Dr Daniela Vavrova, a creative visual anthropologist
Daniela is currently part-time Curator at the Cairns Historical Society and Museum. She is also Adjunct Research Fellow at James Cook University (JCU) working as Casual Academic and Researcher. Daniela has established The AV Lab and was a founding member of the Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research (ALTAR) at The Cairns Institute and College of Arts Society and Education (JCU). She worked as Casual Research at Central Queensland University (CQU). Along with her interest in different cultures, she explores the relationship between anthropology and visual communication, between written accounts, photography and anthropological filmmaking. Since 2005 she has been conducting intensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea exploring how people shape and are shaped by their social and cultural environment through their sensory experiences.
The most recent Multimedia Exhibition I is Another at NorthSite, Cairns, Far North Queensland, Australia and Welcoming Cairns in Tanks, Cairns Botanical Gardens, showcased my latest digital collages under the title Following the South, Sun, and Sea. On the Intersection of Art and Academia
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Visit my social media platforms – see the links below
Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research (ALTAR)
Tradelinked connecting Cairns, PNG and the Pacific – Visual Anthropology – Production and Research
Online Tutor – SUPERPROF
Most current study accomplishment:
Cybersecurity Risk and Strategy
Selected Articles available online:
2023, The Orator’s Chair – a chair not to be sat upon! Cairns Museum exhibition content for 50 Treasures Revisited.
2023, Smell Pods, Cairns Museum exhibition content for Growing up in the Tropics.
2022, Graun Em Pulap Long Pipia: Rubbish, Sorcery, and Spiritual Healing, Papua New Guinea. eTropic, Special Issue: Tropical Materialisms: poetics, practices, possibilities, 21(2), 65-76. doi: 10.25120/etropic.21.2.2022
2021, Bodily Connections Between Yielding and Knowing in Anthropological Filmmaking and Internal Martial Arts. Anthrovision 9.1. doi: 10.4000/anthrovision.8547
2020, Brideprice and Prejudice: An Audio-Visual Ethnography on Marriage and Modernity in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea. Rosita Henry and Daniela Vávrová. Oceania 90(3), 214-233. doi: 10.1002/ocea.5254
2020, Kiap Period Photo Albums, by Laurie Bragge (1961-1967). Catalogue 50 Treasures. Celebrating 50 Years of James Cook University, pp. 70-71. AND PHOTO BLOG
2018, The Rocking of Canoe and Custom: Shifts in Ambonwari’s Perception of Invisible Realm, Secrecy and Village Hierarchy, in Le Journal de la Société des Océanistes 146 (a special issue ‘The materiality of Sepik societies New visions, old problems’, edited by Philippe Peltier, Markus Schindlbeck and Christian Kaufmann), pp. 55-62.
2016, ‘An Extraordinary Wedding’, Some Reflections on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Authorial Strategies in Ethnographic Filmmaking. Prof Rosita Henry and Daniela Vávrová. AnthroVision 4(1), 1-20. doi: 10.4000/anthrovision.2237
2014, Cinema in the Bush. Journal of Visual Anthropology (27)1-2, pp. 25-44. doi: 10.1080/08949468.2014.852058
2014, Ringing the Living and the Dead: Mobile Phones in a Sepik Society. Borut Telban and Daniela Vávrová. The Australian Journal of Anthropology (25)2, pp. 223-238.
2009, Schools & the Language of Birds. The weekly magazine .tyždeň 30/2009, 27 July, pp. 52-54. In Slovakian language
Documentary Film AWARDS:
2009 Wiley-Blackwell Student Film Prize Commendation at the 11th RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) International Festival of Ethnographic Film, Leeds, UK, 1-4 July for Enet Yapai. An Ambonwari Girl (2008, 25 minutes), English subtitles, HDV format, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. A part of Mag. Phil. thesis. Filmed, edited and directed by Daniela Vavrova, produced by the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Distributed by The Royal Anthropological Institute > www.therai.org.uk
2016 Student Film Prize at the 13th GIEFF (Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival) in Germany, 4 – 8 May for ‘Skin has Eyes and Ears’ Audio-visual Ethnography in a Sepik Society, Papua New Guinea (2014, 83:22 minutes), English subtitles, HDV format, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Filmed, edited and produced by Daniela Vavrova. This film is an audio-visual part of my written PhD thesis bearing the same title.
Visual Anthropology - Production & Research 