What can anthropologists learn from documentary film-art practices ‘made in India’?
Tuesday 20 March at 6pm
Dr Giulia Battaglia, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3
This talk will be a reflection about the theoretico-methodological approach of the discipline of social and cultural anthropology and that of filmmaking and art creation with reference to the Indian subcontinent. It will start from the screening of clips of Ruchir Joshi’s Eleven Miles (1991) – which was shot in 16mm between 1988 and 1990 within the Baul community of West-Bengal, released by channel 4 in 1991 and recently restored by Arsenal Kino in Berlin to begin a new life. The talk will then move to a discussion about the practice of anthropology as conceived by the presenter in her recently published book, Documentary Film in India: an anthropological history (Routledge 2018) and advance towards parallelisms between contemporary art, visual practices, filmmaking and anthropology.
I shall conceptualise ‘Anthropology’ as also an art practice, interested, through its theoretico-methodological approach, in creating an open archive of engagement rather than a representation of a distant ‘other’. Similarly, documentary filmmaking in India is seen as primarily a process of creation based on engagement and participation rather than a practice interested in representing an objective reality.
This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to https://battaglia.eventbrite.co.uk
Location : Royal Anthropological Institute
50 Fitzroy Street
London
W1T 5BT
United Kingdom
http://www.therai.org.uk
