Projects in Art & Art History
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Leah Niederstadt
Instructor, Art HistoryAnalyzing Ethiopian Visual Culture: Monuments, Murals, & Museums
Report
During the 2010-2011 academic year, Gabby Ferreira, '12, and Emma Westbrook, '12, assisted with several aspects of my ongoing research projects on Ethiopian visual culture. Emma added, categorized, corrected, and sorted images in Adobe Lightroom, the database I use to catalogue photographs. We also collaborated on the selection of images for a chapter in a forthcoming volume by Oxford University Press. Gabby focused on reviewing the online archives of Ethiopia's English-language newspapers, a monumental task given how difficult the archives are to search! After meeting with me to identify key topics, she reviewed hundreds of files to identify relevant articles and entered citation information for each article into RefWorks.
Original proposal
The first project is an analysis of the repatriation of an Ethiopian obelisk. My WRP research assistant will continue library and Internet research into African cases of repatriation. S/he will evaluate articles, books, and websites, add relevant materials to an existing bibliography in RefWorks, and prepare copies of these materials. (S/he will also continue adding previously identified useful materials to an second existing RefWorks bibliography.)
The next project is an analysis of billboard/mural images used as a form of social education in Ethiopia. S/he will use Adobe Lightroom to add images to a previously established catalogue. S/he will also create a RefWorks bibliography of sources related to the use of billboards/murals as a means of social education. 3) Finally, s/he will use Lightroom to catalogue images of memorials, monuments, and museums in Ethiopia as well as conducting research through various databases to identify Ethiopian news media reports about memorials, monuments, and museums. These articles will then be added to a RefWorks bibiliography
Academic year: 2010-2011 -
Jake Mahaffy
Associate Professor of Art and FilmAdvanced Filmmaking Assistant
This research partnership will involve intensive collaboration with myself in various production capacities including but not limited to: researching and downloading video files from online archives and databases for my documentary film on faith healing, editing footage in various timelines for short film projects and the feature documentary on faith healing, designing and compiling DVDs for project presentations, archiving projects and footage, creating exhibition copies of work, helping with grant applications, hi-res slide scanning/photo-shopping and printing, uploading files to the internet, web design for project sites, location scouting. These activities are all to assist in the creative production and distribution of various short film projects.
The student would gain advanced technical experience in several media programs as well as intimate knowledge of the creative process practically applied to actual independent projects from concept, through production and exhibition. The student would also receive appropriate credit on all completed films.
Academic year: 2010-2011
