Anatomy of an Encounter

The project Anatomy of an Encounter was driven by the idea that we should not take for granted that we already know what ‘encounters’ are. What does ‘meeting’ another person — with a different cultural or disciplinary background — mean? How much of an encounter is in all actuality a ‘finding one another’? How much of ‘being in touch’ is depending on the work of the imagination — fed by assumptions, existing cultural frames, stereotypes, fantasies about the other?

Encounters are at the heart of every ethnographic project: anthropologists no longer claim to be speaking about the other (define the other in his/her otherness; know the other). They study what occurs between themselves and others when they meet.

Encounters are also at the heart of the ENCOUNTERS project, where artistically inclined ethnographers and ethnographically inclined artists meet each other. The project Anatomy of an Encounter was driven by the idea that we should not take for granted that we already know what ‘encounters’ are. What does ‘meeting’ another person — with a different cultural or disciplinary background — mean? How much of an encounter is in all actuality a ‘finding one another’? How much of ‘being in touch’ is depending on the work of the imagination — fed by assumptions, existing cultural frames, stereotypes, fantasies about the other?