Quotidian Scenes

an exhibition of photographic anthropology by Karl Frost at the Max Planck Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

April 18 – July 30, 2019

Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig

open hours 8:00 – 18:00 

These photos and video stills were taken from the network of field sites associated with the Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture.  My primary work in the department is to support other anthropologists through visual documentation. My personal fieldwork is in north coastal and mountain British Columbia, at the intersections of First Nations sovereignty struggles and environmental defense. Since I started work at MPI in 2017, I’ve worked with Jeremy Koster (Mayangna, Nicaragua), Anne Pisor (Moseten, Bolivia), and Cody Ross (West African descended, Emberra, and mestizo communities, Colombia).  I’ve also assisted John Bunce, Bret Beheim, and Adam Boyette in community participatory visual documentation with the Matsigenka (Peru), Tsimane (Bolivia), and Bondongo and Ba-Yaka (Congo) respectively.

My hope is to compliment the quantitative work of my colleagues with qualitative documentation that conveys a feel for life in these communities.  On the one hand, a photo can in a unique way convey an enormous amount of data about place.  A photo of an Emberra woman cooking might demonstrate forest resource use, space sharing, health and diet.  On the other hand, there is a felt sense, more personal, that is conveyed through sound and image which can compliment or counterpoint quantitative analysis.

For information on individual photographs, click on the field site clusters below

Visual documentation supported by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture. Short videos of the different crafts shown in these stills forthcoming.