Geneva Gillis is a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto studying community museums in Ontario. She holds a MA in History from McMaster University and a MMSt from the University of Toronto where she critically examined the relationships between historiographical practices, memory, and interpretation used for public engagement with community histories in the GLAM sector. Geneva’s current research examines community engagement in small, local museums from the community’s perspective, focusing on how the histories, internal power dynamics, and local relationships of community museums challenge and change the engagement process and moments of transition in the institution. Geneva draws on years of professional experience in the GLAM sector and community-based research practices to inform the future of museum practices from local community perspectives.

Jordan King is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, curator and writer. Her practice is rooted in performance, archival research and intergenerational dialogue. She is currently a Curatorial Practice MFA student at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada (Graduating 2024), with a focus on documentary film and multimedia documentation of
underground queer performance.

Jordan spent her formative years immersed in nightlife culture, which continues to influence her work and research. Recent projects have included curation of gallery exhibitions in Montreal, acting as story editor for documentary film “The Empress of Vancouver”, and performing with New York City based dance-theater-media company thefeath3rtheory.

Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler is a queer femme writer, artist and workshop facilitator from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is the creator of several independently published zines, as well as a co-founding member of feminist arts collective, Sappho Zine (2012-2016). Building community through collaborative art making is a passion of hers, and she have been facilitating workshops for children, teenagers and adults at various arts organizations for over six years.

Sharon is a founding member of the Halifax Women’s History Society. She is the co-author of the book Old Nova Scotian Quilts and a co-founder of the Nova Scotia Heritage Quilt Project. She has also done extensive research on hooked mats. Her M.A. thesis, “Hidden Costs, Hidden Labours: Women in Nova Scotia during Two World Wars,” explored the relief work of women volunteers. Her dissertation: “Neither Memsahibs nor Missionaries: Western Women Who Supported the Indian Independence Movement” is a collective biography about women from the West associated with Gandhi and social uplift in Indian villages. A latecomer to academia, she was over 60 when she completed her Ph.D. She continues to research, write and present women’s history, particularly focussing on early peace activism in Nova Scotia and women’s organizational culture.

Titulaire de deux maîtrises en Gestion de patrimoines audiovisuels (Institut national de l’audiovisuel, France, 2009) et en Arts et médias numériques (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, 2011), Marina Gallet œuvre depuis dix ans dans le domaine de la préservation et de la valorisation du patrimoine audiovisuel. D’abord chargée de mission pour la numérisation d’archives audiovisuelles chorégraphiques en France, elle a rejoint la Cinémathèque québécoise en 2012 en tant que Chef de services des collections, avant d’y devenir Directrice des Collections en 2017.

Holder of two Masters in Audiovisual Heritage Management (National Audiovisual Institute, France, 2009) and Arts and Digital Media (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, 2011), Marina Gallet has been working for ten years in the field of preservation and enhancement of audiovisual heritage. Initially in charge of the digitization of choreographic audiovisual archives in France, she joined the Cinémathèque Québécoise in 2012 as Head of Collections Services, before becoming Director of Collections in 2017.

Angelina McLeod (Anishinaabekwe) is an emerging filmmaker, writer, and documentary subject from Shoal Lake First Nation. Angelina is a land and water defender that is passionate about sharing Anishinaabeg history, culture, languages and stories. Her research is focused on Midewiwin birch bark scrolls that were once held by her grand uncle James Redsky, WWI veteran and prominent member of the Midewiwin, interpreted the scrolls before they were sold to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary for preservation. Angelina is currently working on a series of short films with the National Film Board about her community Shoal Lake 40, First Nation, the source of Winnipeg’s drinking water.

Almudena Escobar López is an independent curator, archivist, and researcher from Galicia, Spain. Her interdisciplinary research centers around documentary and artist’s moving image practices, but opens onto larger questions regarding decoloniality, visual historiography, anthropology, and alternative information ecologies. As a guest curator, Almudena has curated and co-curated a number of film and video series which have been presented at Film Society Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, Museum of Modern Art, Aspen Museum of Art, Cinemateca de Bogotá, UnionDocs, Cineteca Nacional de México, among others. She was program advisor of the 2020 and 2022 editions of Art of the Real at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and with Sky Hopinka, she co-curated the 67th Flaherty Film Seminar, Continents of Drifting Clouds. She is Assistant Professor on Film History, Film Preservation and Collection Management at the School of Image Arts of the Toronto Metropolitan University.

Olive Zeynep Kartal is an MA student in Film Studies at Concordia University. She received her BA in English (Cultural Studies) and Gender Studies from McGill University. Her previous work has focused on textiles and queer theory. Her research interests include feminist film and literature, spectrality, media studies, and disability studies.

Kathryn Armstrong (she/her) is a SSHRC Research Fellow and PhD Candidate of Concordia’s Communication Department. Her work examines the Canadian public media system, including Canada’s approach to international media distribution and its handling at the governmental level of content development and digital content platforms. Kathryn specializes in Canada’s international treaty co-production partnerships and how Canadian media producers forge these collaborations. She holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Toronto (Cinema Studies) and Toronto Metropolitan University (Media Production), as well as an Honours Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute. Kathryn's past work in producer advocacy at the Canadian Media Producers Association as well as her management of international director and producer relations for the Toronto International Film Festival continue to drive her research inquiries. Kathryn often attends academic conferences including the Film Studies Association of Canada and the TIFF/Sheridan College’s NextGen Seminar. She is currently working on the 2022/2023 Canada Media Fund Trends report, and has appeared as a media analyst in defence of film and arts support, including her recent spot on CBC’s The National. 

Arvin (Yanwen) Zhang is a MA student in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University. As a media art student researcher and creator, she has produced short films and still photos, some of which entered film festivals. Her work focuses on the use of technology in media and new materialism. Arvin has been working with the VML on digitization and documentation of the Arnait archives, and she will continue to contribute to the projects.