Mary Hegedus is a PhD Candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at York University. Mary’s research seeks to expand her University of Toronto Master’s in Cinema Studies work on post-apocalyptic film and fungi to find deeper connections between fungal living and its relationship to cinema.

Dr. Aimée Mitchell (she/her) is currently the Research Officer for the School of Art, Media, Performance & Design at York University. She is the former Project Manager of Archive/Counter-Archive. She holds a PhD in Communication and Culture from York-X University. Her dissertation explored the politics and practices of audiovisual archives in Canada, and more specifically, the importance of DIY archiving practices in its various forms. She held a MITACS Post-Doctoral Fellow at York University, where her research focused on the early history of IMAX, and the reconstruction of this history through traces from personal fonds, and counter archives. Aimée is the former Distribution and Collections Manager at the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, Canada’s largest collection of independent artisanal film. She was an archival researcher and contributor to the book Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67 (MQUP 2014). Aimée is an independent media art programmer, a current board member of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers Toronto and the8fest small-gauge film festival and was a founding member for the Toronto Queer Film Festival. She is an advocate for audiovisual media makers across formats and gauges big and small.
 

Jennifer LeBlanc (L’nu/Mi’kmaw) is a 3rd PhD student at Queen’s University, with the Faculty of Cultural Studies. Jennifer studies with Stó:lõ sound studies scholar Dylan Robinson. Her research interests include underground ‘heavy music’ including metal, goth, and experimental, affect theory, emotional knowledges, and Indigenous body sovereignty. Her research project asks what underground 'heavy music' does to and for Indigenous bodies, with a particular focus on how Indigenous sovereign bodies feel both heavy and light when engaging musical and affective heaviness in 'heavy music' and what Indigenous bodies do with these affective feelings and encounters.

Erin Chan is a graduate student in the Master of Publishing (MPub) program at Simon Fraser University. Her research is centred on zines and the zine community of the west coast of Canada, and she is interested in exploring zines as a crucial alternative to traditional publishing in giving space to and embodying marginalized communities.

Emily Collins is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary researcher, arts administrator and PhD student in Cinema and Media Studies. She has worked across arts organizations in local and international settings, including the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Festival Scope (Paris), VUCAVU (Toronto), PUBLIC Journal (Toronto), and the Toronto International Film Festival. She holds graduate degrees in Arts and Culture from Maastricht University (Netherlands) and Cinema and Media Studies from York University (Toronto). Situated at the intersection of film and media, sound studies, cultural studies and gender studies, Emily's PhD research considers practices of deep listening, sonic epistemologies and embodied soundscapes. Namely, her project examines how sonic intervention and experimentation within audio-visual works can function as tools of resistance, instruments for disruption and modes of trans-sensory knowledge formation.

Dr. Desirée de Jesús is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. She holds a PhD from Concordia University and an MA (with Distinction) from Kings College London. Dr. de Jesús is also a video essayist and moving images curator. Her videographic work analyzes films centering girls, women, and folks of color. Her previous curatorial work supported the Visual Collections Repository (Concordia University) and the Toronto International Film Festival. Dr. de Jesús’s research and teaching explore the intersections of race, gender, aesthetics, and technology in narrative film and media through traditional, creative, and curatorial methodologies. She is currently a co-investigator for a Connection Grant participatory filmmaking project about racialized girls, their futures, and experiences of COVID-19 inequalities. Her previous research was supported through various awards.

Dr. Desirée de Jesús is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. She holds a PhD from Concordia University and an MA (with Distinction) from Kings College London. Dr. de Jesús is also a video essayist and moving images curator. Her videographic work analyzes films centering girls, women, and folks of color. Her previous curatorial work supported the Visual Collections Repository (Concordia University) and the Toronto International Film Festival. Dr. de Jesús’s research and teaching explore the intersections of race, gender, aesthetics, and technology in narrative film and media through traditional, creative, and curatorial methodologies. She is currently a co-investigator for a Connection Grant participatory filmmaking project about racialized girls, their futures, and experiences of COVID-19 inequalities. Her previous research was supported through various awards.

When asked to write about a topic that interested them, most of the grade four students in her class wrote about soccer or movie stars. Cate Alexander wrote about the Romanov dynasty. Her lifelong passion for history has taken her from archaeological field digs in Greece and Italy to the digital realms of online archives. Now as a second year PhD student in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, Cate studies cultural heritage, digital humanities, and information ethics. When she is not working, Cate can be found swing dancing, making memes, or watching long video essays on YouTube.

Madeline Bogoch is a writer and programmer based in Treaty One territory whose work is focused primarily on experimental moving-image practices. She recently completed her MA in Art History from Concordia University and is currently the Manager of Media Collections at Video Pool Media Arts Centre. Her writing has been published in C Magazine, Peripheral Review, Galleries West, and others. She is a member of the collective Open City Cinema, part of the programming committee for the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival (WUFF) and has curated additional screenings with Vtape and Video Pool.

Dr. Mary Bunch is an Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Arts, and Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability, Vision and the Arts. Her research interests include critical disability, queer, and feminist theory, social and political thought and philosophies of new media. Her current project, a monograph titled Ecstatic Ethics, explores a shift in contemporary queer, crip and decolonial social movements from individualized, neoliberal forms of freedom, to an emancipatory concept based on an ethics of relationality, solidarity, and nonmastery.  In other emergent projects, Dr. Bunch’s examines extended reality (XR), virtual worldmaking and immersive storytelling in media arts and performance studies to better understand how artists and community members from marginalized communities use digital technology to creatively transform social imaginaries. Dr. Bunch is a core member of Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA), an Associate of Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, a Fellow of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (U of T), and Affiliate of Revision Centre for Art and Social Justice (UGuelph). She is also affiliated with graduate programs in Theatre and Performance Studies, Critical Disability Studies, Digital Media, Communication and Culture, and Interdisciplinary Studies. postdoctoral fellowship the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (U of T). She has published articles in the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Culture, Theory and Critique, Feminist Theory, Studies in Social Justice, and the Canadian Journal of Human Rights, among others.