Poplin is an interdisciplinary New Media Artist. Her work examines the rapid cross-fertilization in the arts in the digital age, which extends preconceived notions of screen-based identity culture. She studied Film and Video at UNSW Australia, where she completed her first degree a Bachelor of Fine Art (Multi Media). Poplin continued studying a Master of Arts in Visual Communication by research at RMIT Melbourne, Australia in 2001. Her MA project was a study of multi media and the operatic form examining the rapid cross-fertilization in the arts in the digital age. Poplin’s work often alludes to ‘physicality’ in projection, which extends preconceived notions of screen-based culture.  Her work during that period often explored concepts of the voice and performance as realised through new technologies and cross-disciplinary means of presentation. Since the early 90’s her professional experience has witnessed the shift from analogue to digital. Her background has seen her involvement with a variety of hybridised art forms and New Media presentations of performance works both in Australia and in China. Poplin has exhibited, curated, collaborated and project managed shows with artists and has also been awarded grants and research residencies for her own work.

Performance art within the realm of video installation has inspired many of the works. Early in her career [1994] her work Scuzzi Probe Pornography was shown at the Australian Centre of Photography Paddington Sydney. Poplin and fellow artist Sydney based Zina Kaye performed multi media piece, which highlighted the language used in digital computing and sexual notions of inserting and probing floppy discs into hardrives. In the 90’s she was active with performance groups the Post Arrivalists, Frumpus and later Swizelstik. These groups performed at locations such as The Surrealist Exhibition - Post Arrivalists, Directed by Angharad Wynne-Jones, The Art Gallery of NSW Sydney(1993). The Perspecta Opening-Frumpus, The Harbourside Brasserie, Sydney(1995). Rossini-Swizelstik, The Performance Space, Redfern Sydney (1996). Swizelstik, in particular drew heavily on the use of voice within a video installed multi media environment. This later became the departure point for her MA project, Multi Media and the Operatic Form (2001).

After her move to Melbourne in 1997, Poplin’s work became less about live action performance. Her work shown at Cosmetic (1997) The Singer with Acsii roses - Stripp Gallery Fitzroy Melbourne was a printed performance, including a bunch of ascii roses placed below a digital print of the singer. The orchestra consisted of tiny lightboxes, strewn like a chandelier displaying pianola rolls. Later, Poplin’s work explored performance that was pre-recorded. Pre-recorded performance was projected back into the gallery or public space onto a screen that was form, and omitted form. Essentially, the screen became the perfomer. This is most evident in Vox Pop Environ (The Builder Arms Hotel, Collingwood, Melbourne), Cropped (Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne)(2000) and Habitat (Pickled Arts Centre) Beijing (2006).

Many trips to China led to work that examines cross cultural exposure and its impact on process and conceptual thinking in Art and visual communication. In 2005 she was granted Red Gate Gallery’s residency program in Beijing and made digital collages that used the kangaroo spirit in the Chinese landscape. Currently, her work and research focuses on Harmonious Visual Culture in 21st Century China: A generation of image-makers and mythical creatures that are shaping the Middle Kingdom. The displaced Australian identity is explored through digital images that conjure mythological creatures and question our identity as explored through the manipulated digital image.