In my Community-Engaged ePortfolio (CP-eP) I analyze existing communication and information responses to Feminist Theory and Black Archival Practice for Black Women Artist, Cultural Workers and Organizers at Build Your Archive located in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Greater Metro Atlanta as part of my work for the CIS 675 course (Community-Engaged Scholarship) during fall 2024. On this page, I provide an overview of Build Your Archive as an information and archival organization.
My Home Agency
The work of Build Your Archive has its foundation and lineage in Atlanta,GA. I have reclaimed that the first archive and gallery that I entered was my Great-Grandmother Annette Battle's living room.
Atlanta,Georgia is also the native home to Black Women Artist and Cultural Workers whose archives are currently being documented, preserved and archived in real time. Those artists include: Sierra King, Jasmine Nicole Williams, Ebony Blanding. We are also working with the estates of Mildred Thompson and Ethelyn Stephens to better understand how to posthumously build an archive.(King, 2023) The record of their intentions, their photographs, books and documents of why their narratives and lives are rooted in this particular place can be found in their archives (Campt, 2012).
As of July 2023, the US Census Bureau reported that over 510,823 call the city of Atlanta, home and 47.6% of those people are either Black or African Descent. I relay to these numbers because the artist that are currently being served based their practices, lives and cultural work out of the city rather than the Greater Metro Atlanta Area (U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Atlanta, Georgia, n.d.). Specifically, where the exhibition will be installed at Swancoach House Gallery is in Decatur,GA where there is a population of 24,307, only 14.6% are of Black/African descent.
I take this into consideration because of the subject matter of jasmine's work is about her experiences as a Black queer woman in spaces that have predominantly not been welcoming of her or challenged her humanity in ways that many marginalized groups across history have come to face.
References:
Campt, Tina. Image Matters : Archive, Photography, and the African Diaspora in Europe. Duke Univ. Press, 2012.
King, S. (2023). CIS668 ePortfolio. https://scking1-cis668-fall23.myportfolio.com/
U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Atlanta, Georgia. (n.d.). www.census.gov. Retrieved October 9,2024, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/atlantacitygeorgia
Organization’s User Population
In working with these artists, organizations and estates, Build Your Archive has followed a significant through line of the city of Atlanta being a site of resistance where the work, lives and legacies of Black Women Artists and Cultural Workers converge. It has become a place where either find their roots, pass through while they are making or a meeting ground to connect with other artists.
In 2022, I expanded into the community and third spaces like yes please: bookhouse and carespace and for keeps books. It was significant to partner with these spaces to create art as well as a place to gather from either presentation or workshops, because the Black Women Artists and Cultural Workers that I work with do the same. While I presented the work of Build Your Archive in library and academic spaces, the communal spaces provided the feeling of "home". Which led to signature offerings of Portrait Sessions and Worklabs, both of which I came to understand could be documentation projects that build archives for the communities that they are made in.
In collaborating with other organizations such Free Black Women's Library, Save Your Spaces and Project STAND I am able to to interact with niche communities that have similar interest in preservation, activism and resource sharing.
References:
Musa. (2018, October 23). Cultural Worker, Not A “Creative” - Musa - Medium. Medium. https://medium.com/@MusaSpringer/cultural-worker-not-a-creative-4695ae8bfd2d
King, S. (2023). CIS668 ePortfolio. https://scking1-cis668-fall23.myportfolio.com/
Strategic Planning Descriptions
Mission and Vision - Build Your Archive is a nomadic memory work lab where Black Women Artists, Cultural Workers and their communities build their archives in real time. Inspired by the embodiment and care practices of bell hooks, tina campt, toni morrison and octavia butler, we believe that archiving is a self-defined praxis of intentional choices and ritual led record-keeping. Existing between a continuum of all of the grandmothers living rooms and grandfathers basements, we learn and study archival practices within an ethos of radical care, liberation and world building. We further imagine a world where their narratives, whole or fragmented, are accessible to those who prioritize protection.
Values and Aims - As of 2024, we are focused on providing documentation and archival support to jasmine nicole williams and the documentarians of her solo exhibition 'kin to red dirt on white carpets'. I believe that in our lifetime, we will see a desclation in reparative work in personal and community archiving through real-time relationship building and narrative facilitation.
It is our aim through the nomadic memory work labs and skill-based workshops to provide a entry point to connect with the artist that we are working with as well as learn how to be stewards of their own archives.
Goals and Objectives - To ensure that her practice evolved at her own pace we focused on the following:
Develop clear vision and mission for the exhibition that was aligned with the values of both my self and the artist.
Develop an extended narrative budget that reflects the artist needs, wants and future goals for her archive
Research and seek funding from multiple grants, funders and organizations that aligned with the vision and mission that we had adjusted to. As well as diversifying what type of opportunity or funding would be provided.
Executing a documentation strategy centered on her preparing and installing the work for her first solo exhibition. This strategy would expand the network of documentarians that she has work with previously and expand the perspectives of her practices to additional lenses.
Connecting her with additional documentarians who were flexible in learning our documentation and archiving process up until this point.
Additional as an orginization, the founder and principal archivist will continue to remain engaged in community both locally and nationally by offering and facilitating personal archival workshops.
How does the organization measure success?
We measure success by executing documentation points that are timely and necessary for the artists and their practice. Throughout the production of jasmine's solo exhibition we no only visually documented moments but also have audio files of non-informal studio visits that bring in the ethos of "homeplace" that bell hooks speaks of.
References:
About | Build Your Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2024 from https://www.buildyourarchive.com
hooks, bell. Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston, MA: South End Press. Chicago, 1990
Existing Community-Engaged Collaborations and Partnerships to Support the Services for Your Population
Gallery Presentation and Support - Swan Coach House Gallery supported jasmine and I throughout the exhibition process during the year up until de-installation in Sepetember 2024. They provided ample time to install the exhibition as well as a skilled artist to help us hang the work for a quality presentation.
Exhibition Identity - Neka King was hired to complete the exhibition idenity to be used across marketing materials. She incorporated elements and motifs from jasmine's work to communicate the title of 'kin to red dirt on white carpets' as well as pay homage to her archive.
Photographers & Documentarians - John Stephens, Kyle Chattam, Makeda Lewis and Grace Gardner were hired and also already working in community with us to document jasmine's process from beginning to end. They were each given individual assignments based on their individual styles and expertise.
Exhibition programming: - Jasmine Wilson reached out to us to install a sound bath in response to the exhibition in the gallery. It was widley attended and participants were engaged throughout the program.
Exhibition Funding - Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing awarded Principal Archivist Sierra King unrestricted funding and joined Cohort 3 of thirty-nine other talented leaders from 20 different states around the country for an 18-month fellowship. Where they will take on work relative to narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and the economy.
Additionaly partnerships for 2024 research and programming: Diaspora Solidatires Lab, yes please bookhouse and carespace, The Highlander Center, The Mildred Thompson Legacy Project, Emory University, UC IRVINE, Arizona State University, Sixty Inches From Center, Texas After Violence Project / Community Archives Collaborative and The High Museum.
References:
About | National Collaborative for Health Equity. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2024 from https://www.nationalcollaborative.org/about-us/