ETHNOGRAPHIC TERMINALIA
No longer content to theorize the ends of the discipline and possibilities of new media, new locations, or new methods of asking old questions, Ethnographic Terminalia is working in capacity to develop generative ethnographies that do not subordinate the sensorium to the expository and theoretical text or monograph.
Ethnographic Terminalia is an initiative designed to celebrate borders without necessarily exalting them. Now in its fifth 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 it might mean to exhibit anthropology – particularly in some of its less traditional forms – in proximity to and conversation with contemporary art practices.
As a collective of international artists and ethnographers, we have curated exhibitions in Philadelphia (2009), New Orleans (2010), Montreal (2011), San Francisco (2012), Chicago (2013), Washington DC (2014), and Denver (forthcoming, 2015) as para-sites to the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. We presented an installation in collaboration with the Margaret Mead Film Festival (2013) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and with Vancouver’s grunt gallery for the International Symposium on Electronic Art (2015). Ethnographic Terminalia is a platform for the articulation of divergent modes of inquiry.
The terminus is the end, the boundary, and the border.
It is also a beginning, its own place, a site of experience and encounter.
Curatorial Collective:
Craig Campbell, University of Texas at Austin (Austin, USA)
Kate Hennessy, School of Interactive Arts + Technology (SIAT), SFU (Vancouver, Canada)
Fiona P. McDonald, University College London (London, England)
Trudi Lynn Smith, York University (Toronto, Canada)
Stephanie Takaragawa, Chapman University (Orange, USA)
Related Publications:
Stoller, Paul.
2015. The Bureau of Memories: Archives and Ephemera. Fieldsights – Visual and New Media Review, Cultural Anthropology Online, March 20, 2015, http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/647-the-bureau-of-memories-archives-and-ephemera
Campbell, C., Hennessy, K., McDonald, F.P., Smith, T., Takaragawa, S., and Miller, T.R.
2015. Ethnographic Terminalia––After the Bureau of Memories: Reflections at the Intersections of Archives, Art, and Anthropology. Adami, E. and Ferrini, A. Eds. Mnemoscape Vol. 2 [link]
Scott, Monique.
2014. Exhibition Review Essay. “White Walls, ‘Black City’: Reflections on ‘Exhibition as Residency—Art, Anthropology, Collaboration’.” Visual Anthropology Review 30(2):190-198. [link]
Hazen, Jacqueline.
2014. Review of the 37th Annual Margaret Mead Film Festival, Oct. 17-20, 2013. Visual Anthropology Review 30(1): 92-95. [Download PDF]
Snyder, Rob.
2013. Exhibition Review. ART-THROPOLOGY: Ethnographic Terminalia at the Washington Park Arts Incubator.Southside Weekly. [LINK]
Campbell, Craig, Kate Hennessy, Fiona P. McDonald, Trudi Smith, Stephanie Takaragawa.
2013. Thinking Through Collaboration. Anthropology Now (special online series on collaboration). [LINK]
Butler, Shelley R.
2013 Exhibition Review Essay. Ethnographic Terminalia: Field, Studio, Lab. Museum and Curatorial Studies Review1(1):116-124.[Download PDF]
Errington, Shelly
2012 Exhibition Review Essay. Ethnographic Terminalia: 2009–10-11. American Anthropologist. vol.114, no.3: 538-542. [Download a pdf version of this review]
Schoemaker Holmes, Jacqueline
2011 Visual ethnography at the intersection of art and science. Council of Canadian Academies.[Download a pdf version]
Brodine, Maria, Craig Campbell, Kate Hennessy, Fiona P. McDonald, Trudi Lynn Smith, Stephanie Takaragawa.
2011 Ethnographic Terminalia: An Introduction. Visual Anthropology Review 27(1):49-51.
Campbell, Craig
2011 Terminus: Ethnographic Terminalia. Visual Anthropology Review 27(1):52-56.
Hennessy, Kate, Fiona P. McDonald, Trudi Lynn Smith, Stephanie Takaragawa.
2011 Ethnographic Terminalia 2010: New Orleans—27 Works. Visual Anthropology Review27(1):57-74.
Brodine, Maria T.
2011 Struggling to Recover New Orleans: Creativity in the Gaps and Margins. Visual Anthropology Review 27(1):78-93.
Miller, Thomas Ross
2011 Ethnographic Termini: Of Moments and Metaphors. Visual Anthropology Review 27(1):75-77.
Boyer, Dominic
2011 A Gallery of Prototypes: Ethnographic Terminalia 2010, Curated by Craig Campbell, Fiona P. McDonald, Maria Brodine, Kate Hennessy, Trudi Lynn Smith, Stephanie Takaragawa. Visual Anthropology Review 27(1):94-96.
Gomoll, Lucien
2010 Ethnographic Terminalia review. Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 26, Issue 1, pp. 32–35.
