Committee member bios

Arzu Ozkal is a design educator, researcher and creative facilitator whose work traverses the fields of design, contemporary art, and design activism. Her work explores forms of creative and critical outcomes through social participation. She uses a wide range of media to create experiences to initiate meaningful engagements with the public.

Ozkal’s latest project, Situated Between, a three-volume limited-edition publication with Tricia Treacy are in international and national permanent collections, including Thomas J. Watson Library, The Met; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SAIC, Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection. She co-edited Gün, Women’s Networks: Turkey (2011) with Dr. Claudia Costa Pederson, extending the ‘language of crafts’ among networked women working with contemporary media, and co-edited Cabaret Voltaire: Fluxus West, San Diego and the Southern California Mail Art (2022) with Mila Waldeck investigating 1970s xerographed, radical mail-art zine, CabVolt.

Ozkal is associate professor of graphic design at San Diego State University School of Art and Design, and the chair of Arts Alive SDSU, a campus initiative to support arts-centric research and project development.

Sylvia Parris-Drummond is the CEO of the Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute and a member of NSCAD’s Board of Governors. Her work in education and the community is rooted in core Africentric Principles. She has a successful history of collaboration with the communities and stakeholders with whom she has worked. Through her extensive public sector involvement, Ms. Parris-Drummond has gained a deep understanding and appreciation for what it takes to conduct policy analysis, oversee publishing projects, and develop and implement education, multicultural and diversity programs.

Known for getting things done in a thoughtful, respectful and engaging way, she has been actively involved across a broad range of community initiatives and organizations such as Akoma Family Centre and Holdings, FEEDNS, the NS Early Childhood Intervention Services, the Black Business Initiative Community Investment Fund and the NS Mass Choir. She has worked for both municipal (Halifax Regional Municipality) and provincial governments (Departments of Education and Justice) as well as the Nova Scotia Community College. Sylvia is proud that during her time at provincial government she founded and was supported by sistahs to develop the African Canadian Women in the Public Service (ACWPS).

Ms. Parris-Drummond holds a Master of Arts degree in lifelong learning –Africentricity from Mount Saint Vincent University, a Master of Education degree in curriculum from St. Mary’s University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in home economics/education from St. Francis Xavier University.

Noelle Peach, NSCAD’s Director of Teaching and Learning, focuses on creating and supporting safe, generative, and dynamic learning experiences for all types of learners. She is also a practicing photographer, primarily engaged with landscapes while experimenting with analogue processes.

Originally from Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island), Noelle was a program developer and instructor with the Vancouver Film School and as a Learning Experience Designer with McGill’s School of Continuing Studies before recently returning to Nova Scotia. She is looking forward to finding new and meaningful ways to engage with the NSCAD community and beyond. Noelle holds a Bachelor of Arts (Adv) degree from Mount Saint Vincent University and a Master of Educational Technology degree from the University of British Columbia. She lives, works, and plays in K’jipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia).

Emma Piirtoniemi is inspired by jewellery’s ability to convey big ideas on an intimate scale and views the discipline as an accessible art form in contemporary culture. Often combining acrylic, glass, and metal in her work, Emma’s technical focus is on carving and forming acrylic, articulating ideas and revealing unexpected qualities of the inertseeming material. Originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Emma is a practicing jewellery artist, freelance writer/editor, and curator. Her work sits in private collections in Canada and the United States.

Emma is a recent alumna of the Craft and Design Artist-in-Residence program at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief/Content Curator of MetalAid Canadian Art Jewellery Network and works as a studio technician in NSCAD’s jewellery department. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from NSCAD with a major in jewellery design and metalsmithing and minor in art history and has exhibited nationally and internationally.