Paper short abstract:

Over the past 4 years I have developed several public anthropology projects connecting over 150 academics and artists, curating two digital platforms, an itinerant exhibition and a conference. I reflect on the challenges and unmet expectations faced, but also look at some of the unexpected results.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past 4 years I have developed several public anthropology projects. Central to them are two digital platforms, bringing together anthropology and art: https://antropedia.com/sfertulacademic/, https://theanthro.art/. They host 140 articles by more than 90 researchers, with editorial illustrations by over 55 artists and audio versions/podcasts recorded by actors – amounting to over 30 hours of audio content. Illustrations were included in an itinerant exhibition launched in 2023 in one of the largest central libraries in Bucharest (Cărturești) that will continue in 2024 to 7 other locations in Romania and abroad. I also organised a public anthropology conference aiming for a TED Talk format - https://antropedia.com/toolkit/program-conferinta/ - having the honour of a recorded keynote from Thomas Eriksen.

The questions put forward by this panel have been integral to my journey while developing these projects and I will share some of my conclusions. I look back at the work I did mediating between anthropologists and artists in curating the two digital platforms drawing on over 10.000 emails we exchanged. Despite all these efforts of translating anthropology for a wider audience and communicating it in novel ways, our public still seems elusive. I thus reflect on the challenges and unmet expectations faced, but also look at some of the unexpected results. Translating anthropology for a wider audience is just the first step. Making it visible and heard in a fast-paced world overloaded with ”content” - seems to be an (almost entirely) different endeavour. And getting funding for all this, is yet another story.