MISCELLANEOUS
experimental | audio | the undefinable | graphic design
CO-OPERATIVE GAME STUDIO: STUDIO MOPOT
Studio Mopot is an independent game studio founded by myself and some other York University Media Arts graduates in 2025 with the main goal of creating an avenue for our team to continue making games in a more professional context. Overall, I serve as the Narrative Designer and Internal Coordinator, helping to manage the team affairs, keep us on schedule, applying for grants and other opportunities and (of course) writing and designing the games we work on! Although most of our team is based in Toronto, we range as far as the NWT to Quebec. We aim to create games and interactive experiences that are unique, inventive and diverse in concept. Some of our favourite games include: Ace Attorney, Life is Strange, Celeste, Minecraft, Professor Layton, Inscryption, Elden Ring, Mouthwashing, Cult of the Lamb and the God of War series.
As fresh faces in the world of interactive media, we’re just now diving into the game-making world in Toronto and looking forward to making a bunch of weird games! Our first project, Finding Wallace, a PSX-style third person perspective puzzle game with an accompanying Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is currently in the early stages of development and is looking at a full release in Q4 2027. Our team is made up of wildly different tastes and achievements in different fields. In this combo of horror fanatics, rich lore and puzzle game enthusiasts, cozy fantasy lovers and liminal space enjoyers, there’s no telling what will come next! We want to tell ‘out there’ stories that are unique and reflect not only our personalities but our varying ideas, values and beliefs while simultaneously catering to whatever audience will best appreciate the experience we’re crafting - whether that be something niche or largely appealing.
(Story and Visuals by Ayokunmi Oladesu)
In 2024, as part of the BIPOC Artist Hub hosted by Vanier College Productions, Ayokunmi Oladesu decided to create an audio narrative based on Yoruba folklore set in a afro-futuristic world, with a hint of magical realism. As part of her efforts to create the project, she reached out to me to write the audio play, which would follow a young girl who turns to the god of the forest, Aroni, to help her when she hits a road block with an invention.
The play also highlights the Black Crowned Cranes which are currently endangered, and puts emphasis on ecological justice and the destruction that human development can have on nature. Clocking in at just under 10 minutes long, the story tackles environmental themes, the pressure to conform to Western ideals and being true to what’s important to you in the face of what the world expects of you. This project was a labour of love between many different BIPOC artists who lent their voices, editing skills and time to bringing it to life.
*Please note that this video was not edited by me*
During an Unreal Engine intensive with Sheridan’s Screen Industries Research & Training Centre (SIRT) and OYA Media Group, I was tasked with creating an environment in Unreal that I could then project onto a large LED panel screen. This was my first foray into virtual producion and motion capture techonologies, as well as doing any form of video work in a professional studio. I choose to create a naturalistic, but magical feeling landscape with simple backgrounds and wooden structures to make up a small village. I portrayed myself as an adventurer traversing through this land. The background was created entirely by me in Unreal Engine, as well as the costume design while filmming, editing and operation of the LED screen was done by SIRT staff. I was lucky to do be able to work on this project alongside several other talented creators, whose work can all be seen in this video.
MULTIMEDIA ORGANIZATION: BEYOND FINE ARTS
I served as one of two presidents for BFA from its founding in February 2023 to my graduation in June 2025, working with a team of dedicated executives to bring a host of projects to life, including short films, a variety of educational workshops, social events and larger scale projects such as our frequent collaboration with Wibi Acapella - supporting the live stream operations for their annual Spring Showcase and giving students the chance to expand their portfolios with valuable learning experiences. BFA has since shifted hands into the new generation of artists working at York, and remains a staple of the art community - especially in the Media Arts space. It is one of my proudest achievements and did a lot in teaching me how to run a successful organization - something that I carried on with me to other projects.
CREATIVE WEBSITE BRIEF: MELANIN4S
(Ongoing)
‘MELANIN4S’ is a fictional website advertising the ‘melanin’ of different races as a product for consumers to buy. It is set in a futuristic reality where race swapping is now a real possibility controlled by the eponymous MELANIN4S organization, which has capitalized on this novel concept. Originally conceived as a modern take of Keith Obadike’s Blackness for Sale (2001), MELANIN4S doubles down on the original work’s premise, which was a small self-contained eBay post from one individual looking to profit off of their own race. However, this simple concept is ballooned into a gargantuan capitalist cooperation that is far removed from one man’s struggle. As often is the case in the modern day, Black people (and people of colour in general) often have the simplest things, our struggles themselves, turned into a commodity to exploit. In addition to the original piece, I was also very much inspired by the short film White (2011, directed by A. Sayeeda Clarke) which explores a very similar concept of a dystopian world where people can sell their melanin.
This piece is essentially a response to the passive or subtle racism we see often in today’s society. Back in the day, if people didn’t like you because of your skin colour, they’d let you know, explicitly, but today people who still hold these archaic sentiments will shield their views under a layer of false pretence and niceties. Just because people aren’t as bold as they were before, doesn’t mean that they still don’t hold their biases. That’s why this piece involves a lot of euphemisms and isn’t as direct as Obadike’s original. It also plays a lot into false activism, in the sense that the entirety of the website is trying to portray itself as a progressive move forward, when it is essentially doing the bare minimum and actively harming the cause it seems so passionate about.
Everything, from the name (Melanin 4 Us - as an accessory for the upper class to use) down to the actual design of the website (being mostly white and using any hint of colour only as an accent to complement the whiteness), has been carefully planned to represent this particular bias. The names of the different ‘Body’ types all being food names and henceforth something to be consumed and used rather than appreciated as the website would like you to think; the tagline implying diversity to be an interesting character trait rather than an essential part of one’s identity; the hidden details, contract pages and more are all there to show an implicit bias. The website’s hidden features also allow for some commentary on capitalist organizations often trying to prey on consumer insecurities or hide prices/dangers of a product. The website is built to show not only (but primarily) racial biases, but some social biases against body types (e.g. Body products only fitting ‘some’ bodies, a.k.a thin ones), social class and living situations.
All of this ties into race, especially in the website’s more straightforward sections (such as the google form which assigns race based on qualities that have much more to do with one’s social status than race). My goal here is to expand this website into a more cohesive and multifaceted project and to have more control over the design aspects than what I currently have available to me with free website editors. I would also create actual shopping pages, a ‘buying’ system, more in depth info (which I of course would provide), a page to explain what the website is and its inspirations, and eventually going into the other Body types rather than just Chocolate (after finding appropriate sources and some thorough research). Some examples of other artistic websites that I could potentially see this website becoming like can be found here (a much more experimental version) and here (something more straightforward).
Interactive Films
Alina is simply a character in a game, destined to do only what is strictly outlined for her by the player character. But what if there is more to her than that. What if she can escape the narrator dictacting her life and make her own decisions? In this interactive film, you can help Alina go down the path of obedience, or escape into her own world.
Travel through a world dictated by a strict gender binary in this quirky interactive film with a twist! Choose between a male and female avatar and traverse a regular day as a university student. Talk to other students, make dialogue choices and soak in the pixel art - but also the lesson. Not everything is as binary as you think it is.
Audio Work
a glimpse of me experimental coffee shop pond
sdk ambience