Sarah Van Borek

Sarah Van Borek is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, working with Professor Carmen Logie since May 2022. She is a bilingual (English/French) Canadian media artist, documentary filmmaker, educator and arts-based researcher focused on water and wellbeing with many years of experience living and working in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has been co-developing and implementing innovative participatory multimedia research methodologies, including music, dance, photos, videos, drawing, mapping, and geospatial information systems (GIS) to engage youth in Kenya on topics of water, food, and sanitation towards planetary health, as well as climate change links to HIV vulnerability. She co-designed and co-facilitated multimedia participatory mapping workshops to promote health with women in the Congo Republic, and is leading arts-based research to advance water justice in South Africa. Van Borek has been developing novel modes of knowledge translation including an interactive art exhibit, an animated music video, and a collaborative documentary. She has a PhD in Environmental Education from Rhodes University, South Africa, where she explored water justice, reconciliation, and decolonizing higher education through a media arts-based water curriculum she piloted in South Africa and Canada. She also has an MFA in Film and TV from the University of Cape Town. From 2012-2021, she designed and taught undergraduate courses with the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and she continues to offer video consultation services to international development organizations.