Cristal Buemi is a Puerto Rican-Canadian award-winning multidisciplinary artist (stop motion animation, video art/installation, collage and digital design).  Her work pushes frame by frame boundaries by exploring the diaspora through land and its relation to the body, materiality and inherent beauty found in the minutia.  Through a mindful, feminist, experimental, and ecological lens, Cristal focuses on abstract storytelling, sustainability and texture.  Her works have been exhibited worldwide including: The New York City Independent Film Festival, Sankofa Square, Animac, Harbourfront Centre’s CoMotion Festival, Fashion Art Toronto, Venus Fest, Sommets du cinema d'animation, Cardiff Animation Night and broadcasted on AMC, MTV, BellMedia and HBO.  

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Cristal’s diverse education and artistic practice both personal and industry based, have influenced her to become a flexible experimental thinker and maker.  This method of practice has inspired her passion for pedagogy and exploratory creative expression through community art education in collaboration with various organizations and academic spaces such as OCAD University’s Experimental Animation program, York University's Design program, Creative Users Projects, TIFF, SKETCH, TAIS, Big Brother Big Sisters of Canada, North York Arts and the Toronto District School board, both in person and online. Cristal’s teaching philosophy is all about an engaged pedagogy while creating safe, flexible and accessible learning environments.  As a facilitator she has had the opportunity to work with participants of various ages and backgrounds by leading artistic workshops, talks, camps and courses to help advance their creative practices.  

 

Cristal co-founded Frame by Frame, a research and programming initiative that through the magic of stop motion animation creates flexible and adaptive artistic opportunities accessible to participants of all abilities.  Frame by Frame has received funding from The Ontario Arts Council, TO Live Explorations Initiative and most recently Ontario Trillium Foundation - Community Investments - Seed Grant.

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anivides is the interweaving experimental works of Cristal Buemi and Francisca Duran https://www.franciduran.art/ focusing on several frame-by-frame approaches to showcase their abstract study and relationships.  Through collage of bodily works both in human and plant forms from a diasporic immigrant, bipoc, femme, and intergenerational perspective.  Exploring the idea of weight on our structures due to surroundings, environments and experiences and their direct relations to trauma, transition, healing and transformation in both human and plant bodies. Leaning deeply on the sustainability of survival.