Images in Captivity: Looking at the Living World

What are our inherited methods of observation and conservation, and how do they shape our understanding of shared histories and spaces?

Artist-filmmaker Jessica Sarah Rinland (Monólogo Collectivo, 2025) invites us to consider the traditional frameworks for documenting and containing knowledge of our environment across this 3-day workshop. We’ll be taking a closer look at the rich and contested traditions of animal and nature documentary, scrutinizing the position of the documentarian, researcher and conservator within historical preservation practices: , as innovators, agents or critics.

We’ll take a hands-on approach to interrogating various strategies for interpreting the environments that surround us. We will critically compare ecological and museological conservation, and consider how this comparison might reshape documentary methodology— investigating how images, both moving and still, protect, distort or confine our understanding of the natural world.

We’re excited to bring together a diverse group of thinkers, artists and filmmakers as we ask questions like:

What do the documentarian and the conservator have in common, what techniques, methods and technologies do they share?

What do our systems for observing nature and preserving objects reveal about how we structure power and narrativize history?

Is preservation an act of care – or can it perpetuate past violences?

And how might collaboration and interdisciplinary knowledge-building support new methodologies that address historical injustices and contribute to reparative practices?

We’ll begin with Jessica Rinland’s work looking at her recent film and exhibition, and her inquiry into the history and usages of camera traps in wildlife documentation, followed by Sarah J Christman, whose work focuses on the intersections between people, technology and the natural world. We’ll head to Ridgewood Reservoir with Jessica for a closer look at applying method to field work. Then we’ll be joined by experimental preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos who will expand on his artistic practice, sitting at the crossroads of architecture, preservation and aesthetics. Finally, filmmaker and visual anthropologist Ilisa Barbash will take us on a journey through her work in repatriation and ethical stewardship.

Join us for three days to explore these thorny questions at the center of nonfiction practices with this stellar lineup of guest speakers!