The Université de Montréal Arts & Medias Annual Symposium, an initiative led by students of Art History, was founded in 2013. Following the success of its first edition "Distance(s) Effect: Viewpoints on Art," the Symposium returned under the theme "Touched by Art: Around the Haptic" the following year. Gradually, the Symposium became a space to develop an active dialogue between students of Art History and Film Studies, two disciplines united under the same department at Université de Montréal (UdeM). This thrust towards interdisciplinary thought within images, still and moving, prompted the Symposium in 2016 to be reestablished as Arts & Medias.
Every year, a new theme is put forward to create opportunities for discussion for researchers in different fields of study. Each theme invites collaboration from experts of different time periods and/or geographical regions reflecting the breadth of academic interests within the Department of Art History and Film Studies at Université de Montréal. The mandate of the event is to create meaningful encounters between students, researchers, and professors at UdeM and other local and international universities.
Another objective of the Symposium is to foster academic development. Arts & Medias provides an opportunity for many students, from undergraduates in their final year to PhD candidates, to present their first talks or to attend a symposium for the first time. Furthermore, students members of the administration committees learn how to organize events of a scientific nature and gain relevant professional experience. Students may chair a panel and take part in the process of publishing conference proceedings.
The Arts & Medias website aims to promote the Symposium’s activities and provide a stable and convenient editorial structure for its proceedings, which were first published in 2014 in collaboration with L'ARgoT, a scientific journal also initiated by Art History students at Université de Montréal.
The proceedings of 2015 and 2016 conferences inaugurate this new editorial platform.