IMAX in Space: An Online Panel Event with Dr Roberta Bondar

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The research team behind the SSHRC funded project Locating Transnational Collaborations in the Early History of IMAX and the recently published issue “Women of IMAX” in the journal Feminist Media Histories is hosting a virtual panel discussion with Dr Roberta Bondar. The discussion is part of an exhibition on IMAX and SPACE by the team’s artist-in-residence, Oliver Husain, currently showing at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario.

The first female Canadian astronaut and first neurologist to fly in space, Dr Roberta Bondar is globally recognized for her pioneering contributions to space medicine research, fine art photography, and environmental education. She expanded the horizons of millions as a crewmember on the space shuttle Discovery for its 1992 mission, where she conducted experiments for 18 countries in the International Microgravity Laboratory, a precursor to the International Space Station. For more than a decade after her spaceflight, Dr Bondar headed an international space medicine research team working with NASA.

As a member of NASA’s Earth Observation Team for her spaceflight, Dr Bondar trained on multiple camera types, including IMAX (Destiny in Space), and postflight was an honours student in Professional Nature Photography. The Fall 2026 “Women of IMAX” issue of Feminist Media Histories features an interview with Dr Bondar on producing Destiny in Space during mission STS-42 and how IMAX shaped her practice as a photographer.

Oliver Husain: I ♥ Snail is an immersive video installation that examines IMAX cinema as both an experimental film format emerging in the 1960s and a technology later mobilized as a tool of nation-building. The exhibition title is drawn from a sticker found in the archived papers of Toronto-based filmmaker Graeme Ferguson, one of the inventors of IMAX cinema.

The virtual event will include a short presentation by artist Oliver Husain followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with Dr Bondar and three of the IMAX research team members – Janine Marchessault (York University), Jessica Mulvogue (University of St Andrews), and Allison Whitney (Texas Tech University).