Visual Education Department

BAMA Mountain Culture Research Institute is a NGO created in 2003. Presently it is under the supervision of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences. The Visual Education Department (VED), one of the three divisions of BAMA, is devoted to professional visual documentary training, production and exchange. VED's members are mainly documentary filmmakers, cultural anthropologists, researchers in community development and participatory visual educationists.

VED of BAMA has its roots in Yunnan Province , famous for its ethnical, cultural and environmental diversity. VED engages itself in participatory visual education through actions taken in local communities. VED serves as a exchange platform open to documentary filmmakers, cultural anthropologists, community researchers and the general public from home and abroad, with the aim of facilitating transmission the values of indigenous cultures in the context of globalization. Our field of cooperation and communication reaches beyond Yunnan Province 's borders: it joins mainland China and the SE Asian Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). So far VED has establised formal and steady-fast contacts with individuals and institutions in terms of documentary filmmaking and visual education.

In 2003, VED successfully organized the first Yunnan Multi Cultures Visual Festival (YUNFEST) in Kunming . We hope that this bi-annual event will become a platform of discussion among the people of China and the GMS, among visual documentary workers and visual artists. We have started the establishment of an audio-visual library to be open to the general public and will be used in workshops organized by VED. We have been working at the bettering of the mechanism for its visual communication training programs and we will sustain the organizations of YUNFEST and promote documentary film production and distribution. VED's long term aims are to integrate visual media and participatory visual education into local curricula. VED is to co-operate with local communities in this region of great mountains and rivers abundant in natural resources on the protection of local environments and cultures. Also, VED acts to promote the extended use of visual media in community work for reference in other different communities.

The Visual Education Department (VED),
BAMA Mountain Culture Research Institute
Address: Yunan Academy of Social Sciences
577 Huan Cheng Xi Lu, Kunming PR.China
PC: 650034
Tel: +86 871 5321298
Fax: +86 871 5321298
E-mail: yunfest2009###gmail.com
Website: http://www.bamamount.org