Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University are accepting applications for an MA and PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies.
Application deadline: 31 January 2022
Start an application: Visit the School of Graduate Studies website.
Launched in the Fall of 2019, Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies is a collaboration between Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the Department of Film and Media and offers a unique opportunity for a funded one-year MA and a four-year PhD. The program’s three strongly interconnected areas of focus—studies, production and curatorial practice—are designed to stimulate inventive dialogue in ways that ensure their respective influence, and in ways that open exciting points of access to multiple disciplinary formations. This collaborative tripartite structure is not offered in any other film, media, cinema, art or communication MA or PhD program in Ontario.
Housed in the state-of-the-art Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts and Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the MA and PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies are unique because of their linkage to adjacent disciplines: film and media studies and, more generally, the study of screen cultures, critical theory, film and media production, and curatorial studies and practice. These multidisciplinary programs provide students with a wide range of educational and professional opportunities, including academia, arts management, programming, media production (from mainstream media to artistic and activist production), and curating.
A Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies seminar at Agnes. Photo: Tim Forbes
Installation view of Lii Zoot Tayr (Other Worlds) on view at Agnes through 30 January 2022. Photo: Paul Litherland
Faculty and Adjuncts in the program straddle scholarly, programming, curatorial, archiving and creative practices. A rich program of visiting scholars, filmmakers, artists, and curators—in the core professional development and elective courses—provide opportunities for practice-based learning, allowing students to integrate new knowledge gained from other graduate-level coursework and to implement newly acquired skills in and beyond the gallery, festival and museum. A focused yearly Summer Institute brings together renowned scholars and practitioners, as well as Graduate students from other universities for intensive and focused study program.
Exhibition is available to students at the Art & Media Lab in The Isabel Bader Centre, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the Union Gallery (on an application basis), and/or online, to accommodate curatorial projects. The Vulnerable Media Lab offers opportunities for restoration, remediation and curation of media collections. The program offers seed funding for MA and PhD screen cultures curatorial projects (up to $350.00 per student). PhD students can also apply to the Dean’s project fund for up to $3000.
Research Areas
• Film, Media and Screen Cultures
• Experimental Media
• Curatorial Studies
• Moving Image Production (Narrative, Documentary, Experimental, Animation, Open Media, Digital Media)
• Film, Media and Performance Studies
• Historical and Contemporary Film and Media
• Archives, Curation, and Remediation
• National and Transnational Cinemas, Cultural Institutions and Curatorial Events
• Feminist, Critical Race, Indigenous and LGBTQ2+ Screen Cultures
• Environmental Film and Media
Visit the SCCS website.
Any questions? contact Stephanie Wilson, Graduate Assistant, or Gary Kibbins, Graduate Chair.
This coming August, Agnes hosts Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies’ annual Summer Institute. Less a theme than a catalyst for collectively reckoning with everything from the legacies of display and collecting to traditional museum practices and spaces, The Curatorial here plays a role in reflexively engaging with Agnes’s own institutional history.
It is an auspicious moment. While “unpacking” the curatorial, during this summer institute we also begin to pack the 17,000 object collection at Agnes in anticipation of Agnes Reimagined, a future-oriented building for the museological practices to come. As we pack, we reflect with you on legacies of collecting—of holding but also homing—at a cultural institution.
Working with an expanded view of the curatorial—from making collections to simply making connections — we invite artists, cultural workers, students and community members to join in this week-long event, through discussions, performances, exhibitions and workshops.
We wonder: What is a future-forward collection and collecting home? And what role can the curatorial play in enacting cultural change, both inside and outside the museum context?
Mark your calendars; stay tuned for details; look out for our open call and please join us!