Paula Gardner, PhD., is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Liberal Studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Ontario. My work binds around an interest in the relationship between discourses (visual and textual), identity, new technologies and practices of citizenship. I investigate these interests through a range of subject matter and mediums, including Critical Psychiatry studies, Science and Technology Studies, Mobile Experience Design, and Documentary Video Production.

I recently completed a mobile project entitled “PORTAGE: the Canadian Mobile Experience,” funded by Canadian Heritage (and co-led with Geoffrey Shea), which sought to create new forms of hardware and software technology and new types of art and social interactions in public spaces, through a range of mobile devices.

I am beginning production on a new mobile experience project entitled "Biomapping: mobile interventions in self-computation and spatial aesthetics." It will allow participants to think through and adopt a range of characteristics (perspective data, biological data, etc) to create 2-D and 3-D maps of their selves. This project is generously funded by SSHRC Research Creation Grant. See projects or mobilelab.ca/biomapping, for more information.

I am also completing production on a documentary film entitled “Eyes That Don't See, Hearts that Don't Feel,” examining the impact of American asylum and immigration policy, since 9/11, on individuals fleeing torture and persecution experiences abroad.

I will be a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economic’s BIOS center for the study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society, July-Dec 2009. During that time I will be working on my book project entitled “Recovery Inc.; Personal Security, Risk Management and Democracy.”