Biography
M. Simon Levin currently walks and talks across the departments of Design and Dynamic Media, Social Practice and Community Engagement and Critical and Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University. He has published a curriculum on contemporary approaches to public art and developed ways of perambulatory learning through a suite of courses, workshops and symposiums called Walking as Knowing as Making. He creates site-based systems that explore the aesthetics of engagement using a variety of designed forms and tools that address our many publics. These spatial and pedagogical projects, expand the social agency of art making, rethinking notions of space and place, authorship and audience. Working collaboratively and primarily within the public sphere, Levin’s work ranges from billboard projects, alternative tours of cities, land care centres and alternative mapping and telecommunication systems. Recently commissioned projects include a user-generated ‘sousveillance’ system and a global contributive new media platform, both showcased for Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. He has been artist in residence for the Vancouver Parks Board, the TechLab at the Surrey Art Gallery, Emily Carr University and at the International Art Space, Kelleberrin, Australia. He has exhibited, lectured and published locally, nationally and internationally. Currently, Simon is collaboratively launching with Henry Tsang and Glen Lowry, the Maraya project an online platform that invites the public to contributively reflect on similarities and differences between False Creek Vancouver and Dubai Marina, Dubai in Nov. 2011.