Kate Hennessy

Teaching & research interests

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

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 BC’s Early in Career Award, which recognizes the contributions to the non-academic community made by faculty members who are at an early point in their careers.

Visit the Making Culture Lab to learn more about her work.

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 Stó:lō 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 Critical MediArtStudio (cMAS) led by Dr. Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda. With support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and BC Knowledge Development Fund (our CEDHI project), 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 prospective students page.

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. www.thewaterwecallhome.com 

O’Brien, Meghann (2024). Everyone Says I Look Like My Mother. Exhibition at Bard Graduate Center (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., O’Brien, M., Oogjes, D., Muntean, R. (2024)
Journey into Form: Transmediating the woven artwork of Jaad Kuujus (Meghann O’Brien). 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 Tu’i Malila. In, Gentle Dismantlings, a collaborative special issue of Branch Magazine and Ding Magazine. Winter, 2023. Edited by Kit Braybrooke, Julia Kloiber, and Michelle Thorne [link to article]

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., O’Brien, 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 Networks. In, 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, O’Brien, M., and Sly, C., (2019)
Wrapped in the Cloud: A Conversation with Meghann O’Brien 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 (Special Issue on Indigenous Media Futures) (link)

Hennessy, K. (2018)
Voices and the Archive in Maps and Dreams. In, $5 Handshake: Art on Treaty 8 Territory.  Melanie O’Brian, Ed. SFU 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’éwlets: A Stó:lō-Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley.
Proceedings of Museums and the Web, 2017, Vancouver: Archives and Museums Informatics (link).

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 visit my website for a full list of publications and exhibitions.

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