Director of Creative Studios, 2018-2019

Led the $1.4 million capital start-up project establishing the Creative Studios at Artscape Daniels Launchpad, a 30,000 sqft entrepreneurship hub for artists and designers. Ensured Launchpad is a welcoming, motivating, and innovative facility that enables the successful scaling up of members’ careers, helping them effectively prototype and create work in a supportive and collaborative environment, while understanding their unique challenges and needs. Oversaw all operational processes, procurement, systems, and studio budgets. Directed the creation and execution of a strategic plan, a revenue generating business plan, and cultivated industry and community partnerships. Recruited and led a staff of over 20.

Project Manager/Producer, 2016

An Augmented Reality (AR) experience bringing alive a dinosaur cast in the Royal Ontario Museum's permanent Dino Gallery.  The experience is exciting, engaging, provides an opportunity for social media activation, and connects visitors to interpretive content.   2 AR interactive tablets provide a live-view of the Gallery and trigger an AR animation of the dinosaur superimposed over the cast.  The animated dino dramatically rears its head in the direction of the AR tablets, providing a visceral experience of how this living creature would have appeared in life and to scale.  The UI encourages other visitors to appear in the scene with the animation as it appears to engage with them.  In turn, tablet users have the option to capture an image of the scene and are prompted to send it to an email address of their choice and then share it on social media from their own device.  The ROM then aggregates these photos to both a dedicated ROM web page and to a regularly updating video wall in the gallery near the AR terminals (the ROM also responds to shared photos on social media with content rich posts).  

Designed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, Art Director, Project Manager, 2013

Audio installations in Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum.  Located in an "Innovation Cube”, and addressing the rise of secular leadership, this interactive prompts visitors to select audio speech excerpts by noteworthy rulers over the ages. It is presented inside a 12’x12’ cube-like room, and surrounding a 2500 year old statue of Gudea, an ancient Mesoptamian ruler.  The experience encourages users to consider how leaders portray themselves, and to consider if Gudea's apparent humility was authentic.

Producer, 2014                                                                                  

At the heart of the Royal Ontario Museum’s earth sciences gallery is the Challenge of Mining game. Featuring a multi-touch 8 foot long table, the interactive can be played by up to eight players in the Museum and another four mobile players, by downloading the ROMining Game App. This intergenerational game requires players to choose a specific character, representative of a mining stakeholder (miner, local community member among them) and, working together, players are challenged to “manage” a successful, ethical, and productive mining operation.

Designed in collaboration with Aesthetec Studio

Associate Producer, 2012

The Ultimate Dinos IOS app provides an exciting new way to experience dinosaurs via augmented reality (originally created in support of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Ultimate Dinosaur exhibition) . By pointing the ios device activated app at physical markers, animated 3D dinosaurs seen are layered over any real environment. Users can see how they moved and what their textures and skin looked like.  Also, during the exhibit at the ROM three markers were placed strategically for app activation inside the exhibition space.  The AR experience could also be triggered on select transit shelter ads around Toronto and via the AR graphic on the ROM's plaza where one could snap a photo with a favourite dino.

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, 2014

Responsible Miners, Responsible Consumers Interactive Wall. This multi-touch digital wall features images, illustrations and text, explored via a dynamic animating interface, which let visitors explore the extent of our reliance upon the products of mining, and encourages them to make responsible decisions in consuming these valuable resources.

Designed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, Director, 2010

Large-scale immersive environmental video projection of China’s Terracotta Warriors, shot on location in Xian, China.  With unheard of access to this historic site, and using cutting edge RedCam & Steadicam technology, our crew was able to get in close with the warriors, allowing the viewer to truly feel as if they were visiting the ancient burial pits.

Producer, 2014

In ROMining, the ROM’s new ios mobile, multiplayer, interactive game, players take on different roles and respond to challenges to maintain a balance between productivity and responsibility, the factors that determine whether or not a mine is successful in today’s world.  ROMining complements an 8-foot-long, in-gallery, multi-touch game table, allowing up to 12 players at a time. Mobile players can affect the table, along with others, when using an ios device in the gallery, or play in their own mining world at home.

Designed in collaboration with Aesthetec Studio

Producer, 2010

As part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana exhibit, 3 lightboxes (each containing 3 iPads) were embedded in the platforms upon which stood mounted dinosaur casts.  The lightboxes were presented as illuminated landscapes, depicting the natural environments within which the mounted skeletal cast would have originally lived.  The iPads are seamlessly presented as windows into these environments which can be interacted with, providing dynamic supporting content (text, graphics, and videos).

Designed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, Director, 2011

This documentary tells the story of Nubia and the civilization that flourished in the Nile Valley for thousands of years and particularly between 800 BC and 400 AD.  Shot on location in the desert north of Khartoum, the film explores an extraordinary ancient legacy that stretches from Aswan in Egypt to Khartoum in Sudan, through the lens of ongoing archaeological research.

Producer, 2014

3 vignette/tableau “shadow puppetry” animations of human characters engaged in life within the Forbidden City, created for inclusion in the Royal Ontario Museum’s major exhibit Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors.  The 1:30 min looping animations morph between tropes from the exhibit's historical context and the characters participating in the City’s narratives.  They employ the use of a high-contrast black & white silhouette aesthetic along with the profile perspective employed in traditional Chinese shadow puppetry.  The installations are viewed via rear-projection onto screens framed by built prosceniums, which serve to create the effect of looking through portals into the world of the animations. 

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media.

Producer, 2011

A series of digital installations highlighting the ritual activities that permeated all areas of Maya life were developed as part of in the Royal Ontario Museum’s Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World exhibit, from animated depictions of the Maya Cosmos to a working Maya calendar counting down to the “end of the universe.”

Developed in collaboration with Exploding Motor Car Design

Project Manager, 2017

With the ROM EXPLORE app, which utilizes Google's new cutting edge geolocation Tango technology, and by working closely with app developer Guidigo, the Royal Ontario Museum  developed for visitors an unprecedented ease of wayfinding to a series of signature augmented reality experiences. Using the lightweight and easy-to-use Lenovo tablet, visitors are able to navigate to existing iconic displays and interact and engage with museum objects, in ways not currently available through the existing display media.

Producer, 2012

Two giant, immersive, interactive wall experiences, created as part of the Royal Ontario Museum's Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit.  Combining the use of Kinect motion-sensing technology, rear-screen projections, and highly realistic animations based on carefully curated illustrations, these reactive environments brought the world of the dinosaurs alive.  With one reactive environment depicting the southern hemisphere and the other the northern, they were situated on either side of the exhibit space as visitors walked by, creating the experience of walking into the world of the dinos – with both animals and plants physically providing exciting visceral responses to visitor proximity.

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media and illustrator Julius Csotony

Producer, 2011

Translate the Glyphs.  Touch-screen interactive utilizes a custom-made clay reproduction of an ancient Maya glyph tablet (on display in the gallery next to the interactive screen) to invite users to explore the individual glyphs and help decode their meanings.  Users can choose between listening to the complete glyph passage spoken in the ancient Mayan language (while simultaneously reading the English/French translation) or can selectively activate individual glyph blocks. 

Developed in collaboration with Exploding Motor Car

Producer, 2012

Globe spinning in large-scale looping projected animation, created as part of the Royal Ontario Museum's Ultimate Dinosaur exhibit, showing continuing continental drift from 65 million years ago and moving forward dramatically to reveal a transformed planet 250 million years into the future.  Video projected onto circular floating screen, producing a 3 dimensional effect.

Producer, 2014

A series of interactive, iPad-based maps, created for the Royal Ontario Museum exhibition Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors. Each map allows visitors to explore Beijing’s Forbidden City by panning & zooming around high-resolution satellite imagery of the present-day city. Interactive "pins" showcase objects and stories from the historical city, connecting the people and artifacts of the past to the China of the present. A short video conveys the geographical relationship between Beijing and the ROM’s location in Toronto, Canada.  Developed using open source web technology: HTML, CSS, and jQuery. 

Producer, 2012

Up to 5 visitors simultaneously participate in the challenge of putting the shifting continents of the dino era back together into the single landmass of Gondwana through the use iPad kiosk interfaces. With each iPad controlling the movements of a single continent, and a large shared wall screen depicting the relative positions of all the moving continents, individual participants are challenged to cooperate in putting Gondwana back together – all while the timer ticks!  Upon solving the puzzle, users are given further information about key effects of continental drift on the world of the dinosaurs.

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, Project Manager, 2012

A series of immersive environmental media installations have been developed for inclusion in a wide range of museum exhibits.  While addressing subject matters as diverse as extinct dinosaurs, continental drift, Mesopotamia, China’s Forbidden City, and the ancient Maya, all of the installations work to achieve the common goal of enveloping visitors into large-scale environmental experiences that viscerally evoke the world of each exhibit.

Producer, 2012

The dinosaurs in the Royal Ontario Museum’s Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana exhibition were brought to life in an exciting new way through the use of augmented reality (AR).  Three AR installations in the exhibition allowed the visitor to virtually flesh out dinosaur skeletons. With 3 iPad interfaces provided per installation, users experienced AR versions of living dinosaurs superimposed over the real exhibit environment.  By panning and tilting the iPads across the skeletal casts on display, visitors could see fully skinned live dinosaurs, and for additional information users could also click on the provided on-screen hotspots.

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, 2012

The Timeline is a single user iPad-based interactive experience that allows visitors to explore the evolutionary and geological stories with a timeline scrubber that works to populate the continents as they shift through time, with content rich hotspots appearing that the user can select to discover information of interest.

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, Director, 2011

Shot on location in Rome, Italy, this short documentary film brings viewers on a comprehensive tour through the stunning site of the ancient Roman forum, providing a dynamic window into the rich and storied history of Roman society.

On display in the Royal Ontario Museum's newly refurbished Rome gallery.

Producer, Director, 2011

Shot on location in the modern day city of Istanbul, this documentary film provides a guided journey through the city, with its historic landmarks revealing the fascinating history of ancient Byzantium.

Producer, 2014

ANIMATED PAINTING.  As part of the Royal Ontario Museum's Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China's Emperor's exhibit, this installation brings alive the scroll painting of the Qianlong emperor’s southern inspection tour (1764 – 1770). The animation transforms the static characters in the original painting to create a dynamic imperial entourage as it returns to the Forbidden City after a long journey. 

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer, 2013

Two exhibit projects called for the creation of  immersive, 3D modelled, animated video fly throughs of Constantinople and Babylon in order to bring a historical sense of place truly alive for gallery visitors. The animations feature major landmarks (city walls, gates, temples, palaces, etc).  In producing the animation our creative team engaged in exhaustive research of archival technical drawings from archaeologists to help recreate with great accuracy, the formidable presence of these historical cities.  

Developed in collaboration with animator Tayfun Öner.

Producer, Director

As part of the Royal Ontario Museum's Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World exhibit, this short film provides a rarely seen look into the expansive history of archaeology in Iraq, all the way from colonial incursions in the 19th century to a fragile post-war Iraq in 2013.

Producer, Director

Exhibit documentaries.  Throughout the Royal Ontario Museum's exhibition Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World, the story of the Maya is dramatically contextualized by numerous ROM-produced documentary films.  Shot on location in Chiapas, Mexico, these probing short works expand on integral themes including the deciphering of hieroglyphs, the history of archaeology at the ancient city of Palenque, and the state of Maya culture today.

Producer, Director

With footage gathered from location shoots directed in Sudan, Syria, Italy, and Turkey, and interviews with leading experts, these mini-docs invite visitors to the Royal Ontario museum to explore the multiplicity of historic themes running through 44 videos about ancient Nubia, Rome, and Byzantium.

Producer

In support of the new interactive mining gallery located in the Royal Ontario Museum, which showcases a range of mineral specimens as well a series of interactive media experiences, are two promotional videos highlighting the themes of the gallery. Located at the gallery entrance is a fast-paced introductory video about how the mining industry impacts our daily lives, and in the centre of the space is a dynamic video journey through the gold mining industry - all the way from mine to mint.

Developed in collaboration with Meld Media

Producer

Video installation serves as the conclusion to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors exhibit.  Presented in an enclosed reflective space and centred around the display of the last emperor’s robe, two immersive video montages (with accompanying ambient music) juxtapose archival images and narratives from the “Twilight of an Empire” era in the late 19th century Chinese imperial court to the “Dawning of a Museum” role of the post-1924 Forbidden city.

Producer, director

Positioned at key locations throughout the Royal Ontario Museum's The warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army exhibit, the ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian invites visitors to journey with him through the thematic sections of the exhibitiions.

 Producer, Director

Interactive kiosks highlight emblematic museum artifacts. In partnership with the ROM publication and featuring 15 carefully chosen objects selected from the ROM’s collections, interactive digital kiosks populate the ROM’s galleries, providing visceral context for the rich stories behind these key artifacts.

“In the same way that one would not leave the Louvre in Paris without a glimpse of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the ROM’s Iconic Objects are not to be missed. The accompanying interactive kiosks enhance the enjoyment and understanding of these significant artifacts, and demonstrate the ROM’s commitment to both an educational and delightful visit,” said William Thorsell, ROM Director and CEO.

Producer, Director

Interspersed throughout The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, a number of short documentary films augmented the historical content. These journalistic pieces, shot on location in China and utilizing unprecedented access to historical sites and experts, highlight the complex stories of the terracotta burial pits, their contents, and the discoveries that brought them to the world’s attention. 

Producer, Director

This original ROM exhibition included rarely and never-before-seen Dead Sea scrolls, as well as extraordinary 2,000-year-old artifacts of the period. In helping contextualize and bring alive the fascinating story of the ancient scrolls, Robert lead the creation of a series of audio-visual installations for inclusion in the exhibit, ranging from a dynamic animated timeline map, to a flythrough of ancient Jerusalem, and a series of documentary films shot on location in Israel and the West Bank.

Producer, Director

Royal Ontario Museum artifacts came out of the vaults in a video series, giving a unique behind-the-scenes look at the museum’s collections, including Sitting Bull’s headdress, and the court gown of Marie-Antoinette.  This series complemented a gallery exhibit project in which the ROM delved into its vast storerooms to bring notable and rarely seen objects on view for a limited time only.

Director

This documentary film explores the various stories inspired by the immense Celtic Cross constructed in 1909 on Grosse-Île , a tiny island near Quebec City, which is the site of the largest cemetery outside Ireland connected with the Potato Famine of the 1840s. This film reflects on how and why the memories evoked by Grosse-Île have so dramatically shifted over the past century.

http://rememberingamemory.concordia.ca/

Producer

Conceived, researched, directed, interviewed, and produced show segments for weekly current affairs television, addressing a wide range of contemporary popular culture issues, for broadcasters ranging from CBC Newsworld, to Book Television (CHUM TV), and Bravo: The Arts Channel.

Project Manager/Producer, 2016

Immersive installation created as part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s major exhibition Pompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano. A large-scale immersive video projection of Mount Vesuvius erupted and engulfed visitors as they stood before an iconic statue from Pompeii.

Director and Producer, 2012

Documentary film, screened as part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana  exhibit.  Shot on location in Patagonia, Argentina, the film  follows a team of archaeologists through the remote desert as they search for and explain the mysteries of the giant dinosaurs that once roamed this vast expanse.

Crestview Trust

11 song album, written, recorded, and performed by Colin McMahon, Greg Fowler, Jean Vanhaelen, and Robert McMahon.

Mixed by Sean Pearson

Mastered by Joao Carvalho

Project Manager, 2018

Multimedia and video installation, Dur: 24:05           Artist: Eshetu

Anima Mundi, fourteen years in the making, is a powerfule example of Eshetu's conceptual and aesthetic explorations.  In this multimedia and video installation, Eshetu draws from his image archive that he combines with snippets from TV programs, documentaries, and classic films.  Through fragmented images recomposed in the optical illusion of a glistening globe, Anima Mundi engages a variety of intellectual traditions, from anthropology to art history, scientific research, and religion to explore clashes and harmonies between human subjectivity across world cultures.

Project Manager, 2018

EduKits are rentable suitcase-sized education kits that come complete with hands-on objects, student activities and a teacher's guide to bring the Royal Ontario Museum to life through multisensory learning in the classroom. This EduKit was developed in collaboration with an Inuk educator and Inuit community members to encourage students to better understand how geography, the environment, interactions and events shape Inuit, their communities, and their environment. Students will learn from sources that reflect Inuit perspectives and experiences, and come to understand that Inuit histories are living histories. Learning with Inuit is available in Inuktitut, English and French and links directly to the Ontario school curriculum.