Emerging archives

It all started when…

The radical act of archiving, with the intent to preserve and restore histories against domination, is often a beautiful and intimate point of connection between artists, their own lineages, and the interconnected communities both within and beyond the archive. Inspired by the vitality of communal collections of photographs, letters, and material culture thriving outside of traditional institutions, I wonder...

How might we animate and tend to our shared legacies? Which stories do we choose to tell and why, and how do they connect to others? In what ways are we mindful of the impact our current archiving practices have on our ways of knowing and being? Entwined with a sense of care and critique, the emergent archive activates relationships, bearing witness to stories both told and intentionally untold.

Through this exhibition, I welcomed submissions from artists who are illuminating dynamic relationships to archives, defined broadly as collections of memories utilizing “found photographs”, [re]presentations of records, etc.

To view the online exhibition, please follow this link: https://nyphotocurator.com/emerging-archives-shauna-caldwell

To read a conversation between Marissa Stewart and shauna caldwell, please follow this link: https://nyphotocurator.com/emerging-archives-shauna-caldwell/first-place-marissa-stewart/1