Magdalena Olszanowski

Magdalena Olszanowski is a Polish-born writer, artist, and educator based in Montreal. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University, where she currently serves as faculty, and also teaches at Dawson College. Her academic career bridges creative practice and scholarly inquiry, focusing on the intersections of feminist theory, digital culture, and embodied experience.

Her research interests center on feminist art practices, digital self-representation, and the early web. She investigates how women and marginalized communities use digital platforms for self-expression and community building, with particular attention to Instagram's role in feminist exchange. Her work also explores the connections between motherhood, embodiment, and creative practice, examining how caregiving shapes artistic production and theoretical frameworks. Additional areas of interest include censorship in digital spaces, women in electronic dance music culture, and the politics of self-imaging online.

Through her publications spanning from 2013-2024, Olszanowski has established herself as a significant voice in feminist digital studies. Her research reveals consistent themes of resistance, community building, and the reclamation of digital spaces for marginalized voices. She examines how platforms that appear neutral often reinforce existing power structures, while simultaneously documenting how users develop creative tactics to circumvent these limitations. Her more recent work increasingly engages with ecological concerns and the relationship between land, embodiment, and digital practice.

Magdalena maintains an active creative practice alongside her academic work through her Substack publication "Near to The Wild Heart," where she writes at the intersection of philosophy, motherhood, art, and desire. This platform allows her to explore personal experiences of embodiment and care while connecting them to broader theoretical frameworks.