2024 STUDENT COMPETITION WINNERS

Information about the Student Competition Winners


INVISIBLY CONNECTED, UNITED BY FATE

We stood quietly with a thin red string in our hands. It wasn’t just fabric—it symbolized something much larger: the invisible connections that unite us all. As people passed, they unknowingly hold the other end, bound to each other by this unseen thread. With each step, we wove a story of connection, potential, and the spaces between us that often go unnoticed. Our project explored the legend of the red string that connects those destined to meet, it can twist, tangle, stretch, sag, but it will never break; showing how the potential for relationships and life-changing moments surround us every day, even if we don’t see it. By collaging photos of people holding their fate, we reveal how deeply we’re all linked together, even to those whom we don’t ask their name, compliment, or smile at. Not only is the string the embodiment of change, but so is the space and time that it occupies, linking us with every decision to connect or let an opportunity pass. Sometimes we follow the thread, inviting others into our lives. Other times, it drifts away, lost in its surroundings. Yet, the potential remains, waiting for us to recognize that we are not alone. The red string is more than a symbol—it’s a reminder of our ability to shape our world simply by acknowledging the invisible bonds between us. Through this project, we aimed to make the invisible visible, reminding people that the red string that binds us all has the power to transform us—if we only choose to notice, choose to pull the string...

Dichotomy Student Competition Winner, Fall 2024

School of Architecture and Community Development University of Detroit Mercy

Andrew Johnson, Undergraduate 2024

Seth Kremsreiter, Undergraduate 2024

Medium: Photography and Sketching

Softwares: Illustrator


Through the Motions

As humans, we are a collective whole. We share common spaces, interests, and aspects of our lives. When passing through a space, one walks in the present where past humans have been before and where future humans will be. We leave everlasting impacts on the spaces we encounter. The interactions within a space between humans is sacred. It leads to a potential to meet someone new, to share ideas, to feel seen. Humans have the ability to transcend time and space through the synergistic force that pulls us together. Though we all live infinitely different lives, we all share the common trait of being human and occupying space. This unites us. We gather in space, move through space, occupy space, sit in space, be in space. Though we may not physically or verbally have any interactions with the others occupying the space with us, there is a shared understanding that we are all in that space for a shared reason. Prior to encountering people in a space, we are all strangers. Once in the space, those strangers become seen, understood, and recognized. Humans are meant to interact with one another. There is an unspoken bond between humans within a space, quite frankly an indescribable one. Everyone within the same space shares a similar interest. Though it may be nothing more than a crossing of paths, humans connect to one another when being in the same space - a connection that cannot be broken. These light paintings represent humans moving through space and time; though taken at different times, once the images are overlaid on top of one another, points of intersection can be identified at different moments in time.

Dichotomy Student Competition Winner, Fall 2023

School of Architecture and Community Development University of Detroit Mercy

Julia Farcas, M.Arch 2024

Isabella Wagener, M.Arch 2024

Medium: Digital Photography & Collage

Softwares: Photoshop