Thursday December 4, 2025 | 3:45PM-4:45PM

LBC 210 McKeever

Session Description

We are presenting the forthcoming edited volume Diffracting the North: Contemporary Latinx Canadian Experiences and Practices in Film, New Media, and Visual Arts (Concordia University Press, 2025). As two of the book’s editors, we will engage in a conversation that traces the project’s trajectory—from its initial motivations through years of collaborative development to its final outcomes.
This timely and necessary publication is the first to document and share the experiences and material conditions of Latinx Canadian creators working across film, media, and visual arts. It brings together scholars, filmmakers, curators, and artists from diverse Latin American backgrounds in a practitioner-driven reflection on the challenges and opportunities of producing and circulating work in a country shaped predominantly by anglophone and francophone cultural frameworks.
Contributors to the volume examine how Latinx Canadian identity is constructed, negotiated, and expressed, as well as the networks and solidarities that shape these experiences. The book explores intergenerational mentorships, cross-cultural alliances, and collaborations with Indigenous and other marginalized communities within racialized and gendered structures. It highlights strategies of allyship—ranging from learning with Indigenous artists to fostering hemispheric solidarities among feminist and migrant collectives.
Ultimately, Diffracting the North underscores how Latinx Canadian art and film practices both challenge and enrich Canada’s cultural landscape by intervening in dominant creative, academic, and curatorial paradigms.

 

Presenters

• Analays Álvarez Hernández (Université de Montréal, book editor, and moderator)
• Zaira Zarza (Université de Montréal, book editor).