I just finished my fourth year in Gender, Sexuality, Feminist and Social Justice Studies and Art History at McGill. Throughout my studies I have had the privilege of immersing myself in both discourses, often at the same time thanks to their flexible and interdisciplinary natures. I come from a social justice-oriented perspective and I am passionate about art as a form of representation and healing. In my work with the GSFS student’s association, I have grown to understand the value of connection and community in activist circles and gender studies discourses.
I first heard about the Research Assistant internship for Mediaqueer through an email from the head of Mediaqueer, Dr. Alanna Thain. Dr. Thain and I had already connected with my work at the GSFSSA as External Coordinator to the IGSF, so I knew our values aligned. When she described the Mediaqueer internship objectives as centered around queer art history and archival work, I was ecstatic at the opportunity.
Mediaqueer’s mission has been to create a space to support queer film artists in Canada, curate events for film lovers and push the canon of art history to include marginalized voices. Coming upon the fifth anniversary on the eve of a global pandemic, Mediaqueer has been questioning how they can maintain this sense of community, which they primarily offered through in-person events.
My learning objectives became to explore issues of identity, terminology and queer archival metadata to create suggestions to expand, shift and manipulate the Canadian queer film catalogue and archival tool that has become Mediaqueer. As an intern, I have compiled a survey of other queer and queer-adjacent archives to understand how they organize their website, offer tools of accessibility for archivists and academics, use practices transparency and self-reflection and question the way that language is experienced by queer communities. This work resulted in a variety of suggestions for Mediaqueer to improve their website and social media as a better curation tool and catalogue.
One of the most rewarding moments of my internship was when I presented the findings of my initial survey results to my supervisors. Having done this internship during a pandemic, I found that my work done in isolation had seemed to me pretty abstract and impact-less until this meeting. When I spoke about the way that other archives were discussing the fluidity of language and how they organized their websites, both of my supervisors expressed their utmost gratitude in my work and ultimately met every single suggestion with enthusiastic acceptance. I felt so much relief, pride and excitement that my work was coming to fruition for Mediaqueer and have since ridden the wave of joy at having an anti-oppressive impact on Canadian queer art history.
A lot of my studies in both art history and gender studies has led to writing essays on contemporary theory and art from hundreds of years ago. While this process has been both empowering and instilled in me a passion for learning and writing, I often feel disconnected from the everyday, the quotidian. My internship at Mediaqueer has reminded me of the discourse shifting work I am capable of producing after I graduate from McGill.
This has also prepared me to take on the pandemic in new ways. My supervisors have been exceptionally understanding, offering a sense of solidarity and academic community that I had been really missing over the summer. Doing a remote research assistant internship during a pandemic was a really frustrating process at times, communication was difficult to maintain and led me to feel fearful that I was taking my survey in the wrong direction. However, I have been met with a lot of flexibility, kindness and great feedback from my supervisors which made the challenges worth it.
While I did not do this internship for academic credit, I am honored and thankful to receive The Arts Student Employment Fund, an award to compensate my work. I am excited to announce that I will likely be continuing my work with Mediaqueer in another Research Assistantship for the Fall 2020 semester.
This opportunity gave me the confidence that I need going into a remote semester. I will be able to materialize so much of what I have been learning over the past years. Although I continue to experience a lot of anxiety about the future living with a pandemic, I know that the feelings of support and opportunities for growth that this internship offered me will last me far beyond this internship!
