Lise has always been interested in visual culture and the arts, entering Art Academy after high school. However, after a year she realized she wanted to make more socially and politically oriented work and continued to study Cultural Anthropology and later Visual Anthropology. Lise sees the camera as a tool for reflection, and she strives for the use of visual methods in (academic) research. As part of her masters, she graduated with the film The Feel of History (2017) that explores the popular phenomenon of historical re-enactment in Indonesia. It follows a historical society that re- enacts one of the last battles with the Dutch colonizers of 1949 in Yogyakarta. The film shows how these re-enactors create their own spectacular and romanticized re-presentation of the past that allows them to temporarily be the war heroes that they worship so much. It has screened at several film festivals such as Cineblend Amsterdam, Ethnofest Athens and Mediating Camera Moscow. Lise is currently working on her PhD at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Her current research further explores re-enactments by comparing cases between Asia and Europe. Lise’s research interests include nationalism, popular culture, history, and the politics of representation. She speaks English, Bahasa Indonesia and French.
For more information about Lise’s PhD project click here and for her film click here.