The Portrait as/in Ethnography: Work in Progress Screening and Discussion of These Days, These Homes

Jenny Chio is a cultural anthropologist and filmmaker at the University of Southern California.

Learn more about Professor Chio at http://www.jennychio.com/

Abstract:

What are the ethnographic and filmic possibilities of the portrait?

These Days, These Homes is a work in progress film project centered on the lives and homes of two rural Miao women in 21^st century China. As an ethnography, the work behind the film explores domesticity, gender, and development. As a film, the praxis of documentation, conversation, and composition attempts to harness the potential of the portrait as a mode of critical knowledge-making that recognizes the incompleteness of all representational forms as well as the foundational relationships (and obligations) structuring all ethnographic encounters. 

These Days, These Homes preview: https://vimeo.com/jennychio/tdthpreview

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Performing & Media Arts; The Department of Asian Studies; the Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies; and East Asia Program. Thank you!