Narmeen Ijaz is a doctoral student in Media Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington where her research focuses on non-fiction film cultures. In particular, she studies how patriarchal and heteronormative power dynamics in colonial histories and political power regimes have led to the emergence of new female subjectivities and politics of representation in non-fiction film cultures. Moreover, Ijaz’s interests in documentary studies are largely inspired by her practical experiences of working as documentary filmmaker for international human rights organizations such as UNICEF-ROSA and Youth LEAD which have led to her interests in questioning the role of ethics, impact and change through documentaries. She has presented her work at various platforms such as the Women and the Silent Screen (2022) and Visible Evidence (2022).
Narmeen’s research and practice are inspired by her interests in experimenting with the approaches to decolonizing representation through her practical documentary works by incorporating participatory, self-reflexive and interactive approaches in documentary to shape gender representation. She is also a fellowship recipient of the Decolonizing Representation of Muslim Women in Media program at UC Davis and the HASTAC scholarship (IU) for her virtual documentary installation, Self in a Portrait.