[Commlist] Under the Shadow of Empire: Minor Archives and Distribution Networks Conference

*Registration Open: /Under the Shadow of Empire: Minor Archives and 
Distribution Networks/ Conference*

/Under the Shadow of Empire: Minor Archives and Distribution Networks 
/brings together researchers, media archivists, curators, and filmmakers 
from across the Americas to address critical and urgent questions about 
and propose solutions to current crises in media heritage.

Between *August 26-29, 2026, *we will meet at Queen’s University for a 
series of curated conversations, workshops, and screenings to address 
how climate emergency, dictatorships, struggles for sovereignty, forced 
migration, and economic inequities produce extreme precarity for 
audio-visual heritage.

Facing the deteriorating and inaccessible cultural heritage of 
time-based audio-visual media in the Americas, the conference is centred 
around three questions: 1) How do we face that urgency with a method 
that is underpinned and shaped by principles of decolonization and 
sovereignty? 2) How do we produce best practices in the face of extreme 
instability of social, political, and environmental contexts that 
condition specific archives and collections? 3) How do we create 
conditions of access to cultural heritage that acknowledge 
intersectional forms of oppression and struggles for liberation and 
cultural sovereignty? Based on the understanding that minor archives 
(Suárez) are very much tied to community and cultural memory, and that 
the movement of media is about the expansion of that memory and its 
activations, /Under the Shadow of Empire/ seeks to contribute to the 
theory and practice of /the living archive /(Hall, 2001).

The conference is hosted by the Vulnerable Media Lab and is organized by 
Susan Lord, produced by Isabella Altoé, and supported by the conference 
advisory committee: Juana Suárez, Amalia Córdova, Gabriel Menotti, 
Tamara Lang, Zaira Zarza, and Lesley Foster.

*When:*  August 26-29, 2026

*Where: *Vulnerable Media Lab, located at the Film & Media Department, 
Queen’s University

*Register here: 
https://payments.artsci.queensu.ca/products/under-the-shadow-of-empire-minor-archives-and-distribution-networks 
<https://payments.artsci.queensu.ca/products/under-the-shadow-of-empire-minor-archives-and-distribution-networks>*

*Full program coming soon at https://vulnerablemedialab.ca/ 
<https://vulnerablemedialab.ca/> *

Queen’s special rates are available at Queen’s Residences 
https://www.queensu.ca/eventservices/accommodations/summer 
<https://www.queensu.ca/eventservices/accommodations/summer>

For inquiries: (usem2026 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(usem2026 /at/ gmail.com)>

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