Context of KONTEKST

This is the project timeline page. If you want to read in depth about our values and mission, please see our FULL Manifesto.

We started off as a group of Anthropology & Visual Practice students on the 2nd year of our degrees at Goldsmiths, University of London. We shared a passion for storytelling and wanted to make powerful films.

Yet, anytime we would tell people what we studied, we would only generate confusion as nobody knew what “visual anthropology” was…

SEPTEMBER 2023

We came up with an idea to organise a film festival, show our student films, and this way show to the public what our discipline was about.

We teamed up with MA visual anthropology students and made a programme.

NOVEMBER 2023

We hosted our first film festival - “Visual Anthropology Films” at Avalon Cafe in SE London.

With over 120 people in attendance, we realised that there is potential in what we were setting up. We decided to keep expanding the project so it could benefit more people.

We wanted to make it possible for those who missed out on the film festival to still be able to see our work. We also wanted to create a resource for anyone interested in getting into filmmaking to get inspired and use it as a point of reference.

We set up a website - with an open-access online archive of films.

We saw forming a Collective as an organic continuation of this project - from early on our aim was to connect people through shared passions, support critically-minded storytellers in getting their messages forward and make real-life social change.

We could never achieve that mission working alone so we opened up our platform to anyone interested - not just anthropologists or students - as that would limit its potential.

Disillusioned with the contemporary creative landscape, we wanted to follow an alternative, anti-capitalist model of structuring our organisation, one that does not create a hierarchy and does not tokenise diversity. We hoped that what we create could one day serve as a blueprint for other similar initiatives.

We wrote a manifesto.

We hold weekly admin meetings for those keen to get involved regularly, as well open workshop sessions every couple of weeks, which everyone interested in this project is invited to join freely, meet us, have a say about what we do and decide whether they want to get more involved.

We also provide free resources to our collective’s members, organise group trips to interesting events, provide each other with feedback on our creative work, exchange skills and build a community.

We are always open to new members joining us.

So far we have had a few ideas how we could expand:

• Film Club - movie nights together;

• Feedback sessions - so that those who make creative work can get constructive advice from other people doing similar things and skill-share;

• More festivals? Featuring not only films but also art and sound installations, performance, movement, talks, panels and creative workshops;

• Workshops for members of our Collective - exchanging knowledge that we have with the rest of the group eg.: video editing, sound mixing, DJing, VJing and so on.

• Free resources - databases of inspiring and critical content of value to multisensory anthropology, that may include reading lists, watchlists, articles and texts written by Collective’s, & more…

and some long-term ideas for when we have funding:

• Redistributing £££ among those contributing to this project: offering paid creative gigs, paying artist fees, supporting Collective’s members;

• Establishing a production company that could sponsor your project, commission work to artists or make collaborative work as a Collective that could be then premiered at our events;

• Having a platform for promotion that could widely boost the reach of your work and increase your opportunities;

…and more?