Where Are We Now? Visual and Multimodal Anthropology
RAI FILM Online Conference, 1 – 4 July 2025
Join us to explore the critical role of visual and multimodal anthropology in addressing contemporary global issues.
We want to redouble our efforts to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by learning more about how anthropologists are using these methods to respond to challenges of our times, such as inequality, environmental protection, poverty, climate change, war, and justice. We offer an inclusive forum to explore creative and innovative approaches, discuss collaborative and participatory methods and tackle practical problems.
This virtual conference sits alongside the RAI FILM Festival 40th Anniversary Edition, which took place in Bristol from 11 to 15 June 2025, and is now running online from 16 June to 16 July 2025. Booking a place in the conference grants full access to the online film festival, which features over 80 films available worldwide (with a few exceptions depending on your location).
CONFERENCE OPENING KEYNOTE | 1 July, 2.30pm UK time
Revisiting the Past, Documenting the Present, Impacting the Future: Utilising Visual and Multimodal Anthropology to Capture the Stories of a Rapidly Changing World
By Dr Kirk French, chaired by Hugh Brody
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 prioritise 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.
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. His latest film A Century After Nanook (2025, 89min) is available to stream as part of the online film festival programme here.
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CONFERENCE CLOSING KEYNOTE | 4 July, 4.00pm UK time
Visual/Multimodal Anthropology for Trusted Futures
Prof Sarah Pink, chaired by Dr Judith Aston
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.
Sarah Pink 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.
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To view panels and general information about the conference, please visit its main page here.