The visual ethnography is a research method that explores new languages of documentary cinema; it combines the bibliographic study of contemporary literature on anthropology, ethnography and visual sociology with the practices of documentary production.
The visual research is an ethnographic practice that takes place “in the street”, in the spaces and with the people in their daily life, with a proximity that is linked to the productive dimension of the documentary.
Making visual ethnography means being close and inside the filming field with the camera, hand-to-hand with the people to build filmic relations between who sees and who is seen, exploring new visual methods with the photography and the video: observation, subjective production of images, interviews, self-representations, participatory video and photovoice.
The visual exploration has challenged the traditional filming patterns, the shooting techniques and the whole process of film production. It questioned the interaction between author, researcher and subjects, the roles and relations that every time are established and change the subjective perception, by interacting at various levels on the construction of the filmic contents and the gaze on the reality.
The visual research projects realized by 4Caniperstrada promote the creation of networks between subjects operating in Sardinia, Italy and Europe. It also promotes the inclusion of multidisciplinary and multicultural skills into the research projects and the activity of dissemination of results on many levels such as web, press, meetings, projections and public debates, with the aim to give a collective restitution of the results.