This website shares the transcripts and supporting documents of the formative meetings of the Digital Potentials Advisory, a group that came together to critically explore and question the possibilities for expansion and engagement of online collections with the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 2020.
Digital Potentials Advisory Members
Marina DiMaio is a multi-disciplinary artist, arts administrator and project coordinator currently based in Victoria, BC. She holds a BFA from the University of Calgary and an MFA from the University of Victoria. Her creative research incorporates installation, weaving, drawing, video, and printmaking in an interdisciplinary exploration of silence, slowness, stillness, simplicity and contemplative practice. Marina has received numerous scholarships and awards for her work, including a University of Calgary PURE award for undergraduate research, the University of Calgary Silver Medallion in Art, and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Marina was awarded an Early Career Development Grant by the BC Arts Council to intern as a curatorial assistant at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria on a major research project titled, In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art, and Social Practice. She is also a sessional instructor of drawing, painting, and printmaking at Vancouver Island School of Art. Her work is held in the collections of the Nickle Galleries and the Glenbow Museum.
Dr. Roy Eagleson is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Western Ontario, an Associate Scientist at the Robarts Research Institute, and a Scientist and Principal Investigator at CSTAR (The Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics research centre; part of the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), LHRI. He is the co-leader within the National Centres of Excellence on Graphics and New Media (GRAND-NCE) project on Simulation and New Media for Healthcare Training (HLTHSIM). As part of the Ontario Research Fund award for Surgical Simulation, Eagleson is co-leader of the Theme on Evaluation of Surgical Simulators. His research interests include: 3D Biomedical Visualization and Surgical Simulation; Human-Computer Interface Design for Surgical Skills Training; Haptic Interfaces and Interactive Immersive Graphical Interfaces (Volumetric Visualization with GPU programming). Eagleson has also received research support from an NSERC Discovery Grant, CFI, ORF, MITACS, and NCE-GRAND.
Dr. Gabrielle Esperdy is an architectural and urban historian and cultural critic. She is Professor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where she has taught since 2001. Her work examines the intersections of architecture, consumerism, and modernism in the metropolitan landscape, especially in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She is particularly interested in the ways that social, economic, and political issues shape the built environment, both historically and today. Gabrielle’s research also looks at the architecture profession as it is shaped by social and cultural concerns, including gender, ethnicity, and class. She is increasingly engaged with the production of digital scholarship and with considerations of the historical project in the age of big data. She is a three-time NEH grant recipient for the Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, an online resource on the history of the built environment.
Michelle Jacques has been living as an uninvited but grateful guest on Lekwungen territory since 2012. She is the Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV), where she is responsible for guiding a curatorial and education program that links contemporary practices, ideas and issues to the Gallery's historical collections and legacies. Since joining the AGGV, she has facilitated projects with contemporary artists Rodney Sayers and Emily Luce; Gwen MacGregor; Hiraki Sawa; Charles Campbell and Farheen HaQ; and Carol Sawyer; co-curated major retrospectives of the work of Anna Banana and Jock Macdonald; and developed a series of installations that use the AGGV’s collection to evoke cross-temporal and cross-cultural conversations. Prior to moving west, she held various roles in the Contemporary and Canadian departments of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; was the Director of Programming at the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax; and taught courses in writing, art history and curatorial studies at NSCAD University, University of Toronto Mississauga, and OCAD University.
Noya Kohavi is a queer feminist technologist and consultant, and adjunct Columbia University instructor and NEW INC member. Her work utilizes computer vision and computational linguistics to generate new narratives and insights, focusing on data ethics and a queer approach to computing. Noya is a member at NEW INC, the New Museum incubator at the intersection of design and technology, where she is developing LINEAGE, a visual discovery engine for museum databases and visual archives, which she is currently prototyping with the RISD Museum in Providence, RI.. Using artificially intelligent visual affinity and resonance algorithms, LINEAGE digitally mimics the human associative process, making large image databases usable and accessible, and allowing for emergent histories to surface. Noya teaches and lectures regularly, most recently as an associate adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she taught data science and machine learning methods to data journalists as well as algorithmic accountability and machine bias. She was previously a software engineer developing AI dialogue systems at Intel Corp. in California. Noya holds a BA in philosophy and linguistics from Tel Aviv University and an MS, with honors, From the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is the recipient of a Maria Moors Cabot Prize scholarship and a Magic grant from the Brown Institute for Media Innovation.
Emily Luce is an independent designer, artist, and researcher located in Port Alberni, British Columbia. She is an expert collaborator, working with DesignInquiry, where she recently concluded her third term as President of the Board; Nightstudio, with Dutch designer Judith van den Boom, and with her partner, Klehwetua Rodney Sayers in Search & Research, a collaborative series of art and design projects including the recently formed not-for-profit, C.R.A.F.T., The Centre for Retrofitting and Failure Techniques. She has earned residencies for her visual and spatial art practice in Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S. and works with environmental and arts clients on graphic design and strategy across North America. Emily holds an M.F.A. (Design) from Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (CAN) and a B.A. (Art with Design Concentration, Center for Arts & Technology certificate) from Connecticut College (U.S.). She received tenure at the University of Lethbridge in the Department of New Media before departing to pursue more responsive systems and practices.
Ellen Manning is the AGGV’s Marketing Specialist. She studied Art History and Literature at the University of Victoria before embarking on a career path that took her to curating and arts administration in various venues in China, Thailand and Canada. Just prior to bringing her marketing and communications skills to the AGGV, she ran her own successful commercial gallery, The Apartment Gallery, in Victoria for six years. It was there that she honed her skills in community engagement through social media and other digital platforms. She has been instrumental in shifting the AGGV’s understanding of the potential of communication with its publics in the virtual realm.
Mark Sanders is a photographer, typographer, designer, web developer, teacher, baker, and basket maker. He earned an MFA in Communication Design from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BS in Architectural Design from Clemson University. He is co-owner and co-creative director for the internationally recognized graphic design studio Q Collective. Concurrent to his studio practice, Mark is senior faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art where he teaches design fundamentals, typography, interaction design, design theory, design methodology, and professional practice. He is also co-author Typographic Design: Form and Communication 6th and 7th ed. As a designer, Mark’s work explores identity and utility through malleable definitions of both and an experimental spirit. In pursuit of this, he designs logomarks, branding systems, posters, books, environmental graphics, exhibitions, promotional websites, intranets, online application systems, e-commerce platforms, learning management systems and more for corporations, non-profits, and individuals across industries. Mark’s interaction design practice is unique in that he not only designs the appearance, structure, interaction, and architecture, but also engineers the server, content management system, and databases. Mark’s research and art practice explores systems of recording, presenting, and interpreting memory through digital and analog “interfaces” that pose experience, myth and memory as an expanding non-linear narrative. Through their conception, development, implementation, launch, and use these “interfaces” are tools for actively cultivating knowledge production.
Klewetua, Rodney Sayers is a Hupacasath artist from Ahswinis, Port Alberni, BC, and is a descendant of the Nuu Chah Nulth peoples. Rodney received an associate’s degree in Studio Arts from Capilano College in 1994, earned his BFA from ACAD in 1997, and completed his MFA at NSCAD in 2000. While at NSCAD, he earned the prestigious Joseph Beuys Memorial Scholarship, and presented one of his pieces to Governor General Adrienne Clarkson on behalf of NSCAD University. His MFA thesis exhibition was included in the first annual Halifax International Biennial. In 2002 he was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award of Excellence, in honour of the 75th anniversary of ACAD. After completing his formal education, Rodney returned home to Ahswinis. He has been awarded grants by the Vancouver Foundation, the BC Arts Council, the First People’s Heritage Council, and the Canada Council. His piece ‘Creation Myth’ was included in the 2002 book, The Persistence of Craft by Paul Greenhaulgh. Rodney’s practice examines the role of traditional artwork in a contemporary world. He believes that for an art form to remain vibrant, it must evolve and adapt, but remain true to its origins. Rodney has also worked intensely with the elder fluent speakers of his community on preserving and revitalizing the Nuu Chah Nulth language, an undertaking that has deeply influenced his work as a Nuu Chah Nulth artist.
Dr. Deborah Saucier became President and Vice-Chancellor of Vancouver Island University in July 2019. An experienced administrator, accomplished neuroscientist and devoted educator, Deborah is deeply committed to student success, Indigenous education, reconciliation and community engagement. Originally from Saskatoon with Métis heritage, Deborah started her journey in academia on Vancouver Island, completing an International Baccalaureate diploma at the Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific in Metchosin, and then bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology at the University of Victoria. After obtaining her PhD in psychology from the University of Western Ontario in 1995, Deborah worked as a psychology professor and researcher for many years, garnering a number of Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canadian Foundation for Innovation and other research grants for various projects. She has also held a number of administrative roles, most recently President of MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, and Provost and Vice President (Academic) at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa.
Nicole Stanbridge is the AGGV’s Curator of Engagement. Her work focuses on bridging the curatorial and educational aims of the AGGV to deepen connections with, and be relevant to a range of communities through exhibitions, programming, and outreach. Nicole is of British and Norwegian descent and is an uninvited guest on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen peoples. She has been actively engaged in Victoria’s art community for 20 years and part of the curatorial department at the AGGV since 2005. She is currently working on a collaborative project with artist Marianne Nicolson called Wa’witlala, which is a cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary project looking at issues related to water.