Sylvia Nowak

Interdisciplinary artist, scholar and arts worker.

Experienced digital communications & marketing specialist.

Education:

Ph.D in Cultural Studies - Queen’s University
(ABD)

MFA in Documentary Media - Toronto Metropolitan University
(2018)

BFA in Image Arts: Photography - Toronto Metropolitan University
(2009)

Biography:

Sylvia Nowak is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar and arts worker based in Toronto. Her research and practice center around archives, media criticism, and radical histories of resistance. As a maker, she enjoys working in experimental forms that rely on collage, found-footage, and the act of recycling/upcycling materials, but she also enjoys documenting moments in life.

She is a member of the Cosmic Bloom Craft Collective.

She is the webmaster of the Film and Media Studies of Canada (FMSAC). Sylvia is a volunteer with the Toronto Zine Library, and an active zinester - now with her own zine distro, Radish Zines.

You can also often find her behind the counter at Bay Street Video.

Physical Media Forever. <3

CONTACT

INSTAGRAM

News & Media

2025:

Facilitated a Toronto Zine Library workshop with the Employee & Client Wellbeing Unit of Toronto Shelter and Support Services (November 2025)

Fix Up Look Sharp: Revamped Thrift Store Art
Two pieces seleted for exhibition at
Northern Contemporary Gallery
(March 2025)

Co-facilitated Toronto Zine Library workshop for TMU graduate class, Carceral Geographies & the Production of Space (February 2025)

2024:

Vendor as part of Imago Palestino magazine launch and art market (December 2024)

Interviewed for Globe & Mail article, Broken Pencil magazine to shut down as founder cites pressure over pro-Israel Views
(December 2024)

Dear Broken Pencil Magazine open letter published
(September 2024)

Spoke on the Blueprints of Disruption podcast for the episode: Reclaiming Social Housing with 230 Fightback (September 2024)

Designed The Financialization of Housing: REITs zine (September 2024)

Co-facilitated Toronto Zine Library workshops with the Museum of Contemporary Art (April 2024)

2023:

G20 photographs and additional archival research included in the People, Power & the Park Exhibit at the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (July 2023)

Interviewed for Broken Pencil article, Toronto Zine Library Reopens (May 2023)

Zine 4 U – DIY Zine Workshop Series, Toronto Zine Library & Hart House (March 2023)

2022:

Tabled as part of the Cosmic Bloom collective at the Tranzac Holiday Gift Fair (December 2022)

Tabled as part of the Cosmic Bloom collective at Ghostwood Market (September 2022)

Tabled as part of the Cosmic Bloom collective at the Campbell Popup (August 2022)

Tabled as part of the Cosmic Bloom collective at 6x8 Market (July 2022)

Conference Panelist, Propositions Towards Antifascist Filmmaking & Archival Research, Radical Film Network (Un)Conference, Genoa, Italy (June 2022)

2021:

Co-curated the Moving Homeward online program for Pleasure Dome, co-presented by Archive/Counter-Archive (November 2021)

Working Paper Series talk, “This Is Toronto: Finding Antifascism in the Neoliberal Archives, 1979-1998” presented by Archive/Counter-Archive (March 2021)

2020:

Accepted - Conference paper, Whose Side Are You On? An Analysis of The Policing of Toronto’s Anti-Racist Action, Organized Abandonment: Cultures of Crisis and Resistance conference, Simon Fraser University, BC
*Canceled due to Covid-19*

Designed Behind Closed Doors report for Migrant Rights Canada
(October 2020)

2019:

Collaborative panel presentation, “Infiltrated with Arty-Tarty Types”: Queerness, National Unity, and the National Film Board, Canadian Screens, Brock University, St. Catherines, ON, Canada (November 2019)

Pickle Juice collective showcased in Where We Are, group exhibition and market at Beaver Hall Gallery, Toronto. (October 2019)

Conference paper, 206 Carlton: A Case Study in Documentary Compilation Filmmaking, Transnational Radical Film Cultures, University of Nottingham, UK. (June 2019)

Conference paper, 206 Carlton: A Case Study in Documentary Compilation Filmmaking, Breaking the Archive, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB. (May 2019)

Collaborative panel presentation,“Infiltrated with Arty-Tarty Types”: Queerness, National Unity, and the National Film Board, UnDisciplined Conference, Queen’s University, Kingston. (April 2019)\

206 Carlton selected and screened at the Denver Underground Film Festival winning Second Runner-Up for Best Documentary (March 2019)

2018:

Showing of work-in-progress project, (Fair) Deal or No (Fair) Deal as part of Re/search Public Presentations at the Art & Media Lab in Kingston (December 2018)

Spoke on a panel at the 9th International Small Cinemas Conference in Florida Atlantic University on my experiences making 206 Carlton (November 2018)

Screened 206 Carlton at CineCycle & Ryerson Image Arts (June 2018)

Alternative Toronto exhibition, 206 Carlton: Resisting Zundel published (June 2018)

Last Updated : August 12, 2026

Projects

Mixed Media Works:

Working For The Weekend (2025)

Countdown (2025)

Loud and Stupid (2025)
[sold] 🔴

Nobody Knows The Trouble (2024)
[4x5 inches w/frame]

Fun (2024)

Plane (2022)

Treasure (2024)

Vache Qui Rit (2024)

Blah Blah Blah (2024)

Ostrich (2022)

Learning To Be Human (2022)

There Goes The Neighbourhood (2022)

Garbage Art

(2023-2024)

Mixed media made from “trashed” materials on recycled cardboard packaging.

Every Photo Is A Lie
(2020-2023)

Textual analog collage work.

Every Photo Is A Lie (2022)

Cat (2022)

The Will To Think (2020)

How Much Time? (2022)

Where Have We Been? (2022)

Nothing (2022)

Evolution of a Dream (2022)

Is Anybody Out There? (2023)

206 Carlton(Video, 14min, Colour)

Using archival materials, 206 Carlton is a short experimental compilation-based documentary film that brings together a story of racism and resistance in the city of Toronto, through focusing on one address, one house.

At the center of this story is Ernst Zundel, a former resident of 206 Carlton Street, and internationally infamous Holocaust denier. From this downtown Victorian townhouse he spread hate materials that found their way to the hands of hateful groups around the world.

206 Carlton CineCycle Screening Event (June 13, 2018)

(photos by Émeraude Mbuku, Lilian Radovac & John Porter)

(Fair) Deal or No (Fair) Deal(work-in-progress, ongoing)

(Fair) Deal or No (Fair) Deal is an ongoing research project exploring copyright and creativity. More soon... ?

Zines:

My introduction to zines was through the online mail-art community xpostcardx when I was in high school in the early 2000s.

The first zines I made were collections of my analog photography, but they weren’t shared beyond the mail-art community. I was disconnected from zine culture until 2017, when my MFA research, along with my friend, took me to the Toronto Zine Library - which completely absorbed me.

I have been volunteering at the library ever since, and have been an active member of the zine community as a librarian, creator, researcher, collector, distro manager, and all-around zine lover.