About

This site aims to be a cur­ated col­lec­tion of me­dia pro­jects on the topic Illusions of Power, and how it con­nects with our world.

Focusing on this, our Echo group has cre­ated a di­verse col­lec­tion of doc­u­ment­ar­ies, pod­casts, and blog posts. Each will be vis­it­ing a dif­fer­ent as­pect of the il­lu­sion of power⁠—where it’s found, what ef­fects it has, and the dam­age it can do.

Creators

Aaron Olsen

Aaron is a reader, writer, and web de­veloper. As someone who works in con­stant con­tact with the in­ter­net, he has de­veloped a keen eye for hon­est journ­al­ism and good ty­po­graphy. Olsen has worked on many web pro­jects in­clud­ing the ac­claimed site Content Cops while in Grade 10. He has since been hon­ing his skills at the in­ter­sec­tion of lit­er­at­ure and design, cul­min­at­ing in the work you see be­fore your eyes.

Daisy Gruchy

Daisy is a cel­eb­rated film­maker, most known for her work on award win­ning doc­u­ment­ar­ies such as Umbrellas: The Weapon of the Future, Decline and Fall: The Story of Evan Fortin and the newly re­leased, Invincible Teens. Her work is known for its earn­est, sombre and un­scrip­ted tone, which cap­tures the stor­ies be­hind emer­ging truths. Invincible Teens has so far re­ceived glow­ing and heart­felt re­views such as: “That video is mildly watch­able.” Daisy plans to con­tinue her work on doc­u­ment­ary film with her next pro­ject, Just Breathe, which will ex­plore the health be­ne­fits of as­bes­tos for kids.

Evan Fortin

Evan is the writer and host of the suc­cess­ful pod­cast Read Between the Lines on NPR. Evan has been her­al­ded for his dra­matic present­a­tion and ora­tor­ical skills by the likes of Ontario Court Justice Kathryn McKerlie, Joy and old ladies at church. Evan Fortin is also the award win­ning au­thor of Comfortaa: How to Graduate High School Without Reading a Single Book. Evan Fortin has be­come syn­onym­ous with Remembrance Day, thanks to two amaz­ing speeches that Daisy wrote, and Evan de­livered.

Joshua Zelek

A multis­port ath­lete, com­pet­ing com­pet­it­ively in run­ning, hockey, nor­dic ski­ing, ten­nis, and soc­cer. Joshua has ex­per­i­enced the ups and downs of ath­let­ics and has seen the il­lu­sion of power first hand. Over a two year stretch, Joshua suffered sev­eral in­jur­ies to his ankle, achilles ten­don, glute, groin, and back. Prior to this, he had never re­ceived any in­jur­ies. He has learned proper stretch­ing and re­cov­ery pro­cesses, as well that in­jur­ies will oc­cur and you can’t con­trol them some­times. Joshua has also come to the real­iz­a­tion that the best ath­letes are not un­beat­able. Two years ago, he did­n’t have a great train­ing sea­son and did­n’t ex­pect much in terms of res­ults. Despite this, he barely lost out on gold at OFSAA in the 1500 m and 3000 m.

Joy Henhoeffer

Joy has been play­ing card games since she was little and has al­ways been fas­cin­ated by bluff­ing. As a little kid, she used to play Go Fish with sunglasses on… com­pletely un­aware that most people could see her cards in the re­flec­tion of said sunglasses (gee, Mom, thanks for the heads up).