Sylvia Grace Borda

Profile Picture
Currently based
Vancouver, Glasgow
Affiliated institution
Fellow, Women4Climate
Website

www.sylviagborda.com
About

Borda is a practising media artist and curator with over a decade of experience in lecturing about photography and Western art histories. She is also considered a Canadian pioneer in leading media innovation through the adaptation and re-use of frugal technologies to produce contemporary artworks. She's been acknowledged as the first artist to successfully stage tableau vivant in the Google Street View engine and for her work in partnership with Google Trusted Photographer, John M Lynch, won the Lumen Prize (2016), which was judged by Doug Dodds, Senior Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Foteini Aravani, Digital Curator, Museum of London; Tessa Jackson OBE, independent curator and consultant; Weiwei Wang, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; and Bruce Wands, Chair Emeritus, School of Visual Arts, New York.

She has held teaching positions in Canada at the University of British Columbia (2000-06) and Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2005-07). In the UK, she led the MA programme in Photography at Queen’s University Belfast (2007-09), BA (Hons) Photography at the University of Salford-Manchester as Senior Lecturer (2010), Visiting Arts Lecturer, University of Stirling, Scotland (2009-2016)

Borda was the recipient of an EU award (2014-18) and Fellow of the Frontiers in Retreat programme, developing artworks in Finland, Latvia and Scotland which used emergent technologies from hunting cameras to video drones as a way to study, research and respond to changing urban and rural landscapes. Her collaboration with a number of independent and national agricultural organisations to produce, Farm Tableaux, produced a portrait of contemporary Finnish farming completed using Google Street view technologies for public exhibition. Equally Borda was developing collaborations with partners to stage a national colloquium amongst different Finnish food producers and food campaigners in order to create a draft Food Charter for national and parliamentary debate. It was hoped that a Food Charter might be amended to the constitution, thus, protecting the rights of Finnish citizens to access local foods now and into the future. These aspirations are continuing to be produced.

Such work illustrates Borda’s affinity for critical debate about contemporary matters and exploration in digital media and innovation. In 2013 she was recipient of funds from BC Film and Media’s Arts Innovation Fund and BC Creative Communities to develop visual artworks using aerial drone videography, 3D stereoscopy, and Google Streetview mapping technologies. She is the first known artist creating artworks in Google Street view in partnership with Google Trusted Photographer, John Lynch. Additionally, she completed a commission for Streetlevel Photoworks (2013-14) in Glasgow in which the physical camera became the subject of an epic 100 image digital portfolio. Borda has also received a number of other public grants and awards including City of Richmond Public Art Commission: No.4 Pump Station (2010-11), Cultural Capital of Canada Artist status award in combination with Cultural Olympiad project status for the Winter Olympics (2008-10), the Innovation Award, The Lighthouse Gallery Glasgow (2006), and the Urban Culture Award (through the Millennium Commission, Cities of Culture Liverpool) for 2005-07.

She is the author of “The Artist’s Photographic Book: Towards a Definition” in Photography and the Artist’s Book, MuseumsEtc Publishers, Edinburgh (2012) and “Comments on Skinning our Tools (2003)“ in Banff New Media Institute Dialogues Euphoria and Dystopia, Banff Centre Press and Riverside Architectural Press (2012).

Borda has been involved in recent solo exhibitions over the last three years at Street Level Photoworks Gallery (Glasgow), Belfast Exposed (Northern Ireland), Surrey Art Gallery (Canada), A&D Gallery (London) in addition, to group shows at The MAC (Northern Ireland), presentation events as part of the Venice Architectural Biennale events sponsored by the British Council (2014), and Zoo Arte (Cuneo, Italy). She continues to lecture widely on photography, new media, and imaging in Canada, USA, and the UK.

CV
Academic and Cultural Appointments

2019 Fellow, Women4Climate (w4c.org)

2018-2019 Academic Fellow and Artist in Residence, Departments of Arts and Sciences, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, BC, Canada

2009-16 Honorary Research Fellow in Visual Arts, University of Stirling, Scotland

2009-2010 BA (Hons) Photography and Media Arts, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader, University of Salford, UK.

2007-2009 MA Convener and Lecturer: Photography and Visual Arts Programme, Film and Imaging Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland

2008-2009 MA & PhD Convener: Picture-Text Programme, Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland

2007- 2012 Research Associate, Department of Digital Media, Faculty of Art & Design, Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

2003-2007 Professor, BA and MA Digital Visual + Media Arts Programme, Emily Carr University Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada

2006 Visiting Professor, MA Image Science & New Media Arts Programme Danube University Krems, Austria

2006 Visiting Professor, MA Arts & Culture Management Programme, Danube University Krems, Austria

2001 – 2006 Associate Researcher and Lecturer, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada,

2002-03 Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Digital Media Arts, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design,

1999-2002 Visiting Professor and Media Artist, Web and Software Systems Design MA Programme, British Columbia Institute for Technology, Burnaby, Canada

1995-97 Guest Lecturer Fall & Spring Semester, Museum of Anthropology, Conservation Department, Museum Studies, University of British Columbia, Canada
Works
News
Close-Up:Dialogue with Sylvia Grace Borda, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, Scotland

The recent book ‘Shifting Perspectives’ (2020) is a thought-provoking art book exploring changing landscapes through the pioneering work of Canadian-British artist Sylvia Grace Borda. Sylvia has undertaken epic projects to re-imagine urban spaces, from the “New Towns” of East Kilbride and Glenrothes in Scotland to modernist faith buildings in Northern Ireland. The publication is described as a ‘dazzling new monograph’, where her exceptional body of work is examined and placed in both a regional and international context. Her practice originates in British Columbia and covers subjects in relation to art history, the Vancouver School of Art, digital media, community engagement and concluded in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Finland.

Close-Up:Dialogue with Sylvia Grace Borda, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, Scotland
Farm Tableaux - Google Street view artworks included in 40th Anniversary Exhibition at the Surrey Art Gallery, Canada

Borda is presenting a series of 30 photographic images from FARM TABLEAUX (the first staged artworks created in collaboration with John M Lynch in the Google Street View engine) as part of 'Views from the Southbank III' presented at the Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada until December 14, 2015. Her work is being showcased as part of a larger project curated by Jordan Strom to celebrate the Surrey Art Gallery's 40th anniversary.

Farm Tableaux - Google Street view artworks included in 40th Anniversary Exhibition at the Surrey Art Gallery, Canada
Bibliography
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