The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

is an interdisciplinary center for the making of anthropologically informed works of media that combine aesthetics and

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

. Production courses associated with the SEL are offered through Anthropology, Visual and Environmental Studies, and the

Graduate School of Design Graduate may refer to: Education * The subject of a graduation, i.e. someone awarded an academic degree ** Alumni, a former student who has either attended or graduated from an institution * High school graduate, someone who has completed high ...

Background

Established as a collaboration between Harvard’s departments of Anthropology and of Visual and Environmental Studies in 2006, the SEL provides technical facilities and support for Harvard's PhD in Media Anthropology, set up in 2007 as part of the graduate program in Social Anthropology. It has been praised as an "innovative initiative" at Harvard to integrate art-making within the cognitive life of the university, and was proposed as a model for future endeavors in the graduate curriculum by the Presidential Task Force on the Arts' Report in 2008. The SEL is directed by

Lucien Castaing-Taylor Lucien Giles Castaing-Taylor (born 10 January 1966, Liverpool, United Kingdom) is a British anthropologist and artist who works in film, video, and photography. Biography Castaing-Taylor received his B.A. at Cambridge University and his PhD at t ...

, ethnographic filmmaker o
''In and Out of Africa''
and '' Sweetgrass''. In the year-long core class, "Sensory Ethnography," students receive instruction in ethnographic media practices, and create a substantial work in video, still photography, hypermedia, or sound. Advanced graduate students are also provided with training and equipment to produce media ethnographies in conjunction with their written doctoral dissertations. One example includes students working alongside Ernst Karel and visual artist

Sharon Lockhart Sharon Lockhart (born 1964) is an American artist whose work considers social subjects primarily through motion film and still photography, often engaging with communities to create work as part of long-term projects. She received her BFA from th ...

to produce "Sound Safari", a collaborative phonography project, in Bath, Maine.Sert Practitioner Report http://www.ves.fas.harvard.edu/sertP.html

Projects

Affiliates

* Silva, Jeff (Daniel). Ivan & Ivana *Barbash, Ilisa and Castaing-Taylor, Lucien. Sweetgrass *Karel, Ernst
Heard Laboratories
*Lockhart, Sharon
Lunch Break

Students

(

Aryo Danusiri Aryo Danusiri (born 26 September 1973) is an Indonesian film director. He started his first documentary, '' Village Goat Takes The Beating'', about Aceh human rights violations, in 1999. This documentary was an official selection at the 2001 Amne ...

)
Chaiqian (Demolition)
( J.P. Sniadecki)
As Long As There's Breath
(Stephanie Spray)

References

{{Reflist

External links

Sensory Ethnography Lab website

The Film Study Center at Harvard University
Anthropology Harvard University