Call for Applications: 2025 Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies Program at Queen’s University

Museums Without Walls exhibition at the Art & Media Lab. CC by Bojana Babic

Fully Funded Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies MA/PhD Program

Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Application Deadline: January 31, 2025

Queen’s Department of Film and Media is pleased to invite applicants interested in its Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies graduate program. Launched in 2019 in partnership with the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the program offers one-year MA and four-years PhD degrees. The program’s openness to research-creation methodologies makes it perfect for practicing curators and artists who want to expand their horizons in a multidisciplinary scholarly environment. Students are fully funded through a combination of grants, teaching, and research opportunities. The program also offers access to exhibition and screening facilities both in-house and through partnerships with galleries, film festivals and artist-run centers from all over the world. Extra support for student projects is available through department seed funding and Queen’s Internal awards.

Inuuqatikka: My Dear Relations exhibition at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. © Vulnerable Media Lab

Housed in the state-of-the-art Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, 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.

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.

Isabel Bader Center projection booth. © Cam Miller

Faculty in the program bring together expertise in critical theory, visual and media arts, performance, mixed reality, experimental film, and installation. A rich program of visiting scholars, filmmakers, artists, and curators 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.

Research Areas

Archives, Curation, and Remediation
Curatorial Studies
Environmental film and media
Experimental Media
Feminist, Critical Race, Indigenous and LGBTQ2+ Screen Cultures
Film, Media and Performance Studies
Film, Media and Screen Cultures
Historical and Contemporary Film and Media
Moving Image Production (Narrative, Documentary, Experimental, Animation, Open Media)
National Cinemas, Cultural Institutions and Curatorial Events

Situating the Curatorial course at Queen’s Phytotron. © Andrei Pora

Please review our Research Areas and How to Apply webpages for further information. You can also fill out our Pre-application Survey and/or plan to attend one of our virtual information sessions: