Description:

Noah Hirayama-Rubel is a Vermont-raised artist attending Concordia University. While he was certainly doodling since he was born, art became a passion for him in seventh grade when his local library bought a drawing tablet, leading him to mess around with digital art-making programs. Ever since, he has explored various mediums and realms of art, especially as an undergraduate, pulling studio sessions into the late hours of the night.

Studying in Montreal, Noah works to understand the various cultures of his peers. Surrounded by a welcoming Latin and French community, Noah now takes inspiration from his fellow international friends, whom he loves wholeheartedly. Alternatively, he uses this time to understand his own Japanese and Jewish-Quebecois identity and how to reclaim his family’s lineage through creation and research.

“Present” the Puppet, is a giant marionette made entirely of sustainably sourced wood and screw hooks. He found the wood and hooks in scrap piles and resource centers. All the pieces were sanded and rounded using woodworking tools and then assembled with screw hooks and wood glue. This piece takes inspiration from the adventures of Carlo Collodi’s wooden puppet, Pinocchio. Throughout the book, Pinocchio finds himself lost and helpless, abandoned almost by the cruelties of reality. While many consequences are a by-product of his delinquent nature, plenty of punishments he faces are undeserved. As the world abandoned Pinocchio, Montreal abandoned this scrap wood. Noah wanted to reclaim the wood in this city and give it a purpose, in this case, as a marionette. Noah gave the puppet the name “Present” because he is a gift. The marionette gave both the wood a purpose and a sense of fulfillment to Noah. Plenty of objects have personal value, and Noah’s piece investigates the value in everything. Living or not, what do we choose to care about? What values do we assign to things? The value Noah holds in “Present” is a present, since, for any object, the ability to exist is beautiful.