Greater Vancouver Metropolitan Area
Curatorial/Thought Practice in new media art, Exhibition-Making, Professional Advice, Presentations in all areas of exhibition-making, gallery practice, thinking around new media and new media space-making, curatorial practice, public engagement, teaching and design.
Co-Director. New Media Gallery is the Civic Gallery for the City of New Westminster. Dedicated to curating innovative exhibitions of international, national & regional new media art from the last 30 years. Built an international profile curating 3-5 group exhibitions a year. Involved in all aspects of exhibition-making, civic & gallery management, liaison with art professionals, galleries + artists from around the world, education and art + technology programming.
In 2006, Sarah Joyce and I co-founded Appropriation Art, a coalition of artists and art professionals. The Appropriation Art Coalition advocated for freedom of expression and balanced copyright in Canada. The coalition included over 600 artists & art professionals, CAMDO, CMA, IMAA and several artist-run centres. Through my involvement with Appropriation Art, I have presented at several conferences, participated in panels and been interviewed several times. I have been featured in the documentary Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law and Canada_3.0. I also authored 51st State, a clickable web-based, comic-book critique of the copyright debate in Canada.
In 2001 I was contracted to re-design the infrastructure for Lisson's new purpose-built, electronic media/project gallery. This led to another contract and ultimately to the creation of the position of Electronic Media Manager. My role was twofold, to ensure rigorous standards in the development, execution and display of media artworks and to make these works accessible (user friendly/desirable) to collectors. Lisson produced 12 gallery exhibitions and 6-8 international art fairs per year during my tenure. I worked directly with Chairman and Founder Nicholas Logsdail
Described as one of the finest furniture design/making colleges in the world. I was brought in to revamp and modernize its direction; organize and oversee a shift to digital design practice and computer learning, to modernize direction, goals, strategies and curricula. During my tenure students were recipients of an unprecedented number of national design awards. In my final year as Course Director there were over thirty articles in leading publications featuring Parnham student work. At our graduating exhibition on Cork Street, London, sales exceeded £26,000. One student project is now in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. The escalating achievements of students in the years I was Course Director were noted as a strong indicator of a successful educational approach. In spite of its theoretical basis the programme remain rooted in the real world. Parnham also ran a full business studies program, Students learned design and making but they also learned the business of being designer / makers. They were taught tax laws, insurance, contracts, client relations, and to understand the environmental and cultural implications of their work. Each student was required to produce a corporate identity and 5 year comprehensive business plan before graduation.