Farm Tableaux
Google Street View tableaux portraits, C41 exhibition prints
Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada Arts Commission
2013
Google Street View tableaux portraits, C41 exhibition prints
Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada Arts Commission
2013
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Sylvia Grace Borda worked closely to create the first explorative artworks in Google Street view in partnership with Google Trusted Street view photographer, John M Lynch, both in Canada (see below) and in Finland (see Mise en Scene| Farm Tableaux series).
Her Canadian series simply entitled FARM TABLEAUX captures farmers enacting a routine activity, but unlike conventionally staged photographs, the observer can explore these framed compositions within an interactive Google Street View landscape. Sylvia tasked each of the TABLEAUX participants to stand motionless for periods of up to 40 minutes in order to be captured by Google cameras. In this way, Sylvia has cleverly reverse engineered photographic practices in which the slow exposures of 19th century photography resulted in studio sitters being propped up for several minutes to allow a portrait image to be recorded. The artist has staged her subjects so they become 3-dimensional portrait sitters caught in a glance by the camera in multiple viewpoints in space and time. The artist breaks with Sontag's notion of a singular frame to offer the viewer many viewpoints that are all available simultaneously in order to compose our own views, too. These choreographed scenes enable notions of expanded cinema to be encountered by the online viewer. By the artist incorporating panoramas of farming landscapes using Google Street view, she has fundamentally expanded the vocabulary and notion of public space. Sylvia’s artwork becomes a distributed form of collectivity and a record of new visuality on the Internet. FARM TABLEAUX pushes the boundaries of what constitutes contemporary online art and photography whilst also defining social connectedness in the context of a highly visual and hybrid ‘commons’ of geography, time and the tableau vivant. |
Farm Tableaux artworks See and explore the dimensional photographs first hand through the following links:
Rondriso Farm, Surrey, BC, Canada http://tinyurl.com/z8oqhcc Medomist Farm Ltd, Surrey, BC, Canada http://tinyurl.com/gr4us75 Clover Valley Organic Farm, Surrey, BC, Canada http://tinyurl.com/jv9rhc2 Finley's Rhododendrons, Surrey, BC, Canada https://goo.gl/maps/805gN Zaklan Heritage Farm, Surrey, BC, Canada http://tinyurl.com/jhgy5sv Farm Tableaux stills: Of note Sylvia and John M Lynch were awarded by an international jury in September 2016 a LUMEN AWARD for their innovative and progressive work in net art.
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Working in Surrey, BC
Sylvia acknowledges as an artist working in the City of Surrey, she has photographed and worked on the unceded territories and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Qayqayt and Tsawwassen First Nations, and she pays respect to the Elders, past and present, and to future generations.
Interactive map resources such as Native Land (2015), Whose Land (2017) and Indigenous Peoples Atlas (2018) can help identify territories. As always maps are fluid and ever changing and can be used as educational tools to create dialogue around reconciliation.
Project reviews
2022
Book
Haedicke, Susan C. “Storied Walks Around the Farm: Performative Walks with Ffion Jones’ The Only Places We Ever Knew, Charlotte Hollins on Fordhall Organic Farm and Sylvia Grace Borda’s Farm Tableaux Finland” in Performing Farmscapes (Performing Landscapes). 1st edition. Publisher: Springer International Publishing, 2021. ISBN 3030824330, 9783030824334
Book
Edwards, Rhys (ed). TechLab Experiments in media art 1999-2019, Surrey Art Gallery Publication, Mitchell Press, Vancouver, Canada, 2022. ISBN 9781926573625 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781926573632 (PDF). PDF available at: https://www.surrey.ca/sites/default/files/media/documents/SurreyArtGallery_TechLab.pdf
2020
A critical discussion about the artist's development of Farm Tableaux is included in the book, Shifting Perspectives, co-published by Surrey Art Gallery and Heritage House Publishers (Canada) www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery/gallery-publications/exhibition-catalogues/shifting-perspectives
2016
The Farm Tableaux Canada series was long-listed and won the Lumen Prize for Web Arts in September. This prize has been described in the Guardian as the most preeminent and global digital arts prize to date. http://lumenprize.com/
Parhar, Katherine. "Farm Tableaux" in Feature essays, July edition, Photomonitor Magazine.
https://photomonitor.co.uk/essay/sylvia-grace-borda-farm-tableaux/
Travis, Rebecca. "The only thing that’s changed is everything" feature article in the 2016 Summer edition of Scottish Society for the History of Photography
https://web.archive.org/web/20180902212635/http://sshop.org.uk/project/rebecca-travis/
Castro, Xosé on PRENSA RTVE (Spanish National TV) for the Arts, reviews Farm Tableaux. 27.09.2016
http://www.rtve.es/rtve/20160927/escritora-espido-freire-hablara-su-debut-como-actriz-teatral-esta-semana-atencion-obras/1414824.shtml
2014
Fremantle, Chris. “Farm Tableaux” in eco/art/scot/land Jan 25, 2014. http://ecoartscotland.net/2014/01/25/farm-tableaux/
2013
Arva-Toth, Zoltan . “Photographers Create First Artworks in Google Street View” in Digital News: Photography Blog, October 29, 2013.
http://www.photographyblog.com/news/photographers_create_first_artworks_in_google_street_view/
Grgar, Sonja. “The grass is not greener on the other side: Surrey exhibition highlights the importance of local agriculture” in The Source | Vol 13 – No 30 | October 8 – October 22, 2013
http://thelasource.com/en/2013/10/07/the-grass-is-not-greener-on-the-other-side-surrey-exhibition-highlights-the-importance-of-local-agriculture/
Hunter, Dorothy. " This one's for the Farmer' e-catalogue, Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada. 2013
Kimmett, Colleen. “Google Farm View: Artist Sylvia Grace Borda gives agrarian Surrey a techie treatment” in The Weekend Tyee, October 19, 2013. http://thetyee.ca/ArtsAndCulture/2013/10/19/Google-Farm-View/
Laurence, Robin. “Fall arts preview: Sylvia Grace Borda finds art in farms and sequins” in the Georgia Straight Newspaper, Vancouver, September 11 -18, 2013.
http://www.straight.com/arts/421776/fall-arts-preview-sylvia-grace-borda-finds-art-farms-and-sequins
Stass, Joanna. “Photographer creates interactive Google Street View artwork,” in News: Photography for Beginners UK Blog, October 31, 2013,
http://www.photoforbeginners.com/news/news-features/photographers-create-google-street-view-artwork
The following videos are narrated by the artist and present an overview to how each of the FARM TABLEAUX: Surrey, BC projects
were staged in Google Streetview:
Sylvia acknowledges as an artist working in the City of Surrey, she has photographed and worked on the unceded territories and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Qayqayt and Tsawwassen First Nations, and she pays respect to the Elders, past and present, and to future generations.
Interactive map resources such as Native Land (2015), Whose Land (2017) and Indigenous Peoples Atlas (2018) can help identify territories. As always maps are fluid and ever changing and can be used as educational tools to create dialogue around reconciliation.
Project reviews
2022
Book
Haedicke, Susan C. “Storied Walks Around the Farm: Performative Walks with Ffion Jones’ The Only Places We Ever Knew, Charlotte Hollins on Fordhall Organic Farm and Sylvia Grace Borda’s Farm Tableaux Finland” in Performing Farmscapes (Performing Landscapes). 1st edition. Publisher: Springer International Publishing, 2021. ISBN 3030824330, 9783030824334
Book
Edwards, Rhys (ed). TechLab Experiments in media art 1999-2019, Surrey Art Gallery Publication, Mitchell Press, Vancouver, Canada, 2022. ISBN 9781926573625 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781926573632 (PDF). PDF available at: https://www.surrey.ca/sites/default/files/media/documents/SurreyArtGallery_TechLab.pdf
2020
A critical discussion about the artist's development of Farm Tableaux is included in the book, Shifting Perspectives, co-published by Surrey Art Gallery and Heritage House Publishers (Canada) www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery/gallery-publications/exhibition-catalogues/shifting-perspectives
2016
The Farm Tableaux Canada series was long-listed and won the Lumen Prize for Web Arts in September. This prize has been described in the Guardian as the most preeminent and global digital arts prize to date. http://lumenprize.com/
Parhar, Katherine. "Farm Tableaux" in Feature essays, July edition, Photomonitor Magazine.
https://photomonitor.co.uk/essay/sylvia-grace-borda-farm-tableaux/
Travis, Rebecca. "The only thing that’s changed is everything" feature article in the 2016 Summer edition of Scottish Society for the History of Photography
https://web.archive.org/web/20180902212635/http://sshop.org.uk/project/rebecca-travis/
Castro, Xosé on PRENSA RTVE (Spanish National TV) for the Arts, reviews Farm Tableaux. 27.09.2016
http://www.rtve.es/rtve/20160927/escritora-espido-freire-hablara-su-debut-como-actriz-teatral-esta-semana-atencion-obras/1414824.shtml
2014
Fremantle, Chris. “Farm Tableaux” in eco/art/scot/land Jan 25, 2014. http://ecoartscotland.net/2014/01/25/farm-tableaux/
2013
Arva-Toth, Zoltan . “Photographers Create First Artworks in Google Street View” in Digital News: Photography Blog, October 29, 2013.
http://www.photographyblog.com/news/photographers_create_first_artworks_in_google_street_view/
Grgar, Sonja. “The grass is not greener on the other side: Surrey exhibition highlights the importance of local agriculture” in The Source | Vol 13 – No 30 | October 8 – October 22, 2013
http://thelasource.com/en/2013/10/07/the-grass-is-not-greener-on-the-other-side-surrey-exhibition-highlights-the-importance-of-local-agriculture/
Hunter, Dorothy. " This one's for the Farmer' e-catalogue, Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada. 2013
Kimmett, Colleen. “Google Farm View: Artist Sylvia Grace Borda gives agrarian Surrey a techie treatment” in The Weekend Tyee, October 19, 2013. http://thetyee.ca/ArtsAndCulture/2013/10/19/Google-Farm-View/
Laurence, Robin. “Fall arts preview: Sylvia Grace Borda finds art in farms and sequins” in the Georgia Straight Newspaper, Vancouver, September 11 -18, 2013.
http://www.straight.com/arts/421776/fall-arts-preview-sylvia-grace-borda-finds-art-farms-and-sequins
Stass, Joanna. “Photographer creates interactive Google Street View artwork,” in News: Photography for Beginners UK Blog, October 31, 2013,
http://www.photoforbeginners.com/news/news-features/photographers-create-google-street-view-artwork
The following videos are narrated by the artist and present an overview to how each of the FARM TABLEAUX: Surrey, BC projects
were staged in Google Streetview:
The artist presents an overview to the Farm Tableaux project (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSWkuH-WzGg) from its roots in Canada to its development in Finland. This interview forms part of an e-archive produced in June 2015 in tandem with the Mänttä Art Festival guest curated by Kalle Hamm and Dzamil Kamanger.