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Dr Kirk French

Biography
Kirk French is an award-winning professor of anthropology and Emmy-nominated filmmaker at Penn State. As an anthropological archaeologist his earlier research focused on ancient water management technologies and landuse practices in Mesoamerica.

Abstract
Visual preservation of a landscape was rarely the intention of early filmmakers. Yet many films provide opportunities to look back and see a drastically different world, both culturally and environmentally. Countless ethnographic films have been oriented towards providing information to the public about “other” cultural groups from the perspectives (and often imaginations) of the filmmakers rather than seeking information and perspectives from the subjects themselves. The result has been a long history of condescending, culturally-biased entertainments and educational programs that have created false and stereotypical understandings of Indigenous people in the public imagination. The objective of my research is to prioritize the viewpoints of stakeholder communities to facilitate co-produced films that remain in their authentic voice. In this talk I will discuss how my collaborative work relying on visual media from the past has led to fruitful conversations with community members about the monumental changes they are experiencing due mainly to climate change.

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Professor Sarah Pink

Biography
Sarah is a Futures and Design Anthropologist , documentary filmmaker and methodological innovator. She is currently Professor and Director of the Emerging Technologies Lab at Monash University, an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. Prior to this she was Distinguished Professor and Director of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre at RMIT University, Australia. and Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. UK.

Introduction
What would it be like to live in trusted futures, in circumstances, relations, materialities, elementalities and environments which feel right? How might visual and multimodal anthropology scholarship and practice participate? 

Imagine the discipline of anthropology being led by a vibrant, interdisciplinary and engaged visual and multimodal anthropological practice and scholarship; in, with and for trusted futures. A visual and multimodal anthropology which surpasses the constricts of conventional anthropologies of the future, to participate in the growing futures field through careful dialogue between practice, scholarship and engagement.

In this lecture I explore how we might mobilise visual and multimodal anthropology scholarship and practice to regenerate the discipline: to fully participate in, rather than being a secluded critic of, the interdisciplinary and multisectoral futures space; to work from the sites of possible everyday trusted futures as well as from those of present crisis; to and to participate in prefigurative thinking and practice towards trusted futures.