Urban photography summer school 2013
Goldsmiths, university of london

Designed for photographers, artists and urbanists whose work address notions of urban space and culture, the international Summer School provides a highly intensive two-week practical and theoretical training in key aspects of urban visual practice. The course aims to offer participants a wide range of relevant skills resulting in the production of a photography portfolio drawn from London’s urban environments, combined with a collective final exhibition.

The programme has been developed in collaboration with Urban Encounters (Tate Britain), the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR), Photofusion and the International Association of Visual Urbanists (iAVU). The course is taught by experienced tutors from Goldsmith’s top-ranked Sociology Department and the international MA in Photography and Urban Cultures. The programme draws on the advanced theoretical, research and practical image-making specialisms of key practitioners in the field.

Summer School tutors include: Paul Halliday (MA in Photography and Urban Cultures Course Leader),Beatriz Véliz Argueta (Coordinator/Goldsmiths), Les Back (Goldsmiths), Caroline Knowles (CUCR Director), Mandy Lee Jandrell (Southampton Solent University/Goldsmiths), Peter Coles (Oxford/ Goldsmiths), Alex Rhys-Taylor (Goldsmiths), Manuel Vazquez (Goldsmiths),  Laura Cuch (Goldsmiths) and Jasmine Cheng (Goldsmiths).

The programme will explore how the practice of urban image making informs the development of a reflexive and critical research perspective and will include assignments and guided fieldtrips focusing on(1) urban landscapes, (2)  street-based photography and (3) material objects.

The Summer School will take place from 19 – 31 August 2013. Application deadline is June 10.

http://www.gold.ac.uk/cucr/summer-school/

The 2013 annual Visual Research Conference of the Society for Visual Anthropology will begin with an informal no-host dinner open to all SVA members on Monday evening November 18th followed by interactive presentations on Tuesday November 19th and Wednesday November 20th at the beginning of the 112th American Anthropology Association meetings in Chicago. These presentations are scheduled for about 45 minutes and are formatted to allow for viewing of visual material, as well as several question and answer periods during each presentation, thus facilitating much lively discussion. Each year this conference provides visual anthropologists a unique opportunity to meet and interact with others who do anthropological and anthropologically related research on visual signification, visual communication, and visual forms of representation. We invite all SVA members, from graduate students to retired professors, to submit proposals and attend the conference.

THE 2013 DEADLINE FOR VISUAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE SUBMISSIONS IS MIDNIGHT MARCH 31, 2013, GUAM TIME.

EYE & MIND

New Master’s Degree Programme in Visual Anthropology
Aarhus University and Moesgaard Museum

Dear all,

We are happy to announce a new Master’s Degree Programme in Visual Anthropology, starting from September 2013 (deadline for applications: 15 March). The programme is the result of a collaboration between the Section of Anthropology at Aarhus University and the cultural historical Museum of Moesgaard. With the Master’s Degree programme in Visual Anthropology, Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University aim to establish a research environment where students, scholars, artists, film- and exhibition-makers can experiment and develop forms of inquiry and representation that allow a close engagement with cross-cultural experience and imagination. The new museum site of Moesgaard will provide a window through which students, film- and exhibition-makers can enter directly into dialogue with the broad public. Furthermore, the museum will provide a unique public laboratory for experimenting with diverse methodologies and technologies of representation. This will be of value not only to students and researchers, but also to the museum, whose ambition it is to allow visitors to share in the very creation of anthropological knowledge.

In the autumn of 2013 a new museum building will open to students and staff and in 2014 Denmark’s first new-built cultural historical museum will be inaugurated. The building adds 16,000 square meters to the museum and thus sets the stage for a variety of new exhibition opportunities including special editing facilities, lecture halls and exhibition space for students in the programme in visual anthropology.

(more…)

The Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley seeks to fill a tenure-track, junior position (Assistant Professor) in the area of the anthropology of media to begin July 1, 2013. Suitable applicants should be engaged in analytically rich and ethnographically-driven research on topics concerning the production, circulation, and uptake of media artifacts, aesthetic forms, and practices. Areas of specialization we are interested in span both “old” media (print, radio, TV, film) and “new” media (Internet, smart phones). Active participation in both undergraduate and PhD programs, teaching both introductory and upper division courses, as well as graduate seminars is expected.

Applicants should have the Ph.D. or equivalent at time of appointment and should send a CV, a succinct cover letter describing your research and teaching experience, and the names and full contact information of three people who would be able to provide letters of recommendation. All letters will be treated as confidential per University of California policy and California state law. Please refer potential referees, including when letters are provided via a third party (i.e. dossier service or career center), to the UC Berkeley statement of confidentiality: http://apo.chance.berkeley.edu/evalltr.html

Applications must be received by February 15, 2013 and all supplemental materials must be received no later than March 1, 2013. Review of applications will begin on February 18, 2013 and will continue until the position is filled.

Apply at: https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/apply/JPF00087

The University of California is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer.

110th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting

November 13-18, 2012 
San Francisco, California

Schedule of Events

Download the pdf: SVA-related events program

2012 Visual Research Conference

Download the program as a pdf: 2012-visual-research-conference-program

Download the Abstracts as a pdf: visualresearchconference2012abstracts

2012 Film and Media Festival

Download the pdf: 2012 SVA Film and Media Festival Program

Download the pdf: 2012 SVA Film and Media Festival Program

Innovent at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA. Saturday, Nov. 17, 11:00am to 1:00pm

A digital story is a short, first person video-narrative created by combining recorded voice, still and moving images, and music or other sounds in a digital media product. Since 1998 the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, has been giving digital storytelling methods workshops aimed at helping K-12 teachers integrate the use of digital storytelling assignments into their classes. In large part due to the tireless efforts of the Center, and aided by a growing belief that such projects are better suited than traditional paper assignments for developing active learning styles needed for participation in the information age, digital storytelling projects are being increasingly assigned at K-12 education institutions throughout the U.S. More recently, such assignments have been finding their way onto syllabi of courses given at the country’s colleges and universities, where digital storytelling is increasingly being seen as a useful tool for the facilitation of engaged learning. Taking advantage of the Center for Digital Storytelling’s proximity to the site of the 2012 Annual Meeting, this Innovent will provide an opportunity to get acquainted with a media form and process that is rife with potential for anthropological pedagogy and practice. Innovent attendees will gather at the Dance Mission Theater, near the 24th St. Bart Station, where the Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling, Joe Lambert, will provide an introduction to digital storytelling before leading the group on a 45-minute photo walk and story session through the murals of the Mission District. The tour will end up at Galeria de la Raza or Brava Theater at the other end of 24^th, where Joe will facilitate a 1-hour session of making a short movie in a hurry (doing a short writing prompt, a brief story circle, and then a five photo edit with attendees own iPhone [or other ios device] or 2012 Android Phone or Tablet). Not everyone would have to participation in the project making process, but could benefit from following along. This event is a fantastic opportunity to get out and get acquainted with the unique environs of the 2012 Annual Meeting location while learning practical skills that can be utilized in anthropology teaching and research practice. Participation in the Innovent costs $50 per person.

To sign up for this event go to the American Anthropological Association’s registration page at https://avectra.aaanet.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=AAAWeb&WebKey=ced2aab5-ccd7-4f28-bd95-01edee542f5eand click on “Add Workshops/Events” in the left-hand column to log in.

Any questions about this Innovent should be e-mailed to Aaron Thornburg ataaron.thornburg@duke.edu.

We seek submissions for Artless Photographs, an exhibition to be held during October 2012 in Cincinnati as part of the Fotofocus Biennial (http://www.fotofocuscincinnati.org/).

Artless Photographs examines documentary photographs taken in a range of institutional contexts that record exacting details about individual bodies and identities while also generating diagnostic and predictive typologies. Taking the viewer from events as distinct as model castings in New York’s fashion industry to exhumations in post-conflict Spain, the show compels viewers to think critically about the power and utter mundanity of photography and the practices that produce them. Arguing that these seemingly “artless photographs” are anything but straight-forward representations, the exhibition explores how the standardization and routinization of these images’ production simultaneously de-emphasizes the role of the photographer while also elevating the expertise required to interpret and read the small details and auratic potential of these images. Exhibiting these collections alongside audio, visual, and textual documentation of the processes of their production, the show will juxtapose what appears to be the placelessness of these images with their embedded institutional ecologies to explore the multiple temporalities and mediations of identity.

We are looking for research-based submissions of both “artless photographs” and documentation of their production processes.  This may include ethnographic vignettes, audio or video recordings, and/or photographs.

We are particularly interested in medical and scientific imaging (CT scans, MRI, histology, x-rays, forensic photography), government and institutional identification imaging (driver’s licenses, passport photos, criminal booking photographs, biometric measurements), and commercial and media images (stock photography, photojournalism), but are open to submissions beyond these areas, as well.

The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2012.

Each submission should include a pdf cover sheet with the following information:

1)     The author/artist/anthropologist’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact information;

2)     A brief 250-word statement explaining the collected materials and their relationship to the show;

3)     An annotated list of submission materials (photographs, audio files, vignettes, video, etc.) including file names and sizes and whether the submission is exhaustive or representative of a larger body of work;

4)     A statement affirming that the author/artist/anthropologist has the right to exhibit the included work.

All video footage, audio recordings, photographic images, and ethnographic vignettes should be submitted as files or links (dropbox) with this cover sheet via email to artless.fotofocus@gmail.com. If your materials do not fit into a single email, please send them via dropbox and include the corresponding link to the public file.  Please note that at this initial stage of the process, we do not need high-resolution images. 

Please contact the show curators, Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, sadreose@ucmail.uc.edu, or Lee Douglas, lee.douglas@nyu.edu, with questions or for more information.

Ethnographic Terminalia seeks submissions for Audible Observatories, an exhibition to be held in San Francisco in November 2012. Artist-researchers, collaborators, anthropologists and other artistically inclined scholars are encouraged to submit their proposals prior to July 15, 2012.

Audible Observatories makes a playful connection between research-based art and place-bound exhibition in order to animate a curatorial vision that foregrounds audio-centric works within a broader rubric of site-specificity. We conceptualize the audible observatory as either a mobile or a stationary site of perception that is sensible to others just as it is a place from which sensing the world happens. Audible observatories are points of sensory convergence. They are nodes where worlds perceived through the senses intersect and begin the labour of transforming independent events into knowable and meaningful claims. They speak and they are spoken to.

Audible Observatories will be a distributed public event in San Francisco with an amalgam of location specific points and zones of exhibition. We are looking for research-based audio focused works to exhibit. These might include digital media, image, and sound files, websites and other interactive media, video works where audio figures prominently. Sculptural and other works will also be considered. In some cases we may be able to support installation. As in past shows, we will work with our exhibitors (if necessary) to develop installations and short statements about their work which point to larger interpretive frameworks.

This project ties in with and is supported by the meetings of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Visual Anthropology. A round table discussion featuring Steve Feld, John Wynne, Angus Carlyle, and Rupert Cox has been organized and will be taking place during the course of this event. We also expect to be exhibiting work by these artists.

Ethnographic Terminalia is an initiative designed to celebrate borders without necessarily exalting them. Now in its fourth year of exhibition, it is meant to be a playful engagement with reflexivity and positionality; it seeks to ask what lies beyond and what lies within disciplinary territories. Ethnographic Terminalia is an exploration of what means to exhibit anthropology - particularly in some of its less traditional forms - in proximity to and conversation with contemporary art practices.

Go to the Call for Submissions Form

The terminus is the end, the boundary, and the border.
It is also a beginning, its own place, a site of experience and encounter.

Contact: ethnographicterminalia@gmail.com
http://www.ethnographicterminalia.org

Urban photography summer school 2012
goldsmiths, university of london

Designed for photographers, artists and urbanists whose work addresses notions of urban space and culture the international Summer School provides a highly intensive two week practical and theoretical training in key aspects of urban visual practice. The course aims to offer participants a wide range of relevant skills resulting in the production of a photography portfolio drawn from London’s urban environments combined with a collective final exhibition.

The programme has been developed in collaboration with Urban Encounters and the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR). The course will be taught by tutors from Goldsmith’s Sociology Department and the international MA in Photography and Urban Cultures. The programme draws on the advanced theoretical, research and practical image-making specialisms of key practitioners in the field. Summer School tutors include: Paul Halliday (MA in Photography and Urban Cultures Convener), Beatriz Véliz Argueta (Coordinator/Goldsmiths), Les Back (Goldsmiths), Caroline Knowles (CUCR Director), Mandy Lee Jandrell (Goldsmiths), Peter Coles (Oxford/ Goldsmiths), Alex Rhys-Taylor (Goldsmiths), Manuel Vazquez (Goldsmiths), Michael Wayne Plant (Goldsmiths), Laura Cuch (Goldsmiths) and Jasmine Cheng (Goldsmiths).

The programme will explore how the practice of urban image making informs the development of a reflexive and critical research perspective and will include assignments and guided fieldtrips focusing on (1) urban landscape, (2) street photography and (3) material objects.

Application deadline: June 3rd, 2011
For more information: www.gold.ac.uk/cucr/summer%20school/

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography

2008 Winner

The John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography is awarded periodically to an author or photographer whose publication, exhibit, website, or other multimedia production exemplifies the use of still photographs (both historical and contemporary) for research and communication of anthropological knowledge.  The submission must have a strong visual research perspective along with being good documentary photography. The project must be nominated by a SVA member and include the consent of the person nominated.  A letter of nomination and the supporting material (including name, book title or exhibit, website or multimedia production, publisher, author’s mailing address, phone and email) should accompany two copies of the creative work and be sent to the Committee Chairperson. The SVA board appointed committee of three then reviews the submitted works to decide on its merits.  Winners are announced during the SVA/AAA meetings and presented with a John Collier Jr. or Mary Collier print, courtesy of the Collier Family Collection. Submissions for 2012 should be mailed to:  The Collier Committee c/o Andrea Heckman Chairperson, P. O. Box 714, Taos Ski Valley, NM 87525.

Deadlines for Submission and Award Notification:

May 1^st deadline for receipt of nomination and book submission to SVA

July 31 committee decision will be submitted to SVA President and Secretary

August 10th award information submitted to AAA program committee

The Collier Award is sponsored by the SVA Board of Directors in honor of the life and work of John Collier Jr. (1913-1992). Although suffering hearing loss and cognitive impairments early in life John Collier’s visual genius was enhanced by his early association with the well-known painter, Maynard Dixon and his wife Dorothea Lange. Other important influences were the artist Nicolai Fechin, the photographer Paul Strand, and the elders and compatriots in the American Indian communities of his youth. He worked as photographer for Roy E. Stryker in the FSA (Farm Security Administration) and the OWI (Office of War Information) during the early 1940s, with later professional photographic work in the Canadian Arctic, South American, and the United States.

His first formal visual anthropological work (1946) was in Otavalo, Ecuador with the Ecuadorian anthropologist Aníbal Buitrón. This was followed with work in Nova Scotia and the American Southwest with Alexander Leighton, and a major visual ethnography (1954-55) of Vicos, Peru, with Mary E.T. Collier. Subsequent work in New Mexico, Alaska, Arizona, and California included close attention to issues of cross cultural education and schooling. In 1967, he authored the acclaimed book, Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, second edition with Malcolm Collier (University of New Mexico Press, 1986). Collier was a founding member of both the Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) and the Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE) and a long time supporter of SVA.

Past winners

2003 The Ones Who Are Wanted: the Politics of Representation in a Photographic Exhibition by Corinne Kratz.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

2003 Changing Works: Visions of a Lost Agriculture by Douglas Harper. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

2006 Woven Stories: Andean Textiles and Rituals by Andrea Heckman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.

2008 A Danish Photographer of Idaho Images: Benedicte Wrensted by Joanna Cohan Scherer.  Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.