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 as part of the Pickle Juice collective, and has just launched the rad.ish zine distro.
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 as part of the Pickle Juice collective, and has just launched the rad.ish zine distro.
