間眅埶AV

Kate Hennessy

Associate Professor

Teaching & research interests

 

  • Anthropology of Media
  • Museum Anthropology
  • Indigenous Media
  • Science and Technology Studies
  • Collaborative Methodologies
  • Digital Humanities
  • Ethnography and Art Practice
  • Research-Creation

 

Kate's research and art practice

As an anthropologist of media and the director of the Making Culture Lab at SIAT, Kate Hennessy's research explores the role of digital technology in the documentation and safeguarding of cultural heritage. Her multimedia and art works and investigate documentary methodologies to address Indigenous and settler histories of place and space. Kate is a founding member of the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective, which has curated exhibitions and projects at the intersection of anthropology and contemporary art since 2009. In 2017, she was awarded the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BCs which recognizes the contributions to the non-academic community made by faculty members who are at an early point in their careers.

Visit the to learn more about her work.

The Making Culture Lab

We are an interdisciplinary research group and production studio located in Surrey, British Columbia, just outside of Vancouver B.C., on the unceded Coast Salish Territory of the of  the Katzie, Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem, Qayqayt, Tsawassen, and St籀:l First Nations. We explore the collaborative development and evaluation of culturally specific applications of new media in public space, museums and communities, both online and on the ground. Our research is grounded in media-making, artistic practice, and ethnography of media in social practice. We are interested in materiality, ethics, and diverse cultures of making. Participatory production and research methodologies are emphasized, as are the development of reciprocal research, curatorial, and media production relationships with heritage institutions, Indigenous communities, and artists. We collaborate in our studio-lab work space with the  led by . With support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and BC Knowledge Development Fund (our ), MCL lab members have access to our high-end audio, video, and photography equipment, 360 cameras and VR headsets, as well as handheld 3D scanners and software.

If you are interested in finding out more about joining the Making Culture Lab, I recommend heading our .

Selected publications and exhibitions

Georgeson, R., Hennessy, K., Hallenbeck, J. (co-Curators) (2023-25)
The Water We Call Home. (exhibition, media installation). Gulf of Georgia Cannery Museum and Historic Site, Steveston B.C. 

OBrien, Meghann (2024). Everyone Says I Look Like My Mother. Exhibition at  (NYC) and at the Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY), April 10 19th, 2024. Including works created in collaboration with Hennessy, K., Turner, H. Sly, C., Oogjes, D., Muntean, R., and Camman, M.

Hennessy, K., Turner, H., OBrien, M., Oogjes, D., Muntean, R. (2024)
Journey into Form: Transmediating the woven artwork of Jaad Kuujus (Meghann OBrien). Proceedings of Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA), London, June 2024. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. (8 pages)

Muntean, R., Hennessy, K., Mills, C., Antle, A. (2024)
Untangling Cables: A Case Study of the Life & Afterlife of Digital Devices in Academic Research. 
Proceedings of DIS 2024, New York, ACM Press.

Hennessy, K. and Smith, T. (2023)
Fugitive Memory: For Tui Malila. In, Gentle Dismantlings, a collaborative special issue of  and . Winter, 2023. Edited by Kit Braybrooke, Julia Kloiber, and Michelle Thorne []

Hennessy, K., Smith, T., DiPaola, S., Nejad, A. (2023)
Sensing the Cloud: Research-Creation as Sensory Anthropology. In, Routledge International Handbook of Sensory Anthropology. Phillip Vannini, Ed. London: Routledge. Pp. 248-262. 

Oogjes, D., OBrien, M., Turner, H., Hennessy, K., Muntean, R., Camman, M. (2023). 
Transmediating Sky Blanket: tensions with a digital jacquard loom. Proceedings of DIS 2023, New York, ACM Press. 16 pages.

Glass, A., and Hennessy, K. (2022)
Museum Collections, Indigenous Knowledge, and Emergent Digital NetworksIn, The Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 1. Smithsonian Institution. Igor Krupnik, Ed. Pp. 165-181.

Smith, T., Hennessy, K., Neumann, O. (2019)
Anarchival Materiality: The Bauhaus Building in Dessau. In, Bauhaus Futures. Laura Forlano, Molly Wright Steenson, Mike Ananny, Eds. Pp. 185-193. MIT Press 

Takaragawa, S.,  Smith, T.,  Hennessy, K.,  Alvarez Astacio, P., Chio,  J., Nye, C.,  Shankar, S. (2019)
Bad Habitus: Anthropology in the Age of the Multimodal. American Anthropologist 121(2):517-524. 

Turner, H.  Hennessy, K, OBrien, M., and Sly, C., (2019)
Wrapped in the Cloud: A Conversation with Meghann OBrien and Conrad Sly.
BC Studies (200) Winter 2018-10. Pp. 127-142. 

Hennessy, K. and Smith, T. (2018)
Fugitives: Anarchival Materiality in Archives. PUBLIC 57 (Archive/Counter-Archives): 128-144. Edited by Susan Lord and Janine Marchessault.

Hennessy, K., Smith, T., and Hogue, T. (2018).
ARCTICNOISE and Broadcasting Futures: Geronimo Inutiq Remixes the Igloolik Isuma Archive. Cultural Anthropology 33.2(2018):213-223 () ()

Hennessy, K. (2018)
Voices and the Archive in Maps and Dreams. In, $5 Handshake: Art on Treaty 8 Territory.  Melanie OBrian, Ed. 間眅埶AV Galleries Critical Reader Series, 4. (pp. 84-96).

Hennessy, K., Lyons, N., Schaepe, D., Blake, M., Phillips, A., Pennier, C., Muntean, R., and Kadir, A. (2018)
Collaborative Digital Curation and Recursive Publics: the Making of Sq矇wlets: A St籀:l-Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley.
Proceedings of Museums and the Web, 2017, Vancouver: Archives and Museums Informatics ().

Muntean, R., Antle, A., Matkin, B., Hennessy, K., Rowley, S., Wilson, J. (2017)
Designing Cultural Values into Interaction. Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Human Interaction (CHI), ACM Press, 10 pgs.

Please for a full list of publications and exhibitions.

Education

  • MA, Anthropology of Media, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies
  • PhD, Anthropology, University of British Columbia

Current & upcoming courses

Future courses may be subject to change.