“Incorporating emotion in archival processes thus enables archives to tell a fuller story about the social experiences of individuals and groups in important cultural moments.” (Schoenebeck & Conway, 2020)
Sierra King at The High Museum, Digital Photograph, John Stephens, 2024
Image Description: Photograph of Sierra King, a Black Woman with braids, wearing a cream, brown and salmon colored button down shirt and rust colored cargo pants. She is sitting on the front of lawn of The High Museum of Art. She is resting her head on her hand.
My name is Sierra King, and I am a Master’s student and SJ4A Scholar in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama. I have created this Community-Engaged ePortfolio (CP-eP) as part of my work for the CIS 675 course (Community-Engaged Scholarship) during fall 2024.
In my CP-eP I analyze existing communication and information responses to Black Feminist Theory and Embodiment practices for Black Women Artists, Cultural Workers, Organizers and their communities in the Build Your Archive located in Atlanta,GA.
I also identify existing and potential collaborators and partners in local, regional, national, and international communities (in the physical setting and online) to facilitate actual and/or planned activities of mutual interest to operationalize and implement.
In the process I propose a range of responsive strategies to further community needs, expectations, and representation in the specific setting and workforce environment.
As part of my analysis, I critically evaluate the structure and foundations of the current offerings and develop a strategic diversity action plan for the communication or information organization to identify future directions of progressive growth and professional practice in consolidating future collaborations and partnerships.
Kathleen Neal Cleaver at Home, Digital Photograph, Sierra King, 2018
Image Description: Photograph of Kathleen Neal Cleaver, a Black Woman with gray afro , wearing a red black and yellow striped shirt and black pants. She is sitting on the on her couch in front of the window.
I am
I am a Black Southern Woman, Memory Worker, Artist and Curator. As an inter-disciplinary scholar and cultural worker, I study the intersections between art, technology and data stewardship. I believe that storytelling, documentation and routine-preservation practices serve an important role in the fabric of our history. I am interested in how understanding your personal history in relation to the global narrative helps develops our communal pathways towards liberation.
In Civil Wars, June Jordan speaks to this and says, “We are the Truth: We are the living Black experience, and therefore, we are the primary sources of information. For us, there is nothing optional about Black Experience and/or ‘ Black Studies: we must know ourselves.”
Throughout my work, I have come to an understanding that Black Archival Practice (Sutherland & Collier, 2022) has been able to expand into embodiment where storytelling is a communal experience built in relationships. Most importantly, where Black Women and their stories are centered, their community's organizations, cultural spaces and estates are provided with the necessary resources and tools to continue document, preserve, and archive within their own right.
References:
Jordan, J. (1995). Civil Wars. In Google Books. Simon and Schuster. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Civil_Wars/v8ql0L_HMLYC?hl=en&gbpv=1
Sutherland, T., & Collier, Z. (2022). Introduction: The Promise and Possibility of Black Archival Practice. The Black Scholar, 52(2), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2022.2043722
Professional Values & Goals
This community-engaged project will provide me with the grounding of what will be necessary to position Build Your Archive as a container for deep study, research, artistic and knowledge creation for Black Women Artists, Cultural Workers, Organizers and their communities.
It is timely in that it is requiring me to re-evaluate the current offerings and services that are being sought out by the community and the best way to communicate the significance and frequency. As well as researching new methods and techniques such as creating a distributed repository that mimics the nomadic life of the artists and cultural workers. (Farmer, 2022)
As a Social Justice for Archivist Scholar in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, I am committed to continuing my research practice in relation to archival studies, computing, humanities and data justice. I am inspired by the work of Ruha Benjamin, Jessica Marie Johnson, Zakiya Collier, Dr. Ashley Farmer and Tina Campt who weave in and out of their disciplines respectively but also demand for change where necessary. As well as defining how to remain centered in providing services in institutional and academic spaces as a community-embedded archivist.
I believe that our stories are most valuable when they remain in the communities that they belong to. And that community archives have a responsibility to its members and residents to be of resource to ensure that they are equipped with resources to do so. I believe that if I remain teaching intergenerational and interracial workshops, I want to do so in a way that can translate the narrative of the working class in ways that develop curiosities about oral histories and traditions, information sharing in forms of zines and small publications and give the people back the power of telling their own stories.
As the Founder & Principal Archivist of Build Your Archive, I am looking forward to leading the organization to develop new practices and standards for artists, cultural workers and organizers. I agree with Sarita Schoenebeck when she says, “Incorporating emotion in archival processes thus enables archives to tell a fuller story about the social experiences of individuals and groups in important cultural moments.” (Schoenebeck & Conway, 2020) With keeping this in mind, we can prioritize the humanity and relationships of those that we are working with, rather than only seeing the records, boxes and materials.
References:
Farmer, A. D. (2022). Disorderly Distribution: The Dispersal of Queen Mother Audley Moore’s Archives and the Illegibility of Black Women Intellectuals. The Black Scholar, 52(4), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2022.2111648
Schoenebeck, Sarita, and Paul Conway. 2020. “Data and Power: Archival Appraisal Theory as a Framework for Data Preservation” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 4 (CSCW2): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3415233.