Sylvia Nowak is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar based in Toronto, working primarily in documentary-based media. Her research and practice center around archives, media criticism, and radical histories of resistance. As a maker, she is enjoys working in experimental forms that rely on collage, found-footage, and the act of recycling/upcycling materials, but also enjoys documenting moments in life. She is a member of the Cosmic Bloom Craft Collective.
Sylvia is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University and holds a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Documentary Media (both from Toronto Metropolitan University).
Her MFA thesis film, 206 Carlton, a short archival-based film exploring racism and resistance in the city of Toronto has screened at festivals and conferences. She is currently working on a research-creation project looking at radical antifascist histories of 1990s Toronto, tentatively titled This Is Toronto: Finding Antifascism in the Neoliberal Archives. Sylvia is a research assistant at the Vulnerable Media Lab, which is a partner within the Archive/Counter-Archive community.
She sits on the advisory collective for Alternative Toronto, a community archive and historical map of Toronto’s alternative cultures, scenes and spaces of the 1980s and early 1990s. Sylvia sits on the board for the TRANZAC Club, and is also a Board Member of Pleasure Dome, an artist-run presentation organization and publisher dedicated to experimental media. Sylvia manages the Toronto Zine Library, and is also an active zinester.
Sylvia is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University and holds a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Documentary Media (both from Toronto Metropolitan University).
Her MFA thesis film, 206 Carlton, a short archival-based film exploring racism and resistance in the city of Toronto has screened at festivals and conferences. She is currently working on a research-creation project looking at radical antifascist histories of 1990s Toronto, tentatively titled This Is Toronto: Finding Antifascism in the Neoliberal Archives. Sylvia is a research assistant at the Vulnerable Media Lab, which is a partner within the Archive/Counter-Archive community.
She sits on the advisory collective for Alternative Toronto, a community archive and historical map of Toronto’s alternative cultures, scenes and spaces of the 1980s and early 1990s. Sylvia sits on the board for the TRANZAC Club, and is also a Board Member of Pleasure Dome, an artist-run presentation organization and publisher dedicated to experimental media. Sylvia manages the Toronto Zine Library, and is also an active zinester.
