Sharon Switzer (Canadian b. 1966)

Toronto-based Sharon Switzer has been creating multiple-channel video installations since 2000, using a combination of text, animation and video footage to create short looping sequences. These pieces stand as individual works, but are also combined through her installations to tell larger stories about the ways in which humans use and depend on representational technologies. Switzer often uses a ‘personal voice’ as a strategy - poking fun at herself by combining dry humour with a sense of pathos. Her text-based videos, like her earlier work, Switzer says, “relate small moments in time, and focus the viewer on the very simple and honest and ultimately grounding moments that make up a life.”

Switzer holds an MFA from the University of Western Ontario and in 2005-2006 participated in the Canadian Film Centre’s Habitat Interactive Art and Entertainment Program. She has lectured extensively at the University of Western Ontario, Brock University and the Ontario College of Art and Design, and has curated numerous exhibitions. Her digital image-based installations have been exhibited across Canada and the USA since the early 1990’s. Her work will tour throughout Canada until 2007 as part of the exhibition 18 Illuminations: Contemporary Art and Light, originated by the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery and was recently featured at Art Film Basel, during Art 38 Basel.