Profile
Amir Husak is a media maker and Assistant Professor of Media Studies at 麻豆传媒色情片. Combining film, video, sound, interactive media, essay and experimental techniques, Husak鈥檚 work explores documentary as social practice and investigates representations of history, migration and memory. He has shown works at such diverse places as Cinemateca Distrital (Bogota, Colombia), Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Stadtmuseum Graz (Austria), South by Southwest (US), Sundance Film Festival (US), P.O.V./PBS (US), Crvena Association for Culture and Art (Sarajevo, Bosnia), TV Cultura (Brazil), and Full Frame Film Festival (US). In 2016 Husak co-edited a volume on socially engaged art and activist media in Bosnia-Herzegovina titled Crisis, Art, Action (in orig. Kriza, Umjetnost, Akcija). He has published articles and essays on emergent forms of documentary and activist media in scholarly journals, magazines and online publications. In 2012-2013 he was a Fulbright research fellow at Humboldt-Universit盲t zu Berlin鈥檚 department of Diversity and Social Conflict. Husak holds a PhD in Arts and Communication from University of Leeds (UK), and serves as Artistic Director of BHFF NYC Film Festival, a showcase of cinema from Southeast Europe and its diasporas.
Degrees Held
University of Leeds (UK) | PhD, Arts and Communication
麻豆传媒色情片 (NY) | MA, Media Studies
Professional Affiliation
Advisory Board, Interactive Film and Media Journal, ISSN 2564-4173
Artistic Director, BHFF NYC Film Festival
Recent Publications
听
鈥,鈥 Artist Cinema series: From the East: Some Strange, Scary, and Funny Messages, e-Flux Journal (Film & Video): January 2022
"George Floyd is everywhere", Perspectives, Kosovo 2.0, June 10, 2020. Available online at
鈥溾澨Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 15, Summer 2018, pp. 16鈥32.
鈥淚n Search of a听Thirdspace鈥澨(orig. in Bosnian: 鈥淯 potrazi za tre膰eprostorom: umjetnost socijalne prakse u Bihacu鈥),听Revizor听(Broj 1.), Contributing author, Revizor Foundation, Biha膰: March, 2018.
Crisis, Art, Action (Kriza, Umjetnost, Akcija), in Bos/Cro/Srb, Editor and contributor, Bihac虂/Sarajevo: Gradska Galerija, 2016. ISBN 978-9958-9416-5-8
Performances and Appearances
(SELECTED)
"Pokraj Une / By the River Una", documentary audio feature (in collab. with Azra Hromad藕i膰), Co-author and sound designer, . , June 2023.
鈥淩ecords in Limbo: On the Lore of Crossing Borders鈥, Displaced, Detained, Undeterred: A Creative Critical Symposium, lecture performance, The Minority, Indigenous, and Third World Studies Research Group (MITWS), Cornell University, Ithaca, April 2023
听
鈥淩eimagining the Archive鈥, Encountering Reality as Crisis: Documentary, Ethnographic Media and Education,鈥 panelist, Royal Anthropological Institute FF, London, UK, Mar 2021
"Institutions vs Institutionalization of Ideology in Contemporary Practice", with Coco Fusco, Steve Lyons (Not an Alternative), and Christian Nyampeta. Art and the Specter of Ideology, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics. February 22, 2020, New York
ReFest 2020, CultureHub, NYC. "Re/Lens: Old Glass for New Eyes", workshop with Amir Husak and Melissa Friedling, March 14, 2020
鈥淗istory from below: New documentary practices as social agents鈥, screening and talk, School of Social Literacy, Freedom Front 鈥 Workers University, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jun 2019
鈥淪oftware Powerplays and (My) Documentary Dilemmas鈥, Dynamics of Transparency and Opacity: Challenging the Limits of Documentary panel, Visible Evidence XXV, Indiana University Bloomington, Aug 2018
i-Docs Symposium 2018, 鈥榃orks in progress / iDocs鈥 panel, Project presentation: 鈥淔rom Proletariat to Precariat鈥, Bristol, UK, Mar 2018
Poetics and Politics of Documentary, 鈥楢ctivist Interactive: iDocs from the Global South鈥 panelist, with Anandana Kapur and Fabiola Hanna, Presentation title 鈥淒igital Dissent: Citizen-activist Video鈥, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, Jun 2017
鈥淔rom Detroit to Kombiteks: Industrial ruins and the art of social practice鈥, Dizajn i Kriza (Design and Crisis) collegium, lecture and performance, Patterns Lectures program, University of Bihac, Bosnia-Herzegovina, March 2017
Codes and Modes: Reframing Reality, Virtuality & Non-fiction Media 鈥業nteractive Documentary and Social Change鈥 panel. Paper title 鈥淏etween virtual and real dissents: methods for interactive documentary as social practice鈥, New York, NY, Mar 2017
Research Interests
Documentary; Digital Media; Social Activism; Film; Cultural Memory; Sound Studies; Migration Studies
Portfolio