On February 3rd of 2017, this world lost a beautiful dancer, brilliant friend, passionate girlfriend, loving daughter, dedicated sister, and so much more. McKenzie, a 19 year old university student living in Toronto, Ontario passed away suddenly, and far before her time. My name is Emily Robinson and McKenzie has been in my life for the past 12 years; she has been my best friend and closest person for the past 10 years. We went to elementary, high school, and university together, worked together, and lived together. Our entire lives were together and we would plan our futures together so often. She helped to ignite my passion for photography through allowing me to take photos of her dancing, and since then I've been absolutely in love with dance photography. When she passed away, I struggled to find myself and to get a grasp on what I was feeling. I wanted to do something memorable, and have something to put my whole heart and emotion into. I figured that mingling our two arts together again would be a perfect way to do that. Thus the McKenzie Project was born. I am building up the McKenzie Project portfolio by photographing dancers that have volunteered their talent and time to be part of this project. Once all of the photos have been acquired, I will launch a Kickstarter where donations can be made, and based off of the donation amount, the donor will receive rewards such as prints, a calendar, a photo book, a personalized thank you card, a bookmark, etc.

Struggling with mental illness is something that both McKenzie and I are very familiar with, and it was something that we talked about together on many occasions. Both of us were affected by it, as well as were so many others around us. York University’s Personal Counselling Services was the one place that helped not only her and myself before her death, but so many others in the GTA that have been affected by her passing. Because of this, all proceeds from the McKenzie Project will go toward York University Personal Counselling Services.