Sylvia is a practising media artist with over a decade of experience in lecturing about digital arts, photography and Western art histories.
She has been recognized as a pioneer in net art receiving the Lumen Prize (2016) in this category acknowledging her efforts to be the first artist to stage dimensional artworks or tableaux within the Google Street view engine for public viewing.
To date Sylvia continues to advance her work in Google Street View, offering the public another set of artworks, The Kissing Project (2017), completed now using pro-consumer 360’ technologies. Her original series, Farm Tableaux (2013,2014) was completed in collaboration with Google Street View Trusted photographer, John M Lynch.
Such work illustrates Sylvia’s affinity for critical exploration in digital media . Of note in 2013 she was recipient of funds from the Surrey Art Gallery, BC Innovation and Media and the BC Creative Communities (Canada) to develop visual artworks using aerial drone videography, and 3D stereoscopy. In addition these funds assisted with her use of Google Streetview mapping technologies to create art, She is also known for a recent commission completed for Street Level Photoworks (2013-14) in Glasgow, Scotland in which the physical camera becomes the subject of an epic 100 image portfolio.
Sylvia was recently the recipient of an EU award (2014-17) under the Frontiers in Retreat programme, developing artwork as a Canadian artist in Finland, Latvia, and Scotland. In each location she created artworks that challenged how viewers could define their own landscape by re-examining it through a variety of lens-based technologies and photographic techniques. She created dynamic artworks using everything from a camera obscura made completely of snow in Finland to creating edible photograms from local fauna in Scotland.
Complementing her focus on photographic histories, the digital imaging arts equally remain integral to her teaching, writing and visual arts practice. This meeting point of practice has been a defining force in shaping Sylvia’s unique intersections across digital and analog imaging cultures, architectural and cultural theory.
She has held positions in Canada at the University of British Columbia (2000-2006) and Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2005-07) in Vancouver. In the UK, she has led the MA programme in Photography at Queen’s University Belfast (2007-2009), BA (Hons) Photography at the University of Salford-Manchester as Senior Lecturer (2010), and presently she is a guest lecturer at the University of Stirling, Scotland.
Sylvia has also sat as a board member on exhibition policy for the Belfast Exposed Gallery (2008-2014), and is assisting in the development of learning content for the Scottish Civic Trust in urban design, photography, and the built environment.
Key exhibitions and lectures include: Oulu Art Museum, Finland (2015); regional respondent for the British Council (Northern Ireland) in relation to the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014); Finnish Museum of Photography (2014); Camera Histories, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (2013-2014); Aerial Fields, Surrey Urban Screen (2013-14); Art House (2013-14), Richmond Public Art Program; to name a few.
She has been recognized as a pioneer in net art receiving the Lumen Prize (2016) in this category acknowledging her efforts to be the first artist to stage dimensional artworks or tableaux within the Google Street view engine for public viewing.
To date Sylvia continues to advance her work in Google Street View, offering the public another set of artworks, The Kissing Project (2017), completed now using pro-consumer 360’ technologies. Her original series, Farm Tableaux (2013,2014) was completed in collaboration with Google Street View Trusted photographer, John M Lynch.
Such work illustrates Sylvia’s affinity for critical exploration in digital media . Of note in 2013 she was recipient of funds from the Surrey Art Gallery, BC Innovation and Media and the BC Creative Communities (Canada) to develop visual artworks using aerial drone videography, and 3D stereoscopy. In addition these funds assisted with her use of Google Streetview mapping technologies to create art, She is also known for a recent commission completed for Street Level Photoworks (2013-14) in Glasgow, Scotland in which the physical camera becomes the subject of an epic 100 image portfolio.
Sylvia was recently the recipient of an EU award (2014-17) under the Frontiers in Retreat programme, developing artwork as a Canadian artist in Finland, Latvia, and Scotland. In each location she created artworks that challenged how viewers could define their own landscape by re-examining it through a variety of lens-based technologies and photographic techniques. She created dynamic artworks using everything from a camera obscura made completely of snow in Finland to creating edible photograms from local fauna in Scotland.
Complementing her focus on photographic histories, the digital imaging arts equally remain integral to her teaching, writing and visual arts practice. This meeting point of practice has been a defining force in shaping Sylvia’s unique intersections across digital and analog imaging cultures, architectural and cultural theory.
She has held positions in Canada at the University of British Columbia (2000-2006) and Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2005-07) in Vancouver. In the UK, she has led the MA programme in Photography at Queen’s University Belfast (2007-2009), BA (Hons) Photography at the University of Salford-Manchester as Senior Lecturer (2010), and presently she is a guest lecturer at the University of Stirling, Scotland.
Sylvia has also sat as a board member on exhibition policy for the Belfast Exposed Gallery (2008-2014), and is assisting in the development of learning content for the Scottish Civic Trust in urban design, photography, and the built environment.
Key exhibitions and lectures include: Oulu Art Museum, Finland (2015); regional respondent for the British Council (Northern Ireland) in relation to the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014); Finnish Museum of Photography (2014); Camera Histories, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (2013-2014); Aerial Fields, Surrey Urban Screen (2013-14); Art House (2013-14), Richmond Public Art Program; to name a few.