Maegan Gaudette

Maegan E. Gaudette (she / her) is a queer scholar and artist residing in Montréal / Tiohtià:ke, Québec, Canada. She graduated with Distinction from the University of Ottawa in 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, specialising in oil painting, film photography, and textiles; at this time, she simultaneously began cultivating a strong interest in writing and art criticism.

As a second-year Masters student in the Department of Art History at Concordia University, she is acting as Special Project Coordinator, Communication Officer, and Graphic Designer in 2021 for AHGSA’s 15th Annual Art History Graduate Symposium, Empathy/Empathie. She is co-curator of the accompanying art exhibition of the same title, held online as a Virtual Vitrine. The conference invited scholarly discourse surrounding the limitations and possibilities of intentional empathy, and how in artistic and theoretical investigation it may be used to reconcile discrimination and privilege while confronting other various social disparities.

Under the supervision of Dr. John Potvin, her thesis is tentatively titled Transcending Beyond the ‘Detectable’: Mourning, Memory, and ARVs in Contemporary HIV/AIDS Activism. She is interested in the intersections of memory, grief, and the introduction of antiretroviral medications that, for many with access, have helped rupture the expected trajectory of the HIV virus. She additionally intends to investigate how contemporary artists, activists, and long-term survivors are working to honour the legacy of the artistic generation lost to AIDS-related complications — namely while confronted by a growing cultural amnesia that threatens to silence the realities and histories of queer tenderness, love, and resilience.