archives & erasure

I think it’s also important to admit, to attest to, and to [bear] witness to the violence of the archive of slavery, which is about erasure. There are tick marks instead of names; it’s all about the slave’s relationship to the accumulation of wealth for another. The archive doesn’t tell us the story of someone’s life.

How can each piece of ‘writing’ be more than the sum of its parts? In broadening this view of time, I find particular resonance in the text 10 Theses on the Archive, written by founding members of the Public Access Digital Media Archive (Pad.ma). “Don’t wait for the archive,” they say to us, because: “To not wait for the archive is to enter the riv... See more

Collecting and archiving are ways to reclaim and own our attention—they are acts of meaning-making. These practices are rituals: habits and skills that demand time, patience, and a willingness to look beyond the surface.

To collect well is to resist algorithmic influence. A true collection reflects deeply personal values and a genuine desire to know... See more

The person those entries were about hasn’t crossed my mind in months. But, at the moment, it was potent. It was real to me. Now? I couldn’t even tell you what the color of their eyes were. Isn't that just the most 20-something, melodramatic moment of intensity? Where it feels like both nothing and everything matters? I live, live, live for that.