Creative Studio for Ethnographers

Catalog description

This intensive practice-based workshop is a semester-long creative studio for students seeking to bring an existing experimental ethnography project to fruition, both in terms of production quality and theoretical engagement. Here, “experimental” implies an engagement with a creative process whose outcomes are unknown and unpredictable, while “ethnography” suggests a project that engages a shared social world or community. Rather than limit ourselves to one creative medium or theory base, this class will be shaped in conversation with students' specific interests, and is open to those exploring a variety of media forms. Students are expected to enter the class with a rough draft of an experimental ethnographic project (a collection of photographs, illustrations, video clips, a sound piece, a creative story, a short film, etc…). Over the course of the semester, this draft will be continuously honed and re-iterated through community conversation. In the introductory portion of the course, we will draw on pedagogical methods developed in art studio settings as we learn about one another’s projects, build a shared language for understanding and responding to each other's work. The second phase and bulk of the course will involve a rotating schedule of presentations and response sessions, when students will present a new iteration of their in-process work and the class will respond substantively, rigorously, and thoroughly using the shared language developed at the beginning of the course. Instructors will prepare weekly class ethnographic readings/screenings that draw from the presenting students theoretical/methodological engagements, and provoke stimulating discussion. Over the course of the semester, students will present four increasingly-honed iterations of their project, culminating in a showcase/exhibit at the end of the course (which may be private or public,…