Francisco Martinez: Keeping Things in the Dark. An Ethnography of Basements in Eastern Estonia.

Francisco gave a talk about basements in Eastern Estonia. During the last three years, has has visited thirty-seven storing spaces in different towns of Eastern Estonia to investigate which things are kept and which practices take place therein. Francisco outlined how basements operate as the backstage of a home, whereby the dialectic between what is hidden (reserved just for our own sight) and what is shown to others is intensively played. 

Here is his talk

And the following discussion

Francisco Martínez is an anthropologist dealing with contemporary issues of material culture through ethnographic experiments. In 2018, he was awarded with the Early Career Prize of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. Currently, he works at Tampere University and convenes the Collaboratory for Ethnographic Experimentation (EASA Network). Francisco has published several books, including Ethnographic Experiments with Artists, Designers and Boundary Objects (UCL Press, 2021); Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia (UCL Press, 2018); and Repair, Brokenness, Breakthrough (Berghahn, 2019). Also, he has curated different exhibitions.