About

Lisa Burnell is a Cape Town-based South African documentary photographer and storyteller with a demonstrated history of working in the nonprofit sector. Her work focuses on using visual and written media for research, cultural investigation, and advocacy into social, environmental, and urban issues.

In 2015, she was invited to attend the Contemporary Art Festival SESC_VideoBrasil: Southern Panoramas in São Paulo as a recipient of the Prince Claus Fund Travel Grant. She remained in Brazil for some time while working on an ongoing project that explores African history and heritage within Afro-Brazilian identity.  

Her current work as a research assistant on the Andrew W. Mellon New Imaginaries Project for gender and sexual justice explores ecocritical and human-centered discourses on human-animal relations in postapartheid South Africa. Lisa is particularly interested in documenting humans’ complex relationship with animals and the environment.

https://mutualrescue.org/stories/lisa-kenji/

MA - Women’s and Gender Studies (2023) Hons (Cum Laude) - Anthropology (2020) BA - Anthropology & Sociology (2017)

Research Output (2023) - Un/Becoming Viole(t)nce: Ecofeminist Entanglements in the (Un)Making of Pitbull/Caregiver Identities in South Africa

Research Output (2020) - Fostering Resilience: Shelter Dogs as Essential Citizens During COVID-19 Lockdown

Awards, Grants and Exhibitions –

The Other Side of Migration (Dept. Foreign Affairs Switzerland): Photographic Winner – 2016

Migration & Development Civil Society Network: Photographic Winner – 2015

Prince Claus Fund: Travel Grant Recipient- 2015

European Union Development Days. Brussels, Belgium: Contributing Exhibition Artist – 2015

Global Forum on Migration & Development. Instanbul, Turkey: Contributing Exhibition Artist – 2015