Biography
Ilona Jurkonytė (she/her) is a film and media researcher, film curator, Arts & Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. Previously, Ilona was a Vanier Scholar at Concordia University, where she defended her PhD in Film and Moving Image Program.
Ilona’s research interests span film and media studies and science and technology studies. Ilona’s work critically examines tensions between notions of the national and transnational in moving image production and circulation, as well as their geo- and hydro- political implications. She is particularly invested in analysis how film and media production and technology engage with the questions of social and environmental justice.
Ilona is currently preparing for publication a book, based on her doctoral research, entitled “From Temperature of the War to Descending Clouds: US Bomb Archive and the Marshall Islands.” The project reconceptualizes the relationship between nuclear media archives, militarization, and the environment.
Prior to her academic work Ilona held an active curatorial practice which continues to inform her research. She is particularly interested in the potentials of artists’ moving image and its participation in audiovisual cultures.
Ilona was a Co-founder (2007), Managing Director (2007-2012) and Artistic Director (2007-2019) of the Kaunas International Film Festival (Lithuania), which was instrumental in rescuing Romuva, the oldest cinema theatre in Lithuania. 2012-2014, she worked as Film Program Curator at the Contemporary Art Centre Cinema (Vilnius, Lithuania).
Selected publications
Manuel Ángel Macía, Ilona Jurkonytė, and Santiago Reyes Villaveces, “Regimes of Knowledge Production: A Conversation on the Contemporary Predicaments of Artistic Research,” in Approximating Borders: Artistic Research in Practice, ed. Ádám Albert et al., 2023, 176–90.
Ilona Jurkonytė, “Bomb Archive: The Marshall Islands as Cold War Film Set,” Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images 2, no. 2 (January 26, 2023). (Peer reviewed)
Ilona Jurkonytė, “From What to How” (Brussels: On & For Production and Distribution, 2021).
Collective research and writing: Public Call: Calling for Sexual Violence Prevention Policies in Film Industry Institutions (Online, 2021).
Ilona Jurkonytė, “Ways of Organizing: Cinematic Public Space,” ed. Jason Fox and Laliv Melamed, World Records, Ways of Organizing, 2, no. 13 (2018).