TEACHING

Lidia Rossner is a lecturer at the M.A. Program in Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie University in Berlin, Germany, where she has developed the curricula for one course and two workshops. In her teaching approach she emphasizes discourse, process, collaborations, and inclusiveness through participatory strategies. Her academic focus is on exhibition as a medium and visual culture as manifestation of social processes. Lidia has developed and led inter-institutional projects between the university, the Ethnological Museum, the Museum of Asian Art, and the Berlin Biennale in Berlin, Germany.

 
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Artistic Practice in Transcultural Context

The lecture based semester course ‘Artistic Practice in Transcultural Context’ is offered to third semester students and is based on my research and visual work produced since 2007 in the field of contemporary art. The course explores the converging zone between art and anthropology through analysis of research-based art practices situated in trans-cultural contexts. Specifically, the intersections, correspondences and conflicts between art practices and visual and media anthropology. potential of representational strategies that originate in artistic experimentation It includes an introduction to the theories, historical perspectives and an overview of the current discourse on art and anthropology, from the perspectives of both art theory and anthropology. Key themes addressed in the course include visual literacy; language as visual art; the communicative role of ‘objects’ as representatives; social engagement and political activism. By critically assessing how artists respond to, adapt and negotiate trans-culturality, the aim of the course is to open up possibilities for analytical exploration of the arts as a social and professional resource, as well as the possibility for interdisciplinary collaborations.

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DIALOGUES between Art and Anthropology

‘DIALOGUES between Art and Anthropology’, was a workshop in co-operation with the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and was offered to 2nd and 3rd semester students. The students created videos portraying artists and their projects at the 8th Berlin Biennale. The workshop addressed issues of art mediation, autonomy of artworks, and contextualization. The curator of the Biennale used the Ethnological museum in Berlin as an exhibition venue. For the visual and media anthropology students, the appearance of contemporary art in an ethnological museum instigated discussions on the function of objects and images as representatives of cultures and ideas. The scope of inquiry extended to examining relationships such as observer-observed; subject-object and image literacy in a trans-cultural setting. The projects were published on the 8th Berlin Biennale’s website and were presented with Q&A at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.

 

student films

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Re-Imagining the Museum

‘Re-IMAGINING the MUSEUM’, in co-operation with Humboldt Lab Dahlem, aimed to critically examine the function of the ethnographic museum in contemporary society. As a depository of representational objects implicated in complex historical narratives, can the museum be a space for intercultural exchange where the politics of representation and the exhibition models are re-negotiated? The starting point for the workshop was the Ethnological Museum and the Asian Art Museum in Dahlem, Berlin, specifically the Probebühne projects. Organized by the Humboldt Lab Dahlem, the project’s task was to re-think the museum in preparation for the move to the Humboldt Forum in the center of Berlin in 2019. The students realized audio-visual projects based on research of a chosen aspect of the museums’ exhibition, as well as interviews with curators and artists. The projects were published on the Humboldt Lab Dahlem blog and were presented under the title ‘Dahlem Stories’ with Q&A in the Ethnological Museum, along with a publication.

 

student films publication