Work & Contracts
This page is a selection of past professional roles ranging from full time management and leadership positions to contracts, teaching and research projects.
Some portions are still under construction.
Matilda Swanson Gallery & Bar
Art sales/ events/ admin/ bartender
2023-24
On the inaugural team for Matilda Swanson Gallery's new Stratford location. The 'Art Bar' is a multifaceted exhibition and event venue, which includes a cocktail bar and restaurant. My primary role is to provide sales support to walk-in and long-term clients, collaborate on administration, and act as bartender when needed.
Provocation Ideas Festival
Program Moderator, 2023
In 2023, I was contracted to moderate discussion investigating Artificial Intelligence and the Arts. Panelists came from range of artisitic practices, including: Loreena McKennitt, Graham Abbey, Dhaivat Jani, Ryan Kelln and Stewart Cappie. The Provocation Ideas Festival delivers programs in Toronto and Stratford, ON.
Hermione Presents/ SpringWorks
Residency Collaborator and Technical Support
2023
Grant funded residency centred on exploring the potential of online- live events. Hire to be technical support and a creative collaborator for 3 installments projects: dance, puppetry for the screen, and drag explorations. Also recruited to be leader my own residecny, investigating Zoom and scultural video
Brock University
Instructor, Special Topics in Video Production, 2018- 22
Taught 4 semesters of senior level course in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture & Film. This studio course was designed to develop the conceptual and technical skills necessary to produce engaging video works for traditional and online viewing platforms. Historical and contemporary video and New Media artworks will be examined to build a deeper understanding of the power of time- based visual communication through abstraction and experimentation. Student created 5 short- form videos, submit 3 reading responses, and conduct research on technology, presenting its conception, history, and examples of notable artists. During the pandemic moved the course online, and the focus shifted the course focus to video sharing on social media platforms, Net Art, and examinations of online/ Internet behaviours and languages.
Image from Resident Artist Exhibition, 2019
Living Arts Centre (City of Mississauga)
Exhibitions Curator &
Artist Residency Coordinator
2018- 21
The Living Arts Centre is a both a community hub and première venue for experiencing theatre and concerts, arts education, youth camps, more. I was responsible all visual arts initiatives as the Exhibitions Curator and Artist Residency Coordinator. For both portfolios, I was responsible for all administration, coordination, programming, budgeting, long-term business planning, expansion, marketing, interdepartmental collaboration, plus more!
Exhibitions: curation, coordination, design, promotion, execution of 6 gallery exhibitions annually, and numerous 'micro-exhibitions' in the venues' restaurant, cabinets, and walls to compliment theatre and educational programs. (See Curatorial Page for more information on shows.)
Residency: I worked with 25 professional artists across 9 studios: ceramics, glass, wood, sculpture, painting, printmaking, textiles, jewellery and photography, managing all administrative tasks; applications and interviews, on-boarding, contracting, policy development and enforcement, studio safety, professional development/ mentorship, and social events.
I also managed the LAC's Gift Shop, commissions program and acted a representative of the program in the wider arts community.
The Family Camera Network
Collections Team: Videographer
2017
The Family Camera Network established a public archive of family photographs and their stories at the Royal Ontario Museum and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. This archive focuses on migration, and explores the relationship between photography and the idea of family, whether of origin or of choice, as is the case with LGBTQ2+ communities. The archive contains over 17,000 photos, 37 home videos, 800 objects, as well as 42 oral history interviews.
I worked on the 'Collections Team' responsible for interviewing participants on video, and in order to document their family histories as told through storytelling prompted by their private photographs.
OCAD University
Teaching Assistant, Critical Play, 2021-22
Teaching Assistant, Sci- Fi Film Making, 2017
Researcher, Games: Play Lab, 2016-17
Researcher, Visual Analytics Lab, 2016-17
Various contracts at OCAD: Teaching Assistant for Critical Play- a course for understanding video games beyond entertainment, instead focusing on critical theory, art history, game art practices, and subversion in game play. Sci-Fi Film Making, was a course taking students through a film's 'life-cycle' starting with writing/ storyboarding, and resulting in the final delivery of a completed short film. Historical lessons in sci-fi writing, film and the evolution of technologies were presented alongside practical lessons in production.
I held research positions in both the Games: Play and Visual Analytics Labs in the department of Digital Futures. In both labs I conducted original research, and contributed to publications and presentations. The Games: Play Lab, offered the opportunity to dive deeply into the examination of historical feminist performance art practices, which I then compared and contrasted to contemporary feminist game artists via the collection of primary, interview-based research. The final paper, led by Dr. Emma Westecott , “Connections: an Intergenerational Feminist Game Art Timeline,”posited that feminist performance art practices- their conceptualization and technical execution- has had direct and traceable impact on contemporary art practices. The paper also aims to build a canon of contemporary, feminist game art practices.
In the Visual Analytics Lab, led by Dr. Martha Ladly, I collaborated with teammates in the conceptual design of digital interfaces called, "Elders, Memory and Data Visualization: Changing Aging Cues with New Media"- a project investigating how digital technology can stimulate the memories of older adults and improve their cognitive function by using an audio-visual dataset of historical CBC news. This project is highly multidisciplinary, involving interaction design, mobile technologies, natural language processing, video search, big data, quantified self-actualisation, and data visualisation, gerontology, psychology. See my page 'Full CV' for publication/ presentation details.
Image of Hammerson Hall at the Living Arts Centre
The Phillips Collection
Media Presentation Specialist
2014-16
Department manager of all digital presentation at The Phillips Collection, a major American, private museum in Washington, DC. Here I was responsible for overseeing the logistics and execution of multiple digital media based projects including; all live presentations of visiting artists, scholars, etc, live artist performances, digital art installations, exhibition documentation, audio tours, and I participated in the development of the website detailing 'Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series.'
More.. (will be added soon)
Propeller Gallery
Gallery Director, 2012-14
Gallery Director for Propeller Gallery, an artist-run/ co-operative and exhibition space in the centre in the Queen West art district of Toronto. In this role I managed all daily operations and administration, members communications and projects, contracting, reports, marketing, art sales, and organizing group exhibitions.
Team Vector
Vector Game + Art Converge, 2012-13
Part of the grass-roots artist collective 'Team Vector' who initiated Toronto's on-going Vector Festival. Team members included; skot deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim and myself. Together we developed, fundraised, wrote grants, curated, planned and pulled- off the first of Vector's festivals, which included around 70 artists. Begun in response to lack of exhibition opportunities for game artist in Canada, Vector became and still remains a staple of the international game art and new media art scene.
See "Vector Game + Art: Converge, 2013" on my Curatorial page.
U Direct
Office Manager/ Production
2011
Art in General
Gallery assistant
2010
Moving Images Art Fair
Installation & event assistant
2011
U Direct is a New York City based advertising and production boutique specializing in network television commercials. At U Direct I was the Office Manager and oversaw clients, talent and director needs. I participated with pre-production tasks; location scouting, auditions, and casting.
Syracuse University
Adjunct Instructor, Intro to Transmedia, 2009
Sessional Instrutor, Intro to Video Art, 2007-2009
Media Lab Supervisor, 2007-10
Multiple roles at Syracuse University in the Transmedia Department where I was able to explore teaching. Four semesters teaching Video Sketchbook a fast-paced studio course requiring students to produce 9 videos, writing and develop communication and critique skills, later I was asked to teach Intro to Transmedia which required technical, theoretical and conceptual teaching in video, audio, web- based art, as well as digital photography. As a Media Lab Supervisor, I offered student technical support on video equiptment and projects.
Spark Contemporary Art Space
Co-Director, 2008-10
Co-director and programmer of the DIY art and music space, Spark Contemporary Art Space located in Syracuse, New York.
This space hosted numerous emerging and established musical acts, becoming a regular stop of national or state-wide tours. Being a flexible and inclusive model, Spark provided much need, and inexpensive space for visual artists to realize exhibitions and creative projects, building a reputation as a must-see hub of visual arts in Upstate NY. In addition to programming, administration, and events, I curated the monthly screening program 'Spark Video' which brought together international and local experimental video art.
Not much formal documentation of exhibitions, concerts and events exist from this time, but I did find this tumblr page.
