VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY LAB


A Visual Anthropology Laboratory has been established to capture the ethnographic nuances around important social issues concerning everyday life of local communities. The laboratory aspires to become the epicenter of documentation, projection and advocacy of anthropological insight at a national platform. Arguing that visual representation is one shade closer to reality in comparison to the conventional ethnography, the presence of Visual Laboratory helps in recording and analyzing history in a visual perspectiveas well as documenting visual imageries of present day life. The visual medium is becoming important genre for unfolding policy initiatives and programme by Development planners and administrators. Visual text and visual archives provide the necessary disciplinary insight in this direction for policy planning and governance.

The Visual Anthropology lab is being led by Dr. Avitoli G. Zhimo (Associate Professor). Currently the Department of Anthropology at the University of Delhi offers 'Visual Anthropology' as Discipline Specific Elective for BSc semester V under NEP:UGCF2022 and MSc Sem II under NEP:PGCF2024. A Skill Enhancement Course (SEC) on 'Ethnographic Filmmaking' is also offered by the Department of Anthropology at MSc Sem I under NEP:PGCF2024.

ACHIEVEMENTS
  • Supriya Pandey (BSc Class of 2021) won the 2021 Undergraduate Student Award for Outstanding Work for her documentary film A Non WORKING Woman This award was bestowed by Society for Visual Anthropology, a section of American Anthropological Association.

  • Supriya Pandey (BSc class of 2021) won the poster competition on the theme 'Gender Across Space: Moving from Parity to Parallelism' Organised by - KMC Geographia ( Geography Dept. Kirorimal college, DU) and featured in Bimonthly Magazine of KMC Geographia 2021.

  • Aakriti Thatal (BSc class of 2021) micro documentary film '5 to 9: Women in Pandemic' got published by Zuban (Through her lens) 2021.'5 to 9: Women in Pandemic' is a micro-documentary attempting to explore gendered roles in Sikkim and how social class and economic stability serve as important factors in determining these roles and responsibilities. The pandemic has not had a neutral effect on all women and Aakriti broach this notion through short interviews with three women who come from different sections of the society.

  • A short film "Being Ansar"conceptualised and edited by Hardik Gaurav won Second prize in Short film competition at Antardhwani festival 2014.

    EXHIBITION & FILM SCREENING
  • Naduvilpat, Anusree. 2025. Pots, Pans, and Politics: A Visual Anthropological Study of Mahila Mandals of Shiv Nath Village, Himachal Pradesh Visual Anthropology DU Lab. (Officially selected and screened at Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Conference 2025, under the panel 'Care, Reflexivity, and Engagement through Visual and Multimodal Collaborations' 4 July 2025.
  • Juan F. Cuyás, a PhD candidate Departament D'antropologia Social, Universitat De Barcelona delivered a talk on ETHNOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHY on 7th February 2023, in the Seminar Hall. UG, PG and PhD students from Anthropology, Education, Law, Mathematics, Germanic & Romance studies attended. Total registered: 100
  • Naduvilpat, Anusree. 2022. ഉസ്കൂൾ(school). Visual Anthropology DU Lab. (Officially selected and screened at New Wave Documentary Short film Festival, held from 5-6 March 2022).
  • Kahn, Alison and Avitoli G. Zhimo. 2021. A visual critique on the 'Secret Museum of Anthropology' (1935). PHOTO OXFORD FESTIVAL (UK), HATCHED2021: Women Creating Landscapes. 4-5 November 2021.
  • Zhimo, A.G. 2020. The village on the cliff. Visual Anthropology Lab. (screened at IUAES World Congress 2020, 14 March 2021)

    PUBLICATIONS
  • Rath, Somen, Avitoli G Zhimo And Mercy Kipgen. 2024. ‘Agency, Aesthetics, And Commodification of Saora Art’. The Eastern Anthropologist 77 (1-2): 139-160.
  • Konyak, Eche.W, and Avitoli.G.Zhimo. 2022. 'Body Aesthetics: Contextualizing the Tattooing Culture of the Konyak Naga'. J. Indian Anthrop. Soc. 57(1): 61-77.
  • Zhimo, Avitoli G. 2021. "Animistic Motifs and the Cross: A Visual Narrative on Indigenizing Christianity". Visual Ethnography (Italy) 10(1). ISSN 2281-1605
  • Zhimo, Avitoli.G. 2021. ‘We were the Others: Visuality in Colonial Writings’. In Materiality and Visuality in North East India: An Interdisciplinary Perspective edited by Tiplut Nongbri and Rashi Bhargava. Singapore: Springer.
  • Zhimo, Avitoli.G. and Somen Rath. 2021. 'Tribal Arts and Aesthtics: Saora, Warli and Zeme'. SWAYAM, NRC Tribal Studies.

    ACTIVITIES
  • Ten days Research Methodology Course on "Participatory Digital Methodologies and Ethnographic Filmmaking" was organized for research scholars from 14-24 January 2019. Participants were from disciplines like Media studies, Culture studies, Social Work, Community Health and Medicine, Sociology, Gender Studies, Education. The Course was sponsored by ICSSR. Director: Prof. P.C.Joshi; Co-Director: Dr. Avitoli G. Zhimo. For details Click here
  • Special Lectures delivered by eminent scholars in webinars and virtual workshops organized by the department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, were recorded and edited by Dr. Avitoli G Zhimo and ethnographic/documentary films by UG/PG students were developed under her guidance only. The videos are on the youtube channel 'Visual Anthropology DU'

    DOCUMENTARY and SHORT FILMS
    The Visual lab has a youtube channel Visual Anthropology DU that offers an ethnographic archive of Indian communities, focusing on the intersection of ritual, material culture, and socio-cultural change. The collection highlights themes of visual ethnography, cultural continuity in the face of modernity, and the documentation of traditional knowledge systems through a reflexive gaze.

                        


    INVITED LECTURES ON VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY

    • ‘Visual Ethnography in the era of Generative AI’ during Visual Essay and Film Exhibition titled “Living Traditions: Whispers of the Past, Pulse of the Present”, held in the Department of Anthropology, Gauhati University 10-11 March 2026, lecture delivered by Dr. Avitoli G Zhimo.

    • ‘Sensory and Visual Ethnography: Using Image, Film, and Senses’, at Two-Day Intensive Theory and Hands-on Workshop on Ethnography at Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, 7th March 2026

    • ‘Visual Methods and Ethics’ at Department of Anthropology, Utkal University on 25 February 2025. (online mode)

    • “Applied Visual Anthropology” at PHDMA Workshop 2.0 from 3rd to 5th December 2023 at PHDMA Lab, Bhubaneswar on 4th December 2023.

    • “Documentation, Representation and Ethics: Insights from Visual Anthropology” at weekly Development 4 Prosperity Academic Engagement Session, organized by Poverty and Human Development Monitoring Agency (PHDMA), Government of Odisha (online) on 1st March 2023,

    • "Portrayal of Women and the gazes it invokes: Reflections on the colonial monographs of tribes in Northeast India" organized by Women's Development Cell in collaboration with Northeast Cell of Hindu college, University of Delhi on 28th February 2023 at 12:00PM.

    • "Deconstructing narratives of the tribes in North-East India’ at the North-East Cell, Hansraj College, University of Delhi, on 20th January 2023.

    • ‘Writing Ethnographic Film Proposal' at One week Faculty Development Programme ‘Audio-Visual Methods in Research: Locating Theory in Practice’ on 26 April to 2nd May 2022 at Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, 27 April 2022 and .

    ‘Visuals in Ethnographic Representation’ at One week Faculty Development Programme ‘Audio-Visual Methods in Research: Locating Theory in Practice’ on 26 April to 2nd May 2022 at Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, 29 April 2022.

    • ‘Visual Ethnography in Social Science Research’ (8 March 2022) at 7 Days’ Workshop on Doing Sociological Research: An Interdisciplinary Perspective in hybrid mode from 7th to 15th March 2022, organized by the Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh.

    • ‘Visual aid in teaching and learning process’ at the 6th Faculty Induction Programme organized by UGC-HRDC, University of Allahabad, February 1, 2022.

    • ‘Anthropology and Filmmaking’ at Career Choices in Anthropology’ organized by Anthropos India Foundation on 29th January 2022.

    • Refresher Course on ‘Shifting Paradigms in Social Science Research’ (RC20-21) from 6th Dec to 18th Dec 2021 organized by UGC-HRDC, Dr. Harisingh Gour University Sagar.

    • 'Methodology and Ethics of Ethnographic Film-Making in North-East India' organized by the Centre of Excellence, Centre of North-East India Studies, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. 11 November 2021.

    • ‘Capacity Building Training Program on Digital Ethnography: Ethnographic Methods for Documentation of Tribes’ organized by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute, Government of Odisha and Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GOI on 30th November 2021. Her three hours talk was on ‘Visual Documentation of tribes: Ethics and Methods’.

    • Techniques of Ethnographic Filmmaking, Organized by Department of Sociology, Pranabananda Women's College, Dimapur: Nagaland. 14 September 2021

    • Resource Person in a workshop on Digital Anthropology and Fieldwork on 15th July 2021, at Amity Institute of Anthropology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh.

    • ‘Visual Anthropology: Creative methods and Ethics’ in a National level lecture series in Anthropology organized by Vivekananda college for Women, Barisha, Kolkata on 24th September 2020

    • ‘Problematic visual representation of the indigenous communities’ in a two day national e-conference on Life, Livelihood and Rights of Indigenous People and Traditional Knowledge on 9th August 2020, organized by University School of Law and Legal Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi.

    • ‘Introduction to Visual Anthropology’ organized by the Department of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi on 20th August 2020.

    • ‘Media Anthropology’ at an Industry Expert and Alumni Interaction at Amity Institute of Anthropology on 16th July 2020.

    • “Visual Ethnography: Images” in an Online Course on Ethnography organized by the Anthropos India Foundation held from June 18-20, 2020.

    • “Visual Ethnography: Ethnographic Films” in an Online Course on Ethnography organized by the Anthropos India Foundation held from June 18-20, 2020.

    • ‘Visual Ethnography’ in a 5- days online Faculty Development Programme on Emerging Issues in Social Science Research organized by Rajiv Gandhi University from 4th to 8th May 2020.

    • Virtual and Visual Ethnographic Study at the "Workshop on Research Methodology for the Fellows of National School of Drama (NSD)," organized by IGNCA on 23rd November 2019 from 09:30 am – 11:00 am.

    • Visual Ethnography, organized by Gender Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi, Kashmiri Gate Campus on Tuesday, 15th October 2019 from 12:30- 2:30 pm.

    • ‘Virtual and Visual Ethnographic study' for Certificate Course in Research Methodology, at IGNCA, New Delhi. 13th April 2019.

    • 'Visual Ethnography' at a workshop on Ethnography at Ambedkar University Delhi on 13th March 2019 from 10:00AM to 12:30PM.

    • ‘Visual and Virtual Ethnography’ at World Anthropology Day, organized by Amity Institute of Anthropology (AIA), 21st February 2019.

    • ‘Forgotten history: Narrative chronicles frozen under growth’ at Leirang 2019, organized by North East Society, IBSD Miranda House centre for North East Studies. 21.2.2019.
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