School of Visual Anthropology 5

An interdisciplinary, hands-on ethnographic filmmaking workshop; The participants, divided in small groups and assisted by mentors and professors, will go through a compressed and intensive process of ethnographic fieldwork, starting from developing the idea and the method, through filming and post-production. The results will be shown as works-in-progress on the final two days of the workshop.

Anthropologists and ethnographers who want to explore audiovisual language as a tool for both researching and presenting the results of their research to a broader audience. Filmmakers who want to embrace an anthropologically founded approach to their practice. Socially engaged scientists and artists of any discipline who want to discover visual anthropology as a way of observing, analyzing and bringing potential change to society. There are no age restrictions nor is any previous experience necessary.

Price: 1250 € (payable in installments)

This fee is all-inclusive and covers:

• Accommodation
• One warm meal per day
• All necessary filming and audio technology
• Round-trip transfer (Belgrade – Požarevac – Belgrade)

Dr. des. Thomas John is an anthropologist and filmmaker whose principal focus is visual and media anthropology. He likes to explore different strategies for the representation of social realities and human cultural experiences. He received his BA in social anthropology and comparative religious science from the University of Münster and an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin. He was a PhD student at the Latin American Institute (FU) and a member of the DFG-funded International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’. Movements, Actors and Representations of Globalisation’. In his doctoral research, he investigated the indigenous media and art scene in southern Mexico. Thomas has taught Visual Anthropology at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Münster) since summer term 2013. He has been a research associate at the Department (Nov. 2012-Aug. 2014) and in the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center SFB 1171 Affective Societies. Thomas co-designed the MA program ‘Visual Anthropology, Media and Documentary Practices’ with Prof. Helene Basu and the Universität Münster Professional School gGmbH. In 2013, he was co-curator of RE: Critical Dialogue on photography, film and the documentary arts. His film Darkmoon (2013) has been screened at about 15 festivals, such as DOCSDF, Ethnocineca, Salento International Independent Film Festival & more. It won the award for the best student film at the International Festival of Ethnographical Film (Belgrade).

Professor Dr. Slobodan Naumović is an Associate Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. His academic career and research are centered on the political anthropology of the Balkans, with a particular focus on nationalism, European integration, and the history of Serbian ethnology and anthropology. His work frequently explores the relationship between traditional culture and modernization, as well as the instrumentalization of tradition in contemporary political discourse. Professor Naumović is the author of the influential study Upotreba tradicije (The Use of Tradition, 2009) and has co-edited several volumes within the series Voices of the Neighbors: Selected Readings in Balkan Ethnology. In addition to his work in political anthropology, he is a key figure in the field of visual anthropology in the region. He has been instrumental in integrating visual methods into ethnographic research and has frequently served as a lecturer and mentor in international workshops and seminars dedicated to ethnographic film and visual storytelling. His broader research interests encompass the anthropology of transition and the study of the history and theory of Serbian and Balkan ethnology.

The School of Visual Anthropology is subdivided in three major parts: theory, field work and editing. Aside from the necessary knowledge and technology we provide homey accommodation and one warm meal per day. VAC successfully organized the School of Visual Anthropology workshop five years consecutively for chiefly Serbian participants; more than 100 people participated with the help of 30 lecturers and mentors. In 2018 we opened for the first time to international applicants and it was the best choice we'd ever made. Local scholars had a new impulse, foreigners saw a new environment - it was inspirational for all of us. The following years we managed to host even more participants with an even richer program. This year we are following the course of decentralization of the workshop we set on in 2025, bringing VA and international participants closer to local communities.

Apply for SVA 5