JENNIFER HARDYOn October 20, 2000, at the age of fourteen, alumna Jennifer Hardy (Drawing & Painting, 2008) suffered a stroke. The stroke caused her to struggle in her classes at school, as she had trouble reading and speaking. After several years of speech therapy, she improved and regained her speech but was unable to follow through with her goal of becoming a doctor or an accountant. Instead, focusing more on her right brain, Hardy developed her skills in the visual arts, eventually enrolling at OCAD where she studied in the Drawing & Painting and Integrated Media programs.
In 2008, Hardy created the acclaimed 2-dimensional classical animation WSIM: What Suffered Inside Me as her thesis work at OCAD. The animation was screened at Toronto’s Bloor Cinema, Vancouver Island Short Film Festival, Athens International Film + Video Festival (Ohio), and others. She won 2 Best Film Awards and an Honorable Mentioned.