Shifting Perspectives: Sylvia Grace Borda
Book ISBN 9781772033298, Softcover, pp 224
Heritage House Press and Surrey Art Gallery
https://www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery/gallery-publications/exhibition-catalogues/shifting-perspectives
2020
Book ISBN 9781772033298, Softcover, pp 224
Heritage House Press and Surrey Art Gallery
https://www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery/gallery-publications/exhibition-catalogues/shifting-perspectives
2020
Shifting Perspectives, published by Surrey Art Gallery and Heritage House, is the title of a book and comprehensive exploration of artist Sylvia Grace Borda’s extensive social photographic commentaries, digital media and community-based arts projects produced over two decades. Her place-based works capture a diverse series of visual dialogues and mappings from the City of Surrey and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and its association with the Vancouver School of Art, to the shores of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Finland and Latvia.
The book title, Shifting Perspectives, borrows its name from an essay contribution by well-known UK photographic historian and writer, Liz Wells, who focuses on the shifting viewpoints of subjects in Sylvia’s works, with particular attention to those subjects chosen by Sylvia which lie outside of traditional art representation. Other featured essays in the book are authored by prominent curators, artists, and historians—each of whom explore thematic perspectives on Sylvia’s diverse arts practice crossing the boundaries of eco-art, digital arts, photography and social awareness. Authors include Liz Wells, Dorothy Barenscott, Liane Davison, Rachel Nordstrom, Ryan Stec, Jordan Strom, Rebecca Travis, and agricultural writer, Ron Tamis.
Together, these essays are a unique set of conversations bringing together reflections on the remembrance of place and its relationship to community narrative and contemporary art historical representation. The Surrey Art Gallery has negotiated with the publishing house, Heritage House, for a full e-copy of the book to be made available in its entirety under an educational license. Download a copy of Shifting perspectives book at https://www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery/gallery-publications/exhibition-catalogues/shifting-perspectives
Within the book (shown below) one can see both a portrait of the artist and a printed copy of Shifting Perspectives placed nearby her feet. This page is also an interactive (see https://tinyurl.com/y7ocwpry) that not only forms the inside book title page and marks the first time a literary publication has been placed within the Google Street View engine.
The book title, Shifting Perspectives, borrows its name from an essay contribution by well-known UK photographic historian and writer, Liz Wells, who focuses on the shifting viewpoints of subjects in Sylvia’s works, with particular attention to those subjects chosen by Sylvia which lie outside of traditional art representation. Other featured essays in the book are authored by prominent curators, artists, and historians—each of whom explore thematic perspectives on Sylvia’s diverse arts practice crossing the boundaries of eco-art, digital arts, photography and social awareness. Authors include Liz Wells, Dorothy Barenscott, Liane Davison, Rachel Nordstrom, Ryan Stec, Jordan Strom, Rebecca Travis, and agricultural writer, Ron Tamis.
Together, these essays are a unique set of conversations bringing together reflections on the remembrance of place and its relationship to community narrative and contemporary art historical representation. The Surrey Art Gallery has negotiated with the publishing house, Heritage House, for a full e-copy of the book to be made available in its entirety under an educational license. Download a copy of Shifting perspectives book at https://www.surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery/gallery-publications/exhibition-catalogues/shifting-perspectives
Within the book (shown below) one can see both a portrait of the artist and a printed copy of Shifting Perspectives placed nearby her feet. This page is also an interactive (see https://tinyurl.com/y7ocwpry) that not only forms the inside book title page and marks the first time a literary publication has been placed within the Google Street View engine.
BOOK REVIEWS
Laurence, Robin. ‘Close-Up: Sylvia Borda and the complexities of place‘ in Preview Art Magazine (Summer Edition)
https://preview-art.com/preview/close-up-sylvia-borda-and-the-complexities-of-place/
Thoreson, Kristine. “Sylvia Grace Borda: Shifting Perspectives - A new book looks at Vancouver artist’s place-based video and photography projects” in Galleries West (May 31)
In celebration of the publication of Shifting Perspectives, a series of extended conversations took place between the artist and invited art scholars and a sustainable food activist. These recorded discussions uniquely expand on key topics around artistic practice and legacy-building through the arts.
Laurence, Robin. ‘Close-Up: Sylvia Borda and the complexities of place‘ in Preview Art Magazine (Summer Edition)
https://preview-art.com/preview/close-up-sylvia-borda-and-the-complexities-of-place/
Thoreson, Kristine. “Sylvia Grace Borda: Shifting Perspectives - A new book looks at Vancouver artist’s place-based video and photography projects” in Galleries West (May 31)
In celebration of the publication of Shifting Perspectives, a series of extended conversations took place between the artist and invited art scholars and a sustainable food activist. These recorded discussions uniquely expand on key topics around artistic practice and legacy-building through the arts.
The video discussions can be viewed on the Surrey Art Gallery YouTube channel at
The videos represent five invited conversations with the artist and these appear in the following sequence
(1) Edward Bateman focuses on contemporary digital art practice and the artist’s production of a digitally interactive and publicly accessible book cover which can be explored in Google Street View
Edward Bateman is an artist and professor at the University of Utah, where he heads the Photography and Digital Imaging area in the Department of Art & Art History. Nazraeli Press released Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny (2009), a limited-edition book of his work which is held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and George Eastman Museum among others. Bateman's work has been widely written about, including a 2012 profile in the UK publication Printmaking Today, the journal of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. Bateman has contributed to several authoritative textbooks on digital photography, including Seizing the Light: A Social and Aesthetic History of Photography (2017). Bateman has been twice short-listed (2014 and 2016) for the Lumen Prize, described by The Guardian Culture Blog as “The world’s preeminent digital art prize.” Bateman’s own artworks have been exhibited in over twenty-seven countries and represented in the photographic collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Victoria & Albert Museum, The China Printmaking Museum, and Getty Research Institute, among others. His work was awarded the Nature Prize (2018) by the Royal Geographical Society in London.
(2) Megan Arney Johnston, Independent Curator and Practitioner of Slow Curating & Radical Museology, reflects on several aspects of the artist's practice including:
Part 1 - Reflections on both Sylvia and Megan having lived and met in Northern Ireland, the two discuss the legacies from working abroad in the arts at a time when the country was moving forward from the Mitchell Agreement (1998) through to the early 2000s.
Parts 2 and 3 - Conversations across a range of contemporary art practice themes - what Megan defines as the 'spectra': artistic observations, slow curation in photography, and the role of artists in community engagement and public art.
Megan Arney Johnston is a curator, museum specialist, and educator who utilizes socially engaged curatorial practices. Her work centers on fundamental questions about art, its display, and mediation. Johnston is a noted specialist in social engagement, coining the term Slow Curating in 2011. Johnston has worked in museums in Ireland, the UK and the USA including Portadown, N Ireland, LaGrange, GA, Fargo, ND, Sligo, Ireland, and Rochester, MN. She received her PhD in socially engaged curatorial practice from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Arney Johnston has produced more than 300 exhibitions over her 20-year-career. She has written dozens of exhibition catalog essays and articles in academic journals in addition to presenting on social practice at international conferences.
(3) Grant Rice is an agriculturalist and food advocate and co-founding Director of the Surrey Urban Farmers Market in Surrey, B.C. Canada. In this video, Grant Rice exchanges insights and observations with Sylvia about the Surrey and Fraser basin agricultural region and the challenges that suburban farmers face today. Several Google Street View ‘farm portraits’ created by Sylvia are referenced in the discussion. These works are publicly accessible at the following URLs
Other resource: Future of land-art making
https://medium.com/@CarmenSP/what-should-we-expect-from-art-in-the-next-few-years-decades-and-what-is-art-anyway-be9f75c3d1ae
(4) Michelle Henning, Chair in Photography and Media, University of Liverpool (UK) provides commentary and insights into Sylvia's contemporary digital art practice. This conversation is captured in two thematic parts, responding to Sylvia’s pioneering digital artworks from the production of Snow Cameras in Finland to staged portraiture and Canadian farming panoramas in Google Street View.
Michelle Henning is Professor and Chair in Photography and Media at the University of Liverpool, UK. She is a practicing photographer and designer, and has written widely on museums, media, and photography in her book Museums, Media and Cultural Theory and Photography: The Unfettered Image.
(5) Michael Tan, a Singaporean artist, educator and Reader in Health and Well-being at Sheffield-Hallam University, discusses a range of art and design concepts and principles which he has been applying to support a wider culture of care. Sylvia examines how ideas of flourishing in health and well-being can shape how artists approach community partnerships and public art commissions.
Michael Tan is a leading advocate for arts & design for health development in Singapore, his research interest explores art and design practices in relation to health & well-being, care, and ageing. Inspired by assemblage theory, Tan explores the role of creative practice in shaping a culture of care in various care settings and in the wider context of medical humanities and health communication. Tan recently joined the at Sheffield Hallam University (UK) as a Reader in Art and Design (2020) and is contributing to the Lab’s programme of innovation on the 100 Year Life and the Future Home. In his previous appointment as an Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University, Tan led an arts & design portfolio in healthcare development in Singapore working with stakeholders across the arts, design, health and social care sectors to improve the patient experience of services and products related to health and wellbeing.
Website resources:
Lab4Living: https://lab4living.org.uk/
Website: https://michaeltankb.net/
Arts, Ageing and Wellbeing Toolkit, (2020), in collaboration with MSc in Applied Gerontology (AG6309: Arts, Ageing and Wellbeing Course) NTU & Agency for Integrated Care.
https://partners.aic.sg/sites/aicassets/AssetGallery/Community%20Care%20providers/AIC%20Wellness%20Programme/Art%20Ageing%20Wellbeing%20Toolkit.pdf
Sparks Art and Wellness Toolkit, (2018), in collaboration with Agency for Integrated Care. https://partners.aic.sg/sites/aicassets/AssetGallery/Community%20Care%20providers/AIC%20Wellness%20Programme/AIC%20Toolkit%20Full.PDF
Montreal museum partners with doctors to 'prescribe' art (2018) BBC World News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45972348
Cultural Health and Well-Being, Smithsonian (2018)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/canadian-doctors-will-soon-be-able-prescribe-museum-visits-180970599/
(1) Edward Bateman focuses on contemporary digital art practice and the artist’s production of a digitally interactive and publicly accessible book cover which can be explored in Google Street View
Edward Bateman is an artist and professor at the University of Utah, where he heads the Photography and Digital Imaging area in the Department of Art & Art History. Nazraeli Press released Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny (2009), a limited-edition book of his work which is held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and George Eastman Museum among others. Bateman's work has been widely written about, including a 2012 profile in the UK publication Printmaking Today, the journal of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. Bateman has contributed to several authoritative textbooks on digital photography, including Seizing the Light: A Social and Aesthetic History of Photography (2017). Bateman has been twice short-listed (2014 and 2016) for the Lumen Prize, described by The Guardian Culture Blog as “The world’s preeminent digital art prize.” Bateman’s own artworks have been exhibited in over twenty-seven countries and represented in the photographic collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Victoria & Albert Museum, The China Printmaking Museum, and Getty Research Institute, among others. His work was awarded the Nature Prize (2018) by the Royal Geographical Society in London.
(2) Megan Arney Johnston, Independent Curator and Practitioner of Slow Curating & Radical Museology, reflects on several aspects of the artist's practice including:
Part 1 - Reflections on both Sylvia and Megan having lived and met in Northern Ireland, the two discuss the legacies from working abroad in the arts at a time when the country was moving forward from the Mitchell Agreement (1998) through to the early 2000s.
Parts 2 and 3 - Conversations across a range of contemporary art practice themes - what Megan defines as the 'spectra': artistic observations, slow curation in photography, and the role of artists in community engagement and public art.
Megan Arney Johnston is a curator, museum specialist, and educator who utilizes socially engaged curatorial practices. Her work centers on fundamental questions about art, its display, and mediation. Johnston is a noted specialist in social engagement, coining the term Slow Curating in 2011. Johnston has worked in museums in Ireland, the UK and the USA including Portadown, N Ireland, LaGrange, GA, Fargo, ND, Sligo, Ireland, and Rochester, MN. She received her PhD in socially engaged curatorial practice from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Arney Johnston has produced more than 300 exhibitions over her 20-year-career. She has written dozens of exhibition catalog essays and articles in academic journals in addition to presenting on social practice at international conferences.
(3) Grant Rice is an agriculturalist and food advocate and co-founding Director of the Surrey Urban Farmers Market in Surrey, B.C. Canada. In this video, Grant Rice exchanges insights and observations with Sylvia about the Surrey and Fraser basin agricultural region and the challenges that suburban farmers face today. Several Google Street View ‘farm portraits’ created by Sylvia are referenced in the discussion. These works are publicly accessible at the following URLs
- 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 - Rondriso Farm, Surrey, BC, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/z8oqhcc
Other resource: Future of land-art making
https://medium.com/@CarmenSP/what-should-we-expect-from-art-in-the-next-few-years-decades-and-what-is-art-anyway-be9f75c3d1ae
(4) Michelle Henning, Chair in Photography and Media, University of Liverpool (UK) provides commentary and insights into Sylvia's contemporary digital art practice. This conversation is captured in two thematic parts, responding to Sylvia’s pioneering digital artworks from the production of Snow Cameras in Finland to staged portraiture and Canadian farming panoramas in Google Street View.
Michelle Henning is Professor and Chair in Photography and Media at the University of Liverpool, UK. She is a practicing photographer and designer, and has written widely on museums, media, and photography in her book Museums, Media and Cultural Theory and Photography: The Unfettered Image.
(5) Michael Tan, a Singaporean artist, educator and Reader in Health and Well-being at Sheffield-Hallam University, discusses a range of art and design concepts and principles which he has been applying to support a wider culture of care. Sylvia examines how ideas of flourishing in health and well-being can shape how artists approach community partnerships and public art commissions.
Michael Tan is a leading advocate for arts & design for health development in Singapore, his research interest explores art and design practices in relation to health & well-being, care, and ageing. Inspired by assemblage theory, Tan explores the role of creative practice in shaping a culture of care in various care settings and in the wider context of medical humanities and health communication. Tan recently joined the at Sheffield Hallam University (UK) as a Reader in Art and Design (2020) and is contributing to the Lab’s programme of innovation on the 100 Year Life and the Future Home. In his previous appointment as an Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University, Tan led an arts & design portfolio in healthcare development in Singapore working with stakeholders across the arts, design, health and social care sectors to improve the patient experience of services and products related to health and wellbeing.
Website resources:
Lab4Living: https://lab4living.org.uk/
Website: https://michaeltankb.net/
Arts, Ageing and Wellbeing Toolkit, (2020), in collaboration with MSc in Applied Gerontology (AG6309: Arts, Ageing and Wellbeing Course) NTU & Agency for Integrated Care.
https://partners.aic.sg/sites/aicassets/AssetGallery/Community%20Care%20providers/AIC%20Wellness%20Programme/Art%20Ageing%20Wellbeing%20Toolkit.pdf
Sparks Art and Wellness Toolkit, (2018), in collaboration with Agency for Integrated Care. https://partners.aic.sg/sites/aicassets/AssetGallery/Community%20Care%20providers/AIC%20Wellness%20Programme/AIC%20Toolkit%20Full.PDF
Montreal museum partners with doctors to 'prescribe' art (2018) BBC World News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45972348
Cultural Health and Well-Being, Smithsonian (2018)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/canadian-doctors-will-soon-be-able-prescribe-museum-visits-180970599/