Shana MacDonald is a PhD Candidate in the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York University.  She has been involved with the Visible City Project since 2006. Her MA thesis explored the film work of artist Carolee Schneemann in its connection to French feminist theory.  Her present research examines the relationship between film and performance in early feminist art stemming from the 1960s New York avant-garde.  In addition, Ms.MacDonald is interested in the presence of the political in contemporary performance art practices in Latin America and Cuba in particular.

Ms. MacDonald is an internationally screened experimental filmmaker whose recently completed trilogy has been shown throughout Canada, France, the Czech Repbulic, Colombia, Venezuela, and Argentina.  She is a member of the Loop Collective, an artist run group committed to the production and exhibition of avant-garde cinema.  She has curated film programs for Bishops University and York University and for the Alucine Latin American film festival. Through the invitation of many academic and filmic institutions she has had the opportunity to lecture on experimental and Latin American cinema as well as on her own films and creative process.  She has been a part of many artistic and academic panels at conferences in Cuba, Canada and the United States. Ms. MacDonald has been a Teaching Assistant for the Film Department at York University for the last three years. Her present creative endeavors include the start of a new film cycle on city spaces, as well as a film series on the Canadian landscape.  She is also beginning a collaboration with several other Canadian filmmakers and choreographers on a performance piece to be shown in the Spring of 2008.