Anja Dreschke

is anthropologist, filmmaker and curator. Her research interests and publications include visual and media anthropology, with a focus on the theory and practice of audiovisual media at the intersection of experimental ethnography, essayistic film and artistic reserach. Currently is research fellow at the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the Heinrich Heine Universits in Düsseldorf.

Her ethnographic documentary film TRIBES OF COLOGNE (Die Stämme von Köln, 2011) was screened at several international film festivals. She did research on media practices of Reenactment (transcript 2016, et al.) and on ecstatic practices and mediumship in the reserach project Tance Mediums and New Media (2007-2017) at the University of Siegen. Here she realised the video installation Trance Media (2012, with Martin Zillinger) and published the volume Trance Mediums and New Media. Spirit Possession in the Age of Technical Reproduction, (Fordham 2015, with Heike Behrend & Martin Zillinger), among others.

Her curatorial works are situated between anthropology, film and art, most recently the exhibitions Michael Oppitz. Mobile Myths at the KOLUMBA – Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln (2018, with Barbara von Flüe) and I See, So I See So. Messages from Harry Smith at the Temporary Gallery in Köln (2015, with Regina Barunke).

Michaela Schäuble

is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology with a focus on Media Anthropology at the University of Bern. There she also heads the Graduate School of the Arts (GSA), a programme that focuses on application-oriented, artistic research.  

Her current research focuses on ecstatic religious cults and saint veneration in the Mediterranean. In her monograph Narrating Victimhood: Gender, Religion, and the Making of Place in Post-War Croatia (Berghahn 2014/2017) she analyses nationalism, gender dynamics and the politics of commemoration in post-war Croatia and traces the complex mechanisms of political radicalization in a post-war scenario. She has published widely on non-text based ethnographic approaches and media practices (e.g., https://journals.openedition.org/anthrovision/2322).

Michaela has held research posts and fellowships at Yale University (USA), Harvard University (USA), Institute of Advanced Study in Bologna and Casa di Goethe in Rome (Italy), University College London (UK) and in 2013/2014 has taught as a lecturer at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (GCVA) at Manchester University (UK)

Michaela is also a trained documentary filmmaker and regularly curates film programs for film festivals and exhibitions. Her films Faces of Age(2009, 36 '/ 66', co-director Martin Gruber), Mothers – 4 Pieces(2006, 58 ', co-director: Johanna Straub, Sandra Kulbach, Nan Mellinger) and Usch in the Bush(2002, 31') ) have internationally been screened at various festivals (Duisburg Film Week, Hot Docs Toronoto, Viscult Festival Joensuu, Worldfilm Festival Tartu and many more), in museums (Grassi Museum Leipzig, Schwules Museum Berlin), and have won numerous awards.

In the SNF-funded Agora project “Tarantism Revisted” she, in collaboration with Anja Dreschke, uses film and photography as a research tool in investigating re-enactment and religious performances as sites of revitalising and negotiating tradition, heritage and cultural identity in Southern Italy