Photo by Ryan Collerd, courtesy of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

Anula Shetty and Michael Kuetemeyer are award winning media artists and teachers of experimental and documentary media. They received their MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University. They are recipients of a 2017 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and were previously nominated for a United States Artist Fellowship. Their films have been broadcast on PBS and screened at festivals and museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Flaherty Film Seminar & the Museum of Television and Radio, New York. In 2013, they were selected as Artists in Residence for Asian Arts Initiative’s Social Practice Lab and in 2015-2016, they were SPACES Artists in Residence at the Village of Arts & Humanities. Most recently Michael was selected for the 2016-2017 ZERO1 American Arts Incubator program to create new media projects in Cambodia. The program is a partnership with the State Department. 

Anula and Michael are pioneers in the field of socially engaged immersive documentary and are committed to creating innovative and interactive participatory media art projects with communities. A key part of their practice is addressing issues of access, impact and sustainability. They are interested in exploring the use of emerging technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and mobile apps as platforms to distribute community and artistic media. Their immersive documentary work includes creating video installations and mobile media apps to explore new ways of experiencing a place and the oral histories that surround it. Projects they have implemented include Time Lens, an immersive mobile App exploring gentrification and homelessness. Time Lens was awarded first place in New Media at the UFVA Media with Impact Conference. It was also selected for presentation at ISEA 2015 in Vancouver, Canada and the 2014 SIGGRAPH Conference. Other projects include Walk Philly and their current work in progress Places of Power, a multi-platform immersive documentary about people and places of belonging and power in North Philadelphia. 

They have facilitated community video projects as part of Scribe Video Center’s Community Visions and Precious Places projects. They have also led youth media workshops at the Asian Arts Initiative were awarded three Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Artist and Communities Grants to conduct youth filmmaking residencies at the Reichhold Art Center in the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

Anula is a recipient of three Media Arts Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She was twice nominated for a Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship. She received a Project Involve Fellowship from the Independent Feature Project, NY, two Independence Foundation Fellowships and a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award for her art and social change work. She is an adjunct professor at Temple University’s Media Studies and Production Department. She currently serves on the board of The Alliance of Media Arts and Culture (formerly NAMAC). 

Michael Kuetemeyer is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and is an Associate Professor in the Film & Media Arts department at Temple University. He is a founding member and co-director of Termite TV Collective, a collective of video artists whose mission is to produce, distribute and facilitate the creation of experimental and activist media.