Open discussion on archiving social movements
Why do we archive?
How do we (or should we) preserve a subculture or underground activity? How can we address questions and issues around the co-optation of materials from marginal or radical activity into institutional structures?
An open conversation exploring strategies for presenting and caring for knowledge and materials from social movements and subculture.
Have you ever wondered why some underground cultures or actions of resistance are preserved whilst others fade into obscurity? From encounters with re-photocopied zines passed on by friends-of-friends through informal networks, to the same materials entering archives held by academic or civic institutions decades later; we will explore what it means for the conditions in which we encounter these objects to drastically change.
What does it mean for radical or ‘minor’ object to enter the archive? Can they still disrupt, resist and refuse intelligibility once inside?
Come along and discuss, debate and find out more.
Guest speakers include:
Mimi Thi Nguyen is Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Nguyen has made zines since 1991, including Slander (formerly known by other titles) and the compilation Race Riot. In June 2013, Sarah McCarry's Guillotine ("a series of erratically published chapbooks focused on revolutionary non-fiction") released PUNK, a conversation between Nguyen and Golnar Nikpour that refuses a stable definition of punk and explores the politics and historiography of subculture – it was a key informing influence on our Moving Targets programme.
D-M Withers is a writer, researcher, publisher and trustee of the Feminist Archive South, which is currently held on deposit at the University of Bristol Library Special Collections. Their research explores the politics of transmission within feminism with specific focus on how technical processes shape engagement with feminism’s archives. Their book Feminism, Digital Culture and the Politics of Transmission: Theory, Practice and Cultural Heritage, was published in 2015. For this event, they will present new work on the idea of the 'metadata diary'.
Mark Small is from OutStories a volunteer-run organisation that charts Bristol’s local LGBT+ history. In collaboration with the University of Bristol and Bristol City Council, OutStories recently launched an interactive online map that allows users to find out, share and contribute to information about sites across the city significant to LGBT+ history.
Artist-researcher Beth Emily Richards will lead 'Wasting Time on the Internet (After Kenneth Goldsmith)', a digital dérive into online fanworks and fan culture. Using the Organisation for Transformative Works as a starting point, we’ll uncover the politics of fan labour, the sites and styles of interest-based communities, and archival methodologies for fanfiction. Richards is an artist living and working in Plymouth, who embraces historical inaccuracy to disrupt expectations and hegemonies in a playful way.
