Sensory Ethnography Lab
Founded by Lucien Castaing-Taylor in 2006, Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab promotes innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, especially in film, video, sound, and photography. The Sensory Ethnography Lab has been honored with retrospectives around the globe, including as part of the 2014 Whitney Biennial in New York, and has produced some of the most acclaimed and groundbreaking documentaries in recent years.

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SONGHUA
SONGHUA

Sensory Ethnography Lab  Labor Studies  Environmental Studies  Asian Studies  Anthropology  2014 

In northeastern China, the Songhua River has for generations served as a vital center – for leisure, commerce, and most importantly, drinking water – for the people of Harbin. Filmed only one year after a major chemical spill in its waters, Songhua depicts the enduring and complex relationship between the city’s residents and their "mother river," and considers the environmental implications of the waterway’s condition.

DEMOLITION / CHAIQIAN (拆 - 迁)
DEMOLITION / CHAIQIAN (拆 - 迁)

Sensory Ethnography Lab  Asian Studies  2014  Sociology  Urban Studies  Labor Studies 

Focusing on a vast demolition site in the center of Chengdu, the Sichuan capital in western China, a bustling site emblematic of the rapid growth and development occurring throughout the country, J.P. Sniadecki’s Demolition is a wonderfully patient and revealing portrait of the migrant laborers who work and live in its shadow.

TERRACE OF THE SEA
TERRACE OF THE SEA

Sensory Ethnography Lab  Photography  Middle Eastern Studies  Anthropology  2014  Art History  Directed by Women 

Filmed in an unofficial Palestinian Bedouin camp that was established in 1948 on a stretch of beach in South Lebanon, Terrace of the Sea uses a collection of family photographs taken over three generations as a prism through which to reflect on memory, loss and history.

STILL LIFE
STILL LIFE

Sensory Ethnography Lab  2014  Anthropology  Photography  Aging / Gerontology  Middle Eastern Studies  Art History  Directed by Women 

"The Arab governments pushed us out of our homes… I was twelve years old… I’ve been here for 60 years." A beautiful, poignant, documentary, Still Life examines the effect a collection of personal photos showing life in Palestine before the 1948 displacement have on an elderly Palestinian fisherman living in exile in Lebanon.

MANAKAMANA
MANAKAMANA

Asian Studies  Cinema Studies  Anthropology  Cultural Studies  2014  Sensory Ethnography Lab  Directed by Women 

Produced by the directors of Sweetgrass and Leviathan, Manakamana is an exhilarating, one-of-a-kind documentary experience. Filmed entirely inside the narrow confines of a cable car, high above a jungle in Nepal, that transports villagers to an ancient mountaintop temple, it is an acute ethnographic investigation into culture, religion, technology and modernity.

YUMEN
YUMEN

Asian Studies  Anthropology  Performing Arts  Cinema Studies  2014  Sensory Ethnography Lab 

A collaboration between two Chinese artists, Xu Ruotao and Huang Xiang, and acclaimed American filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki, Yumen is a documentary-fiction hybrid that tells the story of a ghost town, a once-thriving oil-rich community in China's western Gansu province, through a series of wandering characters and inventive vignettes. Produced with the support of SEL

PEOPLE'S PARK
PEOPLE'S PARK

Anthropology  Asian Studies  Cinema Studies  Cultural Studies  2014  Sensory Ethnography Lab  Directed by Women 

Produced at Harvard's groundbreaking Sensory Ethnography Lab (Sweetgrass, Leviathan, the upcoming Manakamana), People's Park is an exhilarating single shot documentary that immerses viewers in an unbroken journey through an urban park in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, offering a fresh gaze on public interaction, leisure and self-expression in China.

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