Yoriko Gillard

Yoriko Gillard is an artist, poet, language educator and educational researcher. She is a Ph.D student in Language and Literacy Education at UBC working under the supervision of Dr. Carl Leggo (Poet/Professor, LLED, UBC). The words “Live poetically” by Dr. Leggo speared her heart and impressed upon her the importance of being responsible and respectful in a multicultural society. She earned her MA from UBC and her supervisor was Dr. Rita Irwin (Professor, EDCP, UBC) who helped opened her eyes to see the world creatively as an artist, researcher, and educator. Yoriko completed her thesis: Trust through Art and Its Practice: A/r/tography Study with Dr. Irwin, and Dr. Karen Meyer (Professor, EDCP, UBC) who was her MA committee member guiding Yoriko’s writing process extensively.

Yoriko uses her creativity to communicate with society to think about life together. She has been researching how creative communication helps people understand each other reciprocally during periods of hardships. Her current research initiatives include a HEARTH Project: hear/heart/art/earth and KIZUNA (Bond) activities. She is interested in creative writing, communication, creativity, trust, perspectives of ‘art’ in multimodality, cognitive psychology, and Japanese culture and language. Her interests have led to actively organizing fundraising events to support victims of tragic events that took place in Japan March 11, 2011 (Great East Japan Earthquake). Her socio-cultural activities extend to international communities that have been connecting people of different cultures.