Agnes Jasper, Cultural Anthropologist, Subcultures Researcher, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Biography

 

Before Agnes started her studies at the University of Amsterdam, she travelled extensively through Africa. It took her two years to hitch-hike across the African continent from north to south and west to east, and she loved it. The countries she visited and the people she met spawned a growing fascination for 'the other' which inspired her to study cultural anthropology.

After the first year at University of Amsterdam, Agnes made another trip to Africa. She wanted to study the 'fighter-women' in Eritrea, but the 1998-2000 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia had made this impossible.

In 2002 Agnes started organizing her own 'gothic' parties. Since a few years she enjoys performing music (voice, flute and keyboard) designing and choreographing a fire-theatre show, helping in various ways with the making of documentaries, short films, videoclips, setting up festivals like Women in Paradise, organising parties in Amsterdam, and so on. This is probably why Agnes chose not to study a faraway 'tribe' in a country at war, but to stay close to home and to study the 'others' that made up her own 'tribe': the gothic scene.

In 2004-2005 Agnes worked together with the KIT Tropenmuseum on their exhibition on 'Evil'. She has conducted her fieldwork research on gothic subculture at the Meertens Institute, Royal Dutch Academy of Science in Amsterdam, under guidance of Dr. Martin Ramstedt. In 2005 she spoke at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. In december 2006 she spoke at the RMO Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden for the opening of the Exhibition 'Het Geheim van de Kelten'. On the 16th of February 2007, Agnes graduated and became a Master of Science at the University of Amsterdam.

Currently, Agnes is teaching first year cultural anthropology students at the University of Amsterdam, and she is working on a project with the documentary maker Chris Relleke that will hopefully come to completion in the shape of a book and a documentary about dark and fantastical subcultures. She is still looking for funds, subsidies and donations!