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 21st 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!