Join us on Thursday 16 July as Sharlene Bamboat, Ila Firouzabadi, Iris Ng, and Irene Chin explore the boundaries between narrative filmmaking and architectural history.

This event builds on the CCA’s 2026 Toolkit for Today, a week of seminars and workshops through which scholars, artists, and film professionals share their methods, topical questions, and objects of inquiry with participants in our Doctoral Research Residency Program.

The conversation will move between cinematography, research for film, and film as research—tracing how the stories told through the medium of film both rely on and exceed everyday architectures.

This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so registration is required. Admission to the museum is included with your registration.

Sharlene Bamboat is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist working primarily in non-fiction moving image. Her practice explores histories of colonialism, globalization, pop culture, and desire through poetics, abstraction, and collaboration. Sound and music are central to her practice, and her films often emerge from sonic experimentation with others. In addition to her artistic practice, Sharlene works in the cultural sector, contributing to artist-run organizations and collectives in Canada, and working as a creative producer with artists both locally and internationally as  Bamboat Studio.

Irene Chin is co-author of the Groundwork film trilogy and exhibition series. She has been Curator of Contemporary Architecture at the CCA since 2025 and part of the curatorial team since 2015. She has contributed to exhibition research and film production for To Remain in the No Longer, 2023; The Things Around Us: 51N4E and Rural Urban Framework, 2020; and Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-Being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism, 2019; among other projects.

Ila Firouzabadi is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on ambiguous and sensitive forms, aiming to depict threatening, or at times threatened, worlds that refer to the tensions and conflicts inherent in present society through drawings and a combination sculpture and installation. She is a cowriter with Matthew Rankin and Pirouz Nemati of the 2024 film Universal Language, for which they received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 13th Canadian Screen Awards in 2025.

Iris Ng is a cinematographer whose work focuses on human rights, marginalized communities, and auteur perspectives. Known for her close collaborations with directors on documentaries, she has been concurrently lensing scripted films, TV, digital series, and films for contemporary artists. Her most notable work includes Oscar shortlisted films Stories We Tell (dir. Sarah Polley, 2012) and Shirkers (dir. Sandi Tan, 2018), as well as the series Making A Murderer (2015, 2018) and Twice Colonized (2023).