The Archive is a Gathering Place

Collective archives are created out of a necessity to preserve narratives and practices that might otherwise be lost or face active erasure. These archives are not simply collections of objects and ephemera, but a result of human networks and relationships. Archival practices emerge in this context as practices of communing, collaboration and resistance. The Archive is a Gathering Place was critically concerned with questions of access, preservation and protection, and what it means to care for collectively owned archives that face precarity.

The symposium, held on 24 May, and festival, held on 25 May, brought together artists, archivists and digital practitioners to discuss the futures of collectively owned archives and community generated digital content. The videos in this publication present some of the conversations, presentations and performances. The publication also features a digital zine created in response to the programme.

The artists, cultural practitioners, researchers and collectives featured in this record of the programme consider archiving as a creative and political practice. They offer a range of perspectives on specific archives, reflections on collective practice, relationship and community building, design, curatorial interventions, memory work, and critical and imaginative ideas towards building just digital futures.

For further details about the programme, please refer to the project and event pages.

Watch talks and panel discussions

Watch performances and readings

Explore the digital zine

Conversational threads, references, questions and quotations from the programme are brought together in a digital zine, designed by the artist Rose Nordin. The zine, which includes links to individual videos, can be downloaded here.

The Archive is a Gathering Place forms part of Our Heritage, Our Stories: Linking and Searching Community-Generated Digital Content to Develop the People’s National Collection, a Discovery Research Project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), as part of the Towards a National Collection programme.1

Contributors to the publication: Ajamu X, Zena Agha,* Alia Al-Sabi,* Rhoda Boateng, Eddie Bruce-Jones, Topher Campbell, Janice Cheddie, Lauren Craig, Leyla Degan, Christine Eyene, Tao Leigh Goffe, Aleema Gray, Rosemary Grennan, Thai Jones, Naima Hassan, Abeera Kamran, Rita Keegan, Christine Kirubi, Kaitlene Koranteng, Vasundhara Mathur, Ellie Porter, Kareem Samara,* Anasuya Sengupta and Mindy Seu.

Additional participants in the programme: Imruh Bakari, Sarah Carne, Phoebe Beckett Chingono, Althea Greenan, Damilola Lemomu, Mandy Merzaban, benjin Pollock, Lamya Sadiq, Jordan Taylor, June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive, PageMasters and MayDay Rooms.

The Archive is a Gathering Place programme was curated by Vasundhara Mathur.

^{* At the request of the artist(s) their talk or performance will be added at a later date.}