Birthing a New Vision: Artist as Ethnographer and Applied Anthropology as Creative Practice
Stories of the maternal and child health crisis in the American South sit at the intersection of racial equity, economic justice, and public health, becoming a responsibility for us all. This collaboration led by Kyrin Hobson (MFA Candidate, Department of Visual Art) and Tanzima Chowdhury (MA student, Computational Social Science) seeks to explore the compound nature of birthing and healing, trace midwifery spatially and temporally, gather narratives of embodied lived experiences, and conceptualize analog and digital data as it enquires: How can traditional data points like infant-mother deaths, maternal morbidity, and reproductive access be augmented meaningfully? In what ways can individual and collective memory be valued and represented as data? How can data be captured across varied forms to create open-ended, thought-provoking personal explorations to positively impact the sociocultural landscape? Can activating senses beyond the visual lead to a more robust individual and by extension, systemic relationship to data and what it may divulge? The intended outcome of the project is an immersive, multi-sensory contemplation space that draws from the realms of technology, social sciences, art, and embodied experiences, welcoming participants to be curious and to care.
Faculty advisors: Jessica Stockholder (Professor, Department of Visual Arts); Jon Clindaniel (Assistant Instructional Professor, Computational Social Science)
3 авг 2022
