Julia Binter joins the panel “Studio Anthropology” at EASA2026 with a paper on the Global Heritage Lab. She examines the Global Heritage Lab as a site where ethnographic practice unfolds through transdisciplinary collaboration rather than observation, documentation, or analysis alone. It uses the figures of the lab and the studio as contrasting yet productive ways of thinking about how knowledge is made. The laboratory, historically tied to the natural sciences, is associated with controlled experimentation oriented around hypotheses, while the studio, rooted in artistic practice, is a space of making where knowledge develops through material engagement and improvisation.
Rather than treating lab and studio as opposing models, she approaches them as two figures that illuminate different aspects of knowledge production in collaborations between artists, scholars, and diverse publics. In the Global Heritage Lab, this takes the form of dialogues across disciplines, co-created artworks, and participatory installations that invite visitors into ongoing conversations.