Sara Diamond, PhD

Sara Diamond received her post-secondary education in Canada and the United Kingdom as a social historian, communications and new media theorist and creative practitioner. Diamond is currently the President of the Ontario College of Art and Design. She comes to OCAD from The Banff Centre, Canada's premier professional development institution. Diamond began her work there in 1992 and served as the artistic director of media and visual art until 2003, and then as director of research for the...See more

Sara Diamond received her post-secondary education in Canada and the United Kingdom as a social historian, communications and new media theorist and creative practitioner. Diamond is currently the President of the Ontario College of Art and Design. She comes to OCAD from The Banff Centre, Canada's premier professional development institution. Diamond began her work there in 1992 and served as the artistic director of media and visual art until 2003, and then as director of research for the entire Banff Centre from 2003 to 2005. She created the renowned Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) in 1995 and led this research and development centre for ten years. Diamond developed international summits and workshops that explored the near future of new media. She built alliances between artists, designers, architects, scientists, social scientists and international and Canadian businesses. Under her leadership, BNMI developed award-winning new media co-productions. She led research teams in data visualization, mobile new media content and engineering, fashion and technology, distance learning, collaborative methods and tools in art and technology. Diamond established new media and business development models and built and funded accelerator initiatives. Diamond created and was editor-in-chief of www.horizonzero.ca an on-line showcase for new media art and design, in collaboration with Heritage Canada. Sarah Cook is is an internationally recognized curator of media art, a Reader within the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media, University of Sunderland, and co-founder and co-editor of CRUMB. She is the co-author with Beryl Graham of the book Rethinking Curating: Art After New Media (MIT Press, 2010) and has chapters in many books including New Media in the White Cube and Beyond (University of California Press) and Theorizing digital cultural heritage (MIT Press). In 2011 she will co-chair Rewire, the Fourth International Conference on the histories of media art, science and technology with FACT in Liverpool. Having grown up in Canada, Sarah has a longstanding association with The Banff Center where she has worked as a guest curator and researcher in residence for the Walter Phillips Gallery, the International Curatorial Institute and the New Media Institute, developing exhibitions, summits, residencies and publications. After completing her PhD in 2004, Sarah worked as adjunct curator of new media at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art funded by the AHRC. In 2008 Sarah was the inaugural curatorial fellow at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York, where she worked with the artists in the labs to develop exhibitions of their work. Sarah has curated and co-curated international exhibitions including Database Imaginary (2004), The Art Formerly Known As New Media (2005), Broadcast Yourself (2008), Untethered (2008) and Mirror Neurons (2012). See less