2016 Workshop Call for Photo-Essayists

20150815_EthnographicTerminaliaWorkshop_RM_315

From our 2015 Workshop “Terminus: Archives, Ephemera, and Electronic Art” at ISEA, Vancouver B.C. Photo by Reese Muntean.

Workshop Registration (General Participation):

A maximum of 30 workshop participants are invited to participate on a first-come-first-served basis. This workshop is open to anyone (faculty, students, community members) interested in participating in a sustained discussion  of the photo-essay in anthropology and its creative representation in the form of a zine. Workshop participants are not required to prepare anything in advance. However we have designed this workshop as a kind of goal-oriented collaborative conversation, so we strongly encourage workshop participants to bring photo-essay works in progress in the form of printed photographs to work with and actively reflect on throughout the day.

You will be asked to register for the AAA workshop through the AAA online system [see instructions here]. The workshop will be open for registration in the near future (to be announced).   Workshop participants are asked (but not required) to do some preparation in advance of the workshop:

  • Follow the pre-workshop conversation on our social media channels to share references and inspirations that we can take up in the workshop
  • Print and bring up to five photographs from your own work (that you have the right to publish)
  • Be prepared to actively and creatively contribute to the production of the zine

Please direct questions to ethnographicterminalia@gmail.com

Call for Photo-essayists [now closed]:

The Ethnographic Terminalia Collective seeks proposals from artists, photographers, and anthropologists working with the photo-essay for fifteen minute presentations on their work and publication in a workshop zine (an open-access and limited print-edition workshop publication) in our 2016 AAA Workshop “The Photo-Essay is Dead! Long Live the Photo-Essay!”. We seek creative, critical interventions and presentations of the photo-essay. How might your photo-essay represent a prototype for visual anthropology futures?

Proposal Requirements:

We encourage a creative and critical presentation of the photo essay and any text, so please think outside of the frame, so to speak. Please only propose a photo-essay for consideration if you are able to attend in person and participate in the full workshop.

Your submission should include:

  • A short introduction to the work and title of the photo-essay (max. 500 words)
  • A sample of the proposed work in a PDF document
  • A biographical statement and short CV or website link


Selected presenters
must prepare their photo essay presentations six weeks in advance of the workshop (October 1, 2016) in a format that anticipates inclusion in the hand-made zine documenting the event. File specifications for advance page spreads will be determined in collaboration with the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective.

Please send proposals to ethnographicterminalia@gmail.com by August 15, 2016.

*A limited amount of funding is available for invited presenters to offset expenses for participation. Please make sure to include a request for funds in your application if needed.

*If you would like to register for a place in the workshop as a participant, you must register through the AAA website (registration will be open soon and we will post the link here).