Friday, August 03, 2012

The Body Canvas International Photo Competition


Body art and modification has been practised for thousands of years across the globe. People have cut, stretched, dyed and pierced their bodies for recognition, relationships, beauty and rites of passage.
The RAI is launching an international photo competition that seeks to find out more about body modification by exploring questions such as:
- Who is involved in body art and modification communities?
- Why do people permanently alter their bodies? 
- What are the symbols, meanings, and relationships attached to body alterations?
- Where do practitioners, artists, doctors congregate?
-What type of tourism has this diverse industry created?







THE BODY CANVAS
The Body Canvas photography contest forms part of the RAI’s Discover Anthropology Outreach Programme http://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk

The contest aims to:
• promote public engagement with the RAI’s Education Outreach Programme

• provide a platform for people to share their work and become actively involved in anthropology

• develop an understanding for the personal, social and political reasons why people undergo permanent body modification

• explore the many ways in which communities around the world develop and express relationships with their bodies

• explore the industry of body modification, the artists, doctors and craftsmen who practise their trade

The submissions we are looking for:

Engaging photographs that explore biological, cross-cultural and social elements of body art and modification in relation to these categories:

1) Tattoos and Scarification

2) Piercings and Body Reshaping

Below are themes that could be visualised under each category. They are meant to be illustrative and not restrictive. Applicants are encouraged to think creatively about how they can communicate these categories and relate their photographs to anthropological themes. Photographs can include aspects related to body modification such as media and advertising, rituals, material objects, technological advancements, forensics.


Category 1: Tattoos and Scarification

- the commercialisation and commodification of body art and modification

- the growing industry of tattoos (parlours, conventions, festivals, TV programmes, films)

- the relationship between tattoos/scarification and metamorphosis (self-development, discovery and growth as an individual)

- tattooing as a discipline where well-known professionals are respected for their craftsmanship

- the community of body modification artists and cross-pollination of ideas and practises

- tourism generated by the artists/trade and practitioners

- body modification as a means of expressing one’s spiritual/religious beliefs

- body modification and controversy, social exclusion or stigma

- body modification as a means of expressing group identity and reaffirming social ties and status

- tattooing as an addiction- adrenaline, pleasure, thrill and excitement

- body modification and exhibitionism

- body modification and rites of passage

- tattoos and forensic anthropology

- cultural interpretations of beauty and aesthetics

- tattoos and art

- tattoos carrying protective elements against disease, illness, evil spirits and possession


Category 2: Piercings and Body Reshaping

- pushing the body to its physical extremes, dealing with fear, emotion and pain

- body reshaping and perceptions of strength, beauty, and attractiveness

- body building, fitness and popular culture

- plastic surgery and perceptions of beauty, age and social status

- reconstructing the body after accidents, illness,

- body reshaping and the media

- body modification as a means of expressing group identity and reaffirming social ties and status


Who can participate:

The competition is free to enter and is open to anyone within the UK and abroad who is interested in anthropology, photography and the body. Both professional and amateur photographers are welcome.

Guidelines for submissions:

• All applicants must fill in the registration form which can be found on the following website: www.discoveranthropology.org.uk



**Participants must complete a separate form for each of their submissions**

• To be considered for the photo competition, each photograph must be accompanied by a title and text of 50-150 words to be included in the registration form.

• Participants can submit a maximum of four photographs to EACH of the categories: 1) Tattoos and Scarification 2) Piercings and Body Reshaping . Composite images can be entered as well

• Photographers may not submit the same image to more than one category

• Once a photograph has been submitted, it is final and may not be replaced by another photograph.

• Photographs need to be submitted in high resolution JPEG/ TIFF or PNG format and sized less than 10MB. Please send submissions to Nafisa Fera, the RAI Education and Communications Officer at education@therai.org.uk

• Submissions must be suitable for all audiences. We will not accept R-Rated photographs including adult themes, sexually-oriented nudity or genitalia.

• Submissions that infringe copyright agreements, are unethical or disrespectful of anyone will disqualify the photographer from the contest.

• The RAI is not responsible for any late, misrouted, lost or damaged entries

• All decisions made by the judges are final

• The prize is non-exchangeable



How will the submissions be judged?

The Royal Anthropological Institute has appointed a panel of judges who will assess the photos based on the following criteria:

- creativity and originality of the photograph

- quality of the written text and its incorporation and exploration of anthropological themes

- technical quality of the photograph

To get some ideas of other RAI photo contests take a look at our Flickr webpage: www.flickr.com/photos/raieducation

Deadlines for submission

The deadline for submissions is 30th September 2012

The RAI will notify the applicants of the panel's decision by November 2012.


Prizes

All short-listed contestants will be published in RAI educational materials. In addition, the winning photograph from each category will receive a £100 Amazon gift voucher.


Copyright and Data Protection

All images submitted for consideration to the RAI’s Body Canvas Photo Competition remain the sole property of the photographer. By submitting to the contest the entrants agree that the RAI has the right to use and display their work for the RAI’s online and printed materials or for further use (as the RAI deems appropriate) without requiring additional compensation. The RAI will cite entrants as copyright holders of their work in its own publications, but takes no responsibility for any third party usage of photographs.
Any personal data acquired will be used primarily in connection with the RAI’s Body Canvas Photo Contest to facilitate communication with the entrant and for consideration of future RAI activities, competitions and events. The data will not be passed on to third parties without the prior consent of the entrant.

For further enquiries
Please contact the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Education & Communications Officer Nafisa Fera at education@therai.org.uk or 020 7387 0455 with any further enquiries.

Sources of Information and Inspiration

For more information about body art and modification take a look at these great online resources:

Pitt Rivers Museum Body Arts website

Penn Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology Body Cultures website




Wednesday, March 21, 2012

BODIES IN MOTION

Dear Readers,

We are up and running again! Due to time restrictions, the blog will no longer be posting non-RAI related events and activities. If you would like to post an anthropology related event or activtity you can join our Discover Anthropology Facebook group and publicise your activities directly to the group. The blog will be running as an open RAI E-Newsletter.

We have some fantastic events coming up in April at the Institute located at 50 Fitzroy St. London W1T 5BT. We hope you can make it !

BODIES IN MOTION is a series of evening events and exhibitions that explores the relationship between human movement, space and expression

Place: The RAI, 50 Fitzroy St, London W1T-5BT

Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm

Dates: Friday 13th April, Tuesday 17th April, Wednesday 18th April, Thursday 26th April, Monday 30th April




The way in which we move our bodies can express our multiple identities as well as our social and cultural backgrounds. Whether dancing, walking or playing sports, movement can be an affirmation of society’s norms, a celebration of community cohesion and a vehicle for expressing national and international affiliations. Equally, human movement can be a means of resistance demonstrating social and political unrest or an avenue for innovation and cultural change.

Bodies in Motion, is an initiative that explores the relationship between human movement, space and expression. Using photography, ethnographic film, art and presentations, the project aims to engage the public in exploring the meaning of movement in urban, digital and natural landscapes.

If you have any questions about the Bodies in Motion series please get in contact with Nafisa Fera, at education@therai.org.uk / 020 7387 0455

Book your ticket for all events and receive a 20% discount- http://bodiesinmotion.eventbrite.com/



FRIDAY 13th April 2012

Temporary Sanity: Jamaican Dancehall Culture

Temporary Sanity: the Skerrit Bwoy Story is a film produced by Dan Brun in 2006 as part of his Visual Anthropology Masters at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester. The film explores the cultures, gendered performances and political expressions that form part of Jamaican Dance Hall in New York. By following “Skerrit Boy” a Bronx based performer and promoter of Dance Hall music, the film gives an insider’s view into the dancing, history and social roles of Dance Hall clubs in the lives of the Jamaican and Caribbean Diaspora in the United States. The film has won international recognition amongst dance enthusiasts and film makers.


Tonight’s screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the RAI’s Education and Communications Officer Nafisa Fera




Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands where people come together to celebrate movement.







Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotiondancehall.eventbrite.com/


Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission

* Tickets include a complimentary glass of wine, refreshments and snacks.

TUESDAY 17th April 2012


Dancing Gender: Gesture and Identity among Native American Two Spirits

This presentation explores how Native American gay, lesbian, and transgender people (Two-Spirits or GLBT) find culturally acceptable ways of conveying their gender and sexual identity through dance and performance. Using photographs, clips and over 10 years of research, the presentation shows how ethnicity, gender and sexuality, converge through performed gestures and movement amongst the Native American Two-Spirit community.

Presentation and Q&A with Max Carocci










Dr. Max Carocci has conducted research among Two Spirits since 1991 in several US cities. On the subject he published in 2010: ‘Textiles of Healing: Native American AIDS Memorial Quilts’ Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture; in 2009: ‘Visualizing Gender in Plains Indian Pictographic Art’ American Indian Culture and Research Journal; and in 2004: ‘Reconfiguring Gender in Contemporary Urban Pow-wows’ in The Challenges of Native American Studies B. Saunders and L. Zuyderhoudt (eds.), Leuven: Leuven University Press. His forthcoming publications on the subject are: ‘Native Americans, Europeans, and the Gay Imagination’ in Tribal Fantasies D. Stirrup (Ed.), Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (2013), and ‘Sodomy, Ambiguity, and Feminisation: Homosexual Meanings and the Male Native American Body’ in Indigenous Bodies J. Fear-Segal and R. Tillett (eds.) SUNY Press (2013).





Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands where people come together to celebrate movement.






Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotiontwospirits.eventbrite.com/

Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks



WEDNESDAY 18th April 2012

Speeding Bodies and the City: From Skateboarding to Car Driving

This presentation explores some of the various ways in which bodies in motion – from skateboarding to walking to automobile driving – produce different experiences of cities and landscapes. Photographs, film clips and music are used to explore the transitory nature of our mobile interaction of the world around us, while also introducing themes of urban politics, bodily senses and mobile aesthetics.
Presentation and Q&A with Iain Borden











Dr. Iain Borden is Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he is also Vice-Dean for Communications for the Faculty of the Built Environment. His wide-ranging research includes explorations of architecture in relation to critical theory, philosophy, film, gender, boundaries, photography, bodies and spatial experiences. Authored and co-edited books include Drive: Automobile Journeys through Film, Cities and Landscapes (2012), Bartlett Designs: Speculating With Architecture (2009), Manual: the Architecture and Office of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (2003), Skateboarding Space and the City: Architecture and the Body (2001), The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space (2001) and InterSections: Architectural Histories and Critical Theories (2000).




Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands, where people come together to celebrate movement.







Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotionspeeding.eventbrite.com/


Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks



THURSDAY 26th April 2012

Invisible and Visible Bodies in Ceremonial and Ritual Dance in Java


This presentation will explore dancing in the royal courts and remote highland villages of Java. What are the different layers of meaning behind these dances? And how do Javanese people explain what is going on? Illustrated with film clips and photographs the presentation will draw upon over 30 years of research into Javanese ceremonial and ritual dance, human movement and expression.
Presentation and Q&A with Felicia Hughes-Freeland












 Dr. Felicia Hughes-Freeland is an anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker who has published widely on performance, including Embodied Communities: Dance Traditions and Change in Java (2010) and the films The Dancer and the Dance and Tayuban: Dancing the Spirit in Java (1996). Most recently she edited ‘Gender and Creativity in Southeast Asia’, the guest issue of Indonesia and the Malay World 115 (November 2011). She is currently working on cultural heritage and documentary film as Research Associate at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at SOAS, London.







Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands where people come together to celebrate movement.









Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotiondancing.eventbrite.com/

Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission

* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks




FRIDAY 30th April 2012

The Creation of a Ciné Parkour

This presentation explores the transformative aspects of Parkour through film-how one experiences, moves, connects and participates in the environment, challenging notions of normative behaviour, socialisation, identity and self-determining actions through explorations of the self. The films range from quiet observational pieces to montages and first person POV, reflecting Parkour as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Through Parkour led films (as opposed to films about Parkour) this presentation aims to demonstrate how Parkour encourages self-reliance and mutual co-operation whilst enabling participants to reclaim the wonderment and magic of the human experience.
Presentation and Q&A with Julie Angel




Dr. Julie Angel is an independent filmmaker, directing, shooting and editing self-initiated projects as well as commercial commissions. Julie specialises in documentaries and participatory, shared cinema in a variety of contexts. With a keen interest in visual anthropology, her work has been screened internationally at festivals, in galleries, broadcast internationally and has a large following online (www.julieangel.com/screenings.html www.youtube.com/slamcamspam). She recently completed a practice-based PhD that documents parkour through the visual anthropology of space, place and the body. Her work involves participant observation and a feedback loop of collaborative production. She explores the documentary form using a range of styles and techniques to create 'parkour led' films where the participant’s voice is heard. Julie is part of the parkour collective Parkour Generations and continues to work and travel with them, exploring new ways to communicate parkour.



Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands, where people come together to celebrate movement.







Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotionparkour.eventbrite.com/

Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission

* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks