I would like to present my project called Anthropology for kids and a specific book, that I am working on in the larger framework of this project. This book will look like an ordinary school notebook in which a teacher checks a student if the lesson had been learnt. But it is actually not! I gathered this collection of historical and anthropological notes, so that together with school kids we can think about how the very idea of privacy was developed in different countries and in different historical epochs. In ancient Babylon wealthy women were allowed to cover their faces and their bodies, but the poor ones were not. In the Soviet Union during Stalin times it was dangerous to tell a political joke even in the group of close friends. One of them may report a joke to the authorities. Punishment for a political joke could be a prison sentence. Today more or less all our online communication is watched or recorded by authorities. How does our present relate to other times in history, how is the western notion of privacy related to the ideas in other cultures.
About the speaker: Her practice evolved from visual arts, journalism, internet culture and publishing. After an artistic career in Israel in the early Nineties, Dubrovsky was among the pioneers in Russia's new media start-up scene and specialized in social media and open source culture. Moving to New York in 2001 she became a significant voice in Russian blogging. Her critical position on educational regimes led to the development and publishing of doodle books for children. Her current project Anthropology For Kids aims at creating a publication series with a participatory approach. Reframing crucial aspects of human life – family, money, health, beauty, and alike – Anthropology For Kids seeks to deconstruct conditioned notions of how we (should) live, demonstrating the diversity of perspectives and possibilities that exist in different cultures.
Speakers: Nika Dubrovsky