Not About Us Without Us – art, film, and situated knowledge

Director and visual artist Sara Jordenö is currently in Australia as part of the “Ten Women Directors to Watch” section at the Sydney Film Festival, where she is screening her new documentary KIKI. Join her for a talk about her method of collaboration in documentary cinema and social practice public art projects.

Sara Jordenö, born 1974 in Robertsfors, Sweden, is a visual artist, documentary filmmaker, researcher and educator. Her work is informed by discussions around authorship and agency, and resides in the crossing points of institutional critique, site-specific and public art, meta-observational documentary cinema, and community-based participatory performative practice.

Jordenö’s longitudinal projects often engage with a specific site or community and she typically employs a mix of methods used in fieldwork conducted by social scientists. In the process of making these works, she has collaborated with (and at times shared authorship with) sociologists, activists, community organisers and members of the communities that she investigates.

A member of the core faculty of the Masters of Fine Arts Programme at Valand Academy, Gothenburg University, Sara Jordenö teaches courses in artistic fieldwork influenced by sociological and anthropological research methods.

For the documentary KIKI, which premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival and is currently touring the international film festival circuit, Jordenö was awarded the Teddy Award for best Documentary Film at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights at Full Frame Documentary Festival.