories of the characters digitally through this modeling and animation process. By removing the limitations of the physical world, I can tell stories however I see fit while diversifying how I present my work to keep up with the increasingly digital world.