Jacob Renzetti holds a BA with honors in Cinema and Media Studies completed at York University. Identifying as Genderqueer and Neurodivergent, Jacob's research aims to look at the ways in which media and film destabilize heteronormative ways of thinking and being. Inspired by Queer, Indigenous, and anti-racist feminist theory, their research interests are catalyzed by the desire to contribute to a rapidly growing body of scholarship that problematizes normative understandings about ontology and epistemology which provide frameworks for radical imagination about ourselves, each other, and the spaces we occupy. More specifically, they are currently interested in the areas of and intersections between Queer game studies, archival studies, affect studies, and Queer, Indigenous, and Black Feminist futurity.

Luke Kuplowsky’s work is interested in cinema’s radical potential for challenging the way we perceive the world around us. His MA project at UofT explored non-anthropocentric forms of attention and a cinematic fascination for cats in the works of Chris Marker and Kazuhiro Soda. He is a York Elia Scholar and SSHRC research fellow whose current project explores imaginings and philosophies of community in contemporary documentary and fiction film and media, attending to their capacity to give rise to creative forms of attention, care and responsibility. Luke is also a practicing musician currently working on a series of albums that interpret and respond to the poetry of Ryōkan Taigu and Bohdan Ihor Antonych (among others) through a Canada Council Research/Creation grant and the Boris Horodynsky Music Fund.

Miguel Soriano is a current MA student in Media Studies at Concordia University and holds a BA in International Development from McGill University. His research intersects Filipino-Canadian studies and Diasporic studies to critically theorize the diasporic experience in the context of Canadian policy infrastructures. He was previously an intern at the National Film Board of Canada, where his work sought to counter-archive Canadian Indigenous documentaries to better organize the works based on their true contextual origins. His research also intersects his creative directive work with his research on the Filipino-Diaspora to gain a deeper understanding of how the diasporic experience can be unraveled through artistic practice.

Tyisha Murphy (they/them) is a researcher with a focused interest in the relationship between audiences and cinematic exhibition. Their primary scholarly works have been rooted in experimental and independent film, further informed by the preservation practices of filmic physical elements and digital accessibility. Key research projects have previously been conducted at CFMDC [Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre], the SRC [Sexual Representation Collection], and Toronto Metropolitan University. They are currently a first year PhD candidate at Concordia University, where they will continue to expand on their previous work.

Sarah Pollman is an interdisciplinary scholar who works in and around photography. Their current research examines how performance shapes visual cultures of mental health experiences, both in the past and present day. Their previous projects have examined the role of the psychiatric institution in the treatment and burial of anonymous loved ones, and the movement of family photographs through capitalist systems of distribution and display.

Sarah previously taught courses in art history, the humanities and the visual arts at Tufts University, Emerson College, Montserrat College of Art and New England College. Their published works include a book, The Distances Between Us, published by Trëma Forlag, and articles in Art New England and Big, Red & Shiny. Their visual projects have been shown internationally, including solo shows at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Danforth Art Museum, and are held in permanent collections that include the Danforth Art Museum, the SGCI Archives in the Zuckerman Museum of Art and the Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta, et al.

In addition to traditional scholarly output, they maintain visual arts and critical-curatorial practices, and are committed to creating a more just educational experience through radical pedagogical practices.
 

Natsumi Yoshida is a graduate student in Film and Photography Preservation and Collection Management program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Previously, she has worked in film in Japan, including the National Film Archive of Japan, where she was in charge of public relations.

Daniella Sanader is a writer and reader who lives in Toronto. For over ten years, she has been writing about (or, alongside) artists’ practices, contributing texts to a number of arts publications, galleries, and artist-run spaces across Canada and internationally.

She is working towards a PhD in Art History and Visual Culture at York University. Her doctoral research on artists' writing takes Madeline Gins’ early experimental novel WORD RAIN (1969) as a central case study, arguing that through her diffuse, embodied, and occasionally cybernetic approaches to language, Gins performs a dynamic methodology for spectatorship that can impact our definitions of “art writing” today. Daniella's doctoral research is supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, and she holds prior Art History degrees from McGill University and the University of Guelph. She is also currently a graduate research associate at York’s Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology.

Chris Chong Chan Fui works with varying materials and moving image formats in the fields of natural sciences, sport, space, and economics. Chong has exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Palais de Tokyo, Gwangju Biennale, EYE Film Institute Netherlands, and premiered his films at the Cannes' Directors’ Fortnight, Vienna, BFI London, and TIFF. As part of his research process, Chong was also a Smithsonian Artist Research fellow (National Museum of Natural History), an Asian Ford Foundation fellow, and a Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Arts fellow.

Aaron Tucker is currently a PhD candidate in the Cinema and Media Arts department at York University where he is an Elia Scholar, a VISTA doctoral Scholar and a 2020 Joseph-Armand Bombardier doctoral fellow. His dissertation, "The Flexible Face: Uniting the Protocols of Facial Recognition Technologies" examines the intersection of citizenship, the management of mobility, and crisis throughout the histories of facial recognition technologies. Past film studies work includes the two monographs "Interfacing with the Internet in Popular Cinema" and "Virtual Weaponry" both published by Palgrave Macmillan. 

In addition he is the author of three collections of poetry and two novels. His most recent novel "Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys" (Coach House Books) comes out in Spring 2023.

Don Bapst is a writer and filmmaker whose work explores alternatives in content, form, and style to give a voice to the marginal, the unnoticed, and the forbidden.