What tools are available to the documentarian when cameras fail or are forbidden? How and what can we record when our subject is absent, inaccessible, or censored? More broadly: what does it mean to give our attention to someone or something we are told not to see? 

We begin with the documentary—its forms, limits, and histories—and move toward the problem of how to document those who have been "disappeared" into our systems: individuals in carceral, psychiatric, or immigration detention spaces, and others rendered invisible by public policy, social stigma, or discriminatory law.

Through group discussions, film viewings, short readings, and hands-on experimentation, students will explore techniques such as negative space, sound, drawing, spatial observation, memory, and storytelling to expose the invisible subject. No prior filmmaking experience is required. 

Led by filmmaker and Fulbright Fellow Andrea Sisson.