Screen Cultures & Curatorial Studies | Queen's Film and Media

Housed in the state-of-the-art Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the new Master's and PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies are unique because of their linkage of adjacent disciplines: film and media studies and, more generally, the study of screen cultures, film and media production, and curatorial studies and practice. These multidisciplinary programs provide students with a wide range of course options and professional opportunities in academia, arts management, programming, media production (from mainstream media to artistic and activist production), and curating.

SCCS Film strip

The Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies Graduate Program is unique because of its linkage of adjacent disciplines: film and media studies and, more generally, the study of screen cultures, film and media production, and curatorial studies and practice. We encourage applicants whose proposed work has connections across multiple areas of the program. It is not required that applicants’ work spans both screen cultures and curatorial studies. SCCS’s multidisciplinary programs provide students with a wide range of course options and professional opportunities in academia, arts management, programming, media production (from mainstream media, to artistic and activist production), and curating. Our program is based in Humanities and Arts methods including theory, criticism and practice.

We offer an MA and a PhD which may include creative and/or curatorial practice based within a Research-Creation model, in which the written and creative component and are co-designed and co-constitutive of the project. This approach differs from degrees where art practice is the central focus/output (such as an MFA). It is important to note that we do not offer technical training (cinematography, editing, gaming, etc.) in our graduate course offerings.

Program Faculty members straddle scholarly, programming, curation and creative practices. Visiting scholars, filmmakers, artists, and curators in the core and elective courses provide opportunities for practice-based, experiential, applied learning, allowing students to integrate new knowledge gained from graduate-level coursework and to implement newly acquired skills in and beyond the gallery, festival and museum.

Please review our Call for Applicants, Research Areas, and How to Apply webpages for further information and, in order to ensure our program is the right fit for you, please fill out our Pre-application Survey.

We offer 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.

Exhibition space is available to students at the Art & Media Lab in The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, the AGNES, 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 AGNES is currently undergoing a transforming renovation of its space: follow the development here.