This month, if you walked into Lord Byng's art gallery you would be astounded. The small bright white space was jammed with dozens of pieces showcasing some incredibly creative mix-medium art. It's all part of this year's Word Show, a multimedia assignment that challenged students to take a poem and represent it with another artistic/creative medium. 

Byng Arts' teacher Amy Hughes, who also heads up the school's English Department, loves the Word Show projects because they provide a fantastic example of enriched personalized learning. The assignment tasks English students to take a poem or other written work and transform it into another modality. Some students chose to do an illustration, others create garments, others lanterns while one student even developed a short animated video. The sky is truly the limit and the creativity displayed in the exhibit is out of this world.

Tina Yuan, a Grade 12 Byng Arts student, worked for three weeks on a project with a group of other students to incorporate a wide range of intangible elements like earth, water, air and fire into a material exhibit. The centre piece, which was Yuan's contribution, used wavy fabric that curved and cascaded. Her aim was to incorporate all four elements into the piece.

Meanwhile, Alex Yang, a Grade 10 student, approached the assignment with his own personal passion for fashion design. He decided to create a dress as a metaphor for the poem he read. His poem was about people, their experiences and how everyday life can affect us (for good and bad). He decided to use black and white to symbolize life and death but didn't want the dress to be heavy or draped. The design and creation took several months to do, but the time didn't matter to Yang. It was a labour of love.

Yang says one of the things he loves most about Byng Arts is the sense of community, where people with similar interests have a chance to come together and show the outside world what they can do. It's a sentiment that's only reinforced by a short walk through the Word Show. 

Click on the image below to check out our Flickr album for more photos.

Click below to watch Linnea Ritland's animated video - another creative Word Show submission: