Week 8 Readings - Kayla

Larissa Hjorth & Kristen Sharp: “The art of ethnography: the aesthetics or ethics of participation?” 

Quotes: 

“What becomes evident in this argument is the need to rethink place as not just geographic but its relationship to multiple forms of presence.“ (p. 3) 

“Here we need to acknowledge that intimacy and presence have always involved forms of mediation – if not by memory, then language and gestures. And it is at the site of interrogating multiple modes of presence and the overlays of place that art ethnographies are most successful: moving beyond a mere aestheticisation and becoming an embodied part of creative, social practice.” (p. 3) 

“If space is rather a simultaneity of stories-so-far, then places are collections of those stories, articulations within the wider power-geometries of space. Their character will be a product of these intersections within that wider setting, and of what is made of them. . . And, too, of the non-meetings-up, the disconnections and the relations not established, the exclusions. All this contributes to the specificity of place. (Massey 2005, 130)“

“Rather, while it mirrors and amplifies some of the offline subjectivities, it is also a co-present place with its own localised geographies and socialities that need to be attended to. There is significant potential here to harness the influence of social media in constructing intimate engagements with art and the performativity of the political and engaging with audiences beyond physically locative practices of such face to face structures.” (p. 6)

“The works were largely seen as conversations in process, unfolding discussions, opening portals for public discourse online and offline. The ‘public’ here is not some generalised amorphous mass but rather local residents and passing consumers…As with many socially engaged, participatory or ‘relational’ artworks the emphasis is not on art as a centralised fixed object but rather as a structure through which dialogue is encouraged…This type of open structure encouraged participants – artists and others – to apply their own cultural lenses to identities of place.” (p. 7) 

Questions:

What is your understanding of ethnography? Do you apply this understanding of ethnographic research inform your own practice? 

If we subscribe to the idea of “artist as the ethnographer”, how are we maintaining responsiblilty to the ethical issues and problematic habits implicit in the histories of these research methods?

Does the field of social practice, where it stands currently, resemble or use ethnographic approaches? If so, how? 

Posting now so I don't forget on Sunday. See you all next week!  -Kayla