Rachel M. Ward is a Ph.D. Candidate focusing on digital anthropology, archives, media art history, and gender. Over the past year she researched the field of contemporary time-based media art (TBMA) as a recipient of the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR Art) award. Following her B.Sc. in the physical sciences, she earned her M.Sc. in Social Anthropology. The following year, she was awarded the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to complete a postgraduate degree in Visual Anthropology (G.Dip.) to train in sensory documentary filmmaking and rock art conservation in Aboriginal Arnhem Land. Now, as a doctoral candidate in the Making Culture Lab in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology, Rachel’s work converges on Digital Anthropology and the creation of interactive-experimental ethnography. She has produced several documentary films and haptic anthropological art installations which she chronicles in a recent book chapter in Digital Echoes (2018). Currently completing her doctoral research in NYC, she is working in the studios of late-career women media artists who pioneered new forms of technology in 1970-90's and are now in the process of archiving their work. She has produced several film projects, including a documentary about the overlap of Appalachian and punk music, and Sneakerhead (2016), a portrait of an overzealous Air Jordan collector, which was featured in a 6-month exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver (MoV). 

FULL CV