About

Dr Natasha Fijn’s research and filmmaking is derived from a background in both anthropology and animal behaviour. Her filmmaking style incorporates the ethnographic methodology of participant observation. She individually produces her own filmic material by researching, filming and editing all content from beginning to end.

She has previously worked on projects for the BBC Natural History Unit, Green Umbrella Productions and Natural History New Zealand, with the documentaries distributed worldwide by National Geographic and Discovery Channels. Her ethnographic-related footage has been integrated within exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Natasha has held screenings of her documentary material within many workshops, conferences and festivals across Australia, in Auckland, Manchester, Aberdeen, Oslo, Aarhus, Stockholm, and at the Sorbonne in Paris. She taught courses in Visual Culture Research and Visual Anthropology at the Australian National University from 2010-2015. 

Natasha brings unique experience to her research and filmmaking practice through engaging with the literature across the humanities and the natural sciences.  She is part of a growing number of academics publishing within Animal Studies, an exciting interdisciplinary area of research. She has extensive experience working in remote field locations including: research for her Masters thesis in the tropical rainforest of the Philippines; research assistance for a cross-cultural project, partly funded by Rakiura Maori, to assess the sustainability of the harvesting of sooty shearwaters; extended periods of time in the remote locations of Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring National Parks in New Zealand, researching the social behaviour and problem-solving abilities of the mountain parrot the kea; over a year living with herders and their domestic herd animals in the Khangai mountains of Mongolia; a joint anthropology-archaeology project in Flores, Indonesia and more recently fieldwork stints in remote Aboriginal homeland communities in Arnhem Land, Australia. 

To link to Natasha Fijn's academic research page at The Australian National University: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/fijn-ne