Join us for another online iteration of the Archive/Counter-Archive Working Papers Series (WPS), which brings together PhD students and graduate researchers from different universities to hear about exciting work in the area of archival studies. Our next event is a roundtable discussion featuring A/CA postdoctoral researchers Erika Biddle, Axelle Demus, Ylenia Olibet, and Mikhel Proulx. Each participant will give brief presentations of their most recent or current research and creative projects, followed by a collective discussion about the early stages of their postdocs, including how they arrived to their current position, their independent practices outside this context (curation, publishing, and artistic practices), and how these practices may connect and/or diverge from their future research. The discussion and Q&A will be moderated by WPS student organizers, Em Barton and Elina Lex. 

Click the following link to register for this event: 

https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/qM4wCZIPRq2JUMapS8AOJg#/registration 

NOTE: This event is taking place online over Zoom and will have closed captioning available. The Zoom invitation link will be emailed to all who are registered.

SPEAKER AND PRESENTATION INFORMATION

Living Archives, Histories and Futures of Alternative and Arts Publishing

Erika Biddle’s postdoctoral research project, “Living Archives, Histories and Futures of Alternative and Arts Publishing,” is supported by two Mitacs Accelerate Postdoctoral Fellowships and spans three interdisciplinary research-creation projects: Arcana, a series of artists books produced collaboratively by librarians and artists (dir. Christine Davis, cofounder of PUBLIC); re-envisioning and relaunching a more interactive PUBLIC Online, including ongoing engagements with PUBLIC’s archive; and, serving as Knowledge Mobilization Officer (KMO) of Archive/Counter-Archive in the final months of the project. This presentation will explore the modes of hybridized media publication, transdisciplinary collaboration, and knowledge mobilization that Archive/Counter-Archive and PUBLIC are aiming to promote and expand upon.

BIO
Erika Biddle is a Mitacs Accelerate Postdoctoral Fellow at York University, working with Archive/Counter-Archive and PUBLIC. She received her PhD in Communication and Culture from York University, where her dissertation, “Plastic Publics,” examined historical uses of “neuroplastic power” in shaping modern publics. Since January 2024, Erika has been collaborating with PUBLIC to produce Arcana, a special project led by artist Christine Davis with four contemporary artists and librarians at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (University of Toronto), culminating in a limited-edition multiple of four artists’ books. She is also developing PUBLIC Online as a broader platform for PUBLIC’s work. Erika is senior editor at Common Notions press and co-editor of Constituent Imagination with David Graeber and Stevphen Shukaitis. She is currently working on a book based on her doctoral research.

Archival Transformations: Increasing the Visibility, Preservation, and Accessibility of Community-based Archives Across Canada and the US

Axelle Demus’ presentation will introduce the McGill-based branch of the Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS) research group, a Mellon Foundation-supported network of archival studies scholars in nine universities which aims to empower community archives across diverse regions in the US and Canada to advance their essential work documenting, stewarding, and making accessible the history of underrepresented cultures, knowledges, and peoples. In addition to discussing the goals and challenges of the McGill/FOCAS project, Axelle’s presentation will showcase their work with the Disability Archives Lab, which connects the McGill/FOCAS endeavours to broader issues related to archives and archival education, especially around disability and accessibility in community archives across North America.

BIO
Axelle Demus, PhD, is the Community Archives Accessibility Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University’s School of Information Studies. As part of their appointment, they are developing and supporting a paid internship program in collaboration with various Montréal-based community archives, while conducting interdisciplinary research focused on disability and accessibility in community archives across the United States and Canada. As a Research Associate for Archive/Counter-Archive, Axelle is also developing a series of open access educational guides for the project’s Case Studies to make vulnerable archival material available to classrooms at the secondary and postsecondary level. Finally, their current research, which is derived from their dissertation work, focuses on the histories and archives of LGBTQ2+ community cable access TV in Canada. Broadly speaking, Axelle’s interdisciplinary research interests include (community) media history, archival studies, critical disability studies, and critical pedagogy. For more: https://axelledemus.com/ 

Women’s Film Festivals and the Geopolitics of Feminism(s)

Ylenia Olibet’s FRQ-funded postdoctoral research examines women’s film festivals established in the twenty-first century within francophone geopolitical contexts and investigates what kind of feminist discourses they put forward, paying attention not only to the films they exhibit, but also to the infrastructures and institutions that sustain them. In this presentation, Ylenia will illustrate the theoretical framework of her project, with particular focus on its methodology, which combines historiographical and ethnographical methods. Ylenia will also situate this project in relation to the research on feminist grassroots-based media archives she has pursued within the context of Archive/Counter-Archive in two main ways: the development of a curated program of videos from GIV’s collection in collaboration with Dr. Alanna Thain, and my contribution to the Archives in Action activities through the discussion of best archival practices and policy implications for community-based archives.

BIO
Ylenia Olibet is a Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University. She is interested in the formation of feminist and queer publics developed around film cultures. Her research encompasses queer and feminist theory and history, transnational approaches to film and media studies, film festivals, and digital media. She published in Feminist Media Studies, Feminist Media Histories, MAI: A Journal of Feminist Visual Culture and in edited book collections.  Her research is funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et Culture.

Restoring and Reenacting Media Art and Performance: McKeough, Dragu, Skawennati 

Mikhel Proulx's presentation introduces three recent curatorial projects undertaken in collaboration with the artists Rita McKeough, Margaret Dragu, and Skawennati. Mikhel’s postdoc involves revisiting significant performance and technology-dependent artworks made over the past five decades. This has entailed exploring a range of curatorial and archival strategies for restoring and reenacting complex and dynamic artworks.

BIO
Mikhel Proulx is the Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vulnerable Media Lab, Queen’s University. In recent projects, he has collaborated with the artists Skawennati, Anna Banana, Margaret Dragu and Rita McKeough. Mikhel has recently curated exhibitions and presented research at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City; Foundation PHI in Montreal; and the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris.