Shortlisted image

Coded, I Am

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 20:03:50 +0000

Stéfy McKnight

"Coded, I Am" is part of a larger research creation project that looks at preemptive surveillance strategies in North America. It is a self-portrait of an artist immersed in tattoo QR codes. The QR codes – when scanned – direct the viewer to Google Earth images of CSIS and NSA intelligence sites. The photograph not only shows an artist absorbed by her research, but it is a representation of how users rely on third party sites such as Google Earth in their everyday lives, regardless of the risk of data mining and surveillance. The codes shift the surveillance gaze by giving viewers the tools to look at the institutions that are normally doing the ‘surveilling’.

Location of photograph:

Kingston, Ontario

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16

Borders. What borders?

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 19:59:41 +0000

John McGarry

The iconic Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, once remarked that “the only thing Cypriot is the donkey”. He wanted to underline that Cyprus was permanently divided between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. He was wrong of course, as this photo from Cyprus’s Apostolos Andreas Monastery shows. There are also 'lots' of Cypriot cats who can wander freely between the Turkish and Greek zones in spite of the barbed wire and thousands of armed soldiers. These are “vanguard felines”. My work on power-sharing in Cyprus is aimed at helping their two-legged counterparts to follow in their wake.

Location of photograph:

Apostolos Andreas Monastery, North-east Cyprus

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16

Leaving home

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 19:58:17 +0000

Eric Y Lian

My focus is cancer cell invasion and migration. This spheroid of cells is embedded in a 3D protein matrix and fluorescently stained for 3 proteins. Individual cells can be seen radiating away on all sides. The cells use integrin (red) and actin (green) to pull on the protein matrix and move, while cadherin (blue), binds and holds cells together within the spheroid. Cadherin normally holds clumps of cells together and allows them to form structures such as tissues and organs. This picture shows how invading cells lose their cadherin and express large amounts of integrin and actin, and it demonstrates some of the protein expression changes that cancer cells undergo which allow them to invade away from a tumour.

Location of photograph:

A microscope slide

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16

Buried Alive

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 19:57:11 +0000

Melanie Jansen

This photo was taken during my fieldwork, 2.5km underground in a platinum mine owned by Impala Platinum in Rustenburg, South Africa. Rather than a unique depiction, this photo is representative of the industry as a whole. It demonstrates the harsh realities mine workers face, subject to social, environmental, and economic challenges. Day-shift workers may spend up to six months at a time without ever seeing sunlight, their lives literally passing them by. Few opportunities exist for these men and women to break free of the dark, unforgiving platinum industry. The “X” is symbolic of this eventual cause of death, either directly or indirectly.

Location of photograph:

Impala Platinum Mine, Shaft #14, Rustenburg, South Africa

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16

The Last Tree

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 19:55:39 +0000

Courtenay Jacklin

CCNF15: Clear Creek North Forest #15, otherwise known as the last tree. After three summers of field work and countless hours spent hiking to various study sites situated in the Kluane Region of the Yukon, Katherine finally takes the last tree core she will need to complete her project analyzing alpine vegetation dynamics. Using an increment borer to drill a small hole near the base of each tree, Katherine extracts a core which we store inside straws until returning to the lab. The annual growth rings along each core can be measured to gather information on growth and climate.

Location of photograph:

Southwest Yukon

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16

At a Snail’s Pace

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 19:51:50 +0000

Alamjeet Kaur Chauhan

This is a picture of the sea snail, Aplysia californica or California sea hare, which is widely used to examine how the activity of nerve cells evokes fundamental behaviours. I study how cation channels, which are specialized proteins that form pores allowing charged molecules in and out of the nerve cell, influence cellular activity. I use electrophysiology and molecular biology to study the reproductive behavior of Aplysia. My research is focused on studying the effects of reactive oxygen species on cation channels, which dictate reproduction in bag cell neurons of the snail.

Location of photograph:

Botterell Hall, Queen's University

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16

“Non-wetting” Water

stratg — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:46:15 +0000

Timothy Hutama

This drop sits on a super-hydrophobic surface that is unable to become wet because its affinity to water is less than what water has for itself. Therefore, water forms small, easily movable drops on the surface rather than a single puddle. While these surfaces have been used to keep cities free from graffiti, the Oleschuk group’s research involves using these surfaces in creative ways, such as the determination of beer’s alcohol content or to provide a platform that uniquely manipulates drops using magnets to miniaturize analytical chemical methods.

Location of photograph:

Chernoff Hall, Queen's University

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2016-17

Magdalene

stratg — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:44:50 +0000

Una D’Elia

For over 550 years, the passionate Magdalene has been running with her veil streaming behind, screaming, to the body of Jesus, dead on the ground. This life-size statue, originally painted to mimic flesh and clothes, pushes the limits of the medium, terracotta. Renaissance men and women could walk among Niccolo dell’Arca’s sculptures, feeling as if they were present at this terrible moment in Christian history. Dr. Una D’Elia’s research focuses on such living sculptures, stories of statues coming to life, and people touching, dressing, attacking, and generally treating sculptures as if they were alive.

Location of photograph:

Church of Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2016-17

Polypyrrole

stratg — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:43:36 +0000

Danesh Roudini

The film morphology of electrochemically synthesized conducting polymers is widely dependent on electropolymerisation conditions. Some factors, like type of anions, solvent, and deposition rate, have a great influence on the final polymer quality and morphology. The SEM image shows electrochemically synthesized polypyrrole film on platinum electrode. Polypyrrole has high electrical conductivity and good environmental stability and has potential applications such as sensors, electrodes for rechargeable batteries, corrosion-protecting materials, electrochromic devices, and membranes.

Location of photograph:

Kingston University, UK

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2016-17

Phantasie Ist Alles

stratg — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:41:56 +0000

Julia Partington

Although I am an English major, I also study other languages and was fascinated by this piece of graffiti that I found on Museum Island in Berlin. Translated from German to English, it says, “Imagination is everything, it is the preview to the coming events of life.” This was said by Albert Einstein, and while his discipline is physics, different from mine, we both see the beauty of creativity. His creativity is in the stars, and mine is in language and literature. Arts and science are bound together in this short expression. A treasure waiting on Museum Island for me to embrace and understand.

Location of photograph:

Museum Island, Berlin, Germany

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2016-17

5000m High Sunset in the Andes

stratg — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:40:40 +0000

Chris Grooms

Lake Sibinacocha is the 22nd highest lake in the world. Storms from the Amazon push up over the mountains, depositing snow on icecaps feeding high elevation lakes. Andean societies are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climatic change on freshwater systems. Climate change will exacerbate water quality and quantity problems affecting millions of people. Warming in the Andes is occurring at rates nearly twice the global average. The effects on Andean lakes and ecosystems remain largely unknown, despite their importance to people and biodiversity. The objective of Grooms’s research is to assess the impacts of climate change on lakes.

Location of photograph:

Lake Sibinacocha, Cusco, Peru

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2016-17

Evelyn Mitchell and her “Burler”

stratg — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:39:30 +0000

Laura Murray

Through oral history and archival research, the Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project is revealing the twentieth-century history of two of the oldest neighbourhoods in Kingston, Ontario. Evelyn Mitchell worked at Hield Brothers Woolen Mill in the 1950s when she first arrived in Kingston from Yorkshire. In her interview, she describes in great detail the process by which she did “invisible mending” on the cloth coming out of the looms, picking out and pushing through loose threads. Here she displays the tool she used, a “burler,” which she has saved to this day.

Location of photograph:

Kingston, Ontario

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2016-17