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Mehvish is pursuing research in the field of documentary filmmaking. Being a documentary filmmaker herself, with her films being showcased in different film festivals across the globe, she continues to question the methodology and ethics in her field. Her particular interest concerns with the representation of subjects in documentaries based in protracted political conflict zones, trying to envision them beyond the scope of victimhood. She questions the patterns of absences within such documentaries, such as that of humour and transcendentality. Her research is a combination of critique of existing documentary work in and about Kashmir as well as an exploration of alternative and experimental modes for responsible representation of documentary subjects. The cornerstone of this research is understanding, learning, and finding ways to represent documentary subjects of this long-term conflict zone without victimizing them. Currently her work is focusing on the impact of digital surveillance on communication channels at interpersonal and community levels – and the viability of old media technology in circumventing the issues.

Edem Abbeyquaye is a PhD student in the Film and Media Department. She has a BA in Communications and researched feminist documentary filmmaking in Ghana for her master’s degree. She is a journalist turned documentary filmmaker/photographer, feminist and queer activist and has almost a decade of working experience. She has worked in activist spaces providing intersectional multimedia and Communications support to activist courses and groups. Edem comes to film as an activist and is interested in ways in which marginalized populations and social justice activists in Ghana can use alternative media for (self)representation and social change. She is a cofounder of, and the Director of the African Grad Students at Queen’s Club.

Research interests: Documentary filmmaking, Alternative Media/Activist Media Making, Feminism, Queer Activism, Social Justice

Publication(s) 

Abbeyquaye, Edem. 2025. “Of Paano-Sexuals and Pansexuals: Media Representation of Queer Ghanaians and Queer Self-Representation through Alternative Media.” Feminist Media Studies 25 (6): 1342–60.  

Steve Bates is an artist and musician. Through his work he listens to thresholds, boundaries and borders, points of contact and conflict. The history of ideas, experiences, and materials are an influence on his work and often lead to a research-heavy path resulting in a suite of works around a theme. Recent topics have included the history of barbed wire as colonizing device, the night as a space of freedom and libidinal desire, feedback as it occurs in sound and video art, politics, economics, and biology, historical and contemporary instances of pathological and non-pathological auditory hallucination and most recently, a speculative project around the sound of Hell. His work has been exhibited and performed in Canada, the United States of America, Europe, Chile and Senegal. He works in the field, on the air, in museological/gallery and performance contexts. These shifting territories reflect the content of his practice. 

Esther is currently a third year PhD student in the Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies (SCCS) PhD program at Queen’s University. Esther's research intersects media and film theory with feminist philosophy to investigate Technology Facilitated Rape (TFR). Esther explores the human body as a body embodied by technology that engages in sexual behaviour and procreates by extending its genitals through a medium connected to networks. Esther has an MFA in Documentary Media (Toronto Metropolitan University) and BA in Political Science (UWO).

Michelle Bunton is a practicing artist, curator, and roller derby player currently residing as an uninvited guest in Katarokwi-Kingston, Canada. They are a PhD Candidate in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies, with a BFA (Western University) and MA (Queen’s University). Bunton works with the Vulnerable Media Lab and Ayatana’s Biophilium: Science School for Artists, and they previously held a curatorial position at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. 

Bunton considers collaboration to be a necessary condition of their curatorial, artistic and academic praxis, prioritizing kinship-building with both human and nonhuman interlocutors. Their research includes speculative design, queer coding and science fiction, working toward a critical queer-ying of the Slime Mold Algorithm (SMA). 

Access more of their work here: 

Student email: 11mkb7@queensu.ca
Work email: m.bunton@queensu.ca

Darshana Chakrabarty is a doctoral candidate in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies under Prof. Ali Na. She completed her second Masters in English, specializing in Film and Media Studies, from Arizona State University in Spring 2021. Her research investigates the formation and evolution of virtual social identities, politics, and cultures, of Indian queer individuals and communities within the domains of Indian digital media and contemporary Indian Indie cinema.

Adam Cook is a film critic, curator, and scholar. Outside of the academy, his experience as a writer and film programmer spans over a decade. Within the academy, Cook’s research seeks to find connective tissue between reductive strands of theory and a revitalized aesthetics centred on formalism.

Drayden DeCosta is a filmmaker and scholar currently pursuing a PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at ����ֱ��. Prior to attending ����ֱ��, he earned his BFA (2018) and MFA (2020) in Film, Fine and Media Arts at NSCAD University.

Vincent E. writes, curates, teaches, moderates, organises, dreams, and plots. They live as an uninvited settler in Katarokwi (Kingston), on land stolen from the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat peoples.Their doctoral research develops decolonial approaches to Soviet Cold War–era media, centering Indigenous land-based struggles. Their writing has appeared in The Funambulist Magazine, Journal of Visual Culture, Parse Journal, Kajet Journal, and other publications, with forthcoming contributions in volumes from Edinburgh University Press and Bloomsbury Press. They have presented their work at nGBK Berlin, transmediale art and digital culture festival (Berlin), Goldsmiths University of London, the University of Amsterdam, and La Biennale di Architettura, Venice.

In their curatorial work, they seek to build connections across places and contexts through working groups, conferences, film screenings, and radio broadcasts.  Recently they co-curated a conference “Technologies of Colonialism and Solidarity” at the IWM Vienna, and a film festival Where The Wind Scatters Seeds at Filmhaus Köln / Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne.

In their free time they like drawing and going for long walks.

Eman is a documentary filmmaker and film scholar. She studied at the University of Sussex in the UK, where she was awarded the prestigious Cate Haste scholarship, and where she gained her MA in Documentary Filmmaking (with Distinction). Currently, she is studying for a PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on Egyptian first-person documentary films. She has also an ongoing interest in interactive documentary, digital media, film curation and feminist cinema.

Peggy is an animator, illustrator, and teaching artist.  After studying digital design at Pratt Institute, she gained professional experience in post-production, creating animation and special effects for film and television. An interest in film and video festivals led to a position in the education department at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. She has training in a variety of museum pedagogies and has created accessible experiences with art & media for all ages and abilities.

Vince Ha is a PhD candidate in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University. His research centers on two core themes: diasporic identities and queer archival methods. Currently, he is investigating transnational media and its impact on queer diasporic sociality, with special attention to homoerotic representation in Asian cinema