Activating the Archive: An Overview of Media-Based Research-Creation projects across the Americas

On Wednesday August 24 I will be chairing a panel on media-based research-creation projects with colleagues, collaborators and members of cMAS. If you are participating in CALACS this year, please join us.

Sarah Shamash, Catherine Pearce, Maira Cristina Castro Mina, Daisy Quezada, Lois Klassen and Gabriel Juliano will present various creative engagements with Latin American Archives as valid forms of knowledge production. Understanding the Archive in its broadest sense— as a hegemonic institution, a collection of objects or documents, and a cumulus of embodied experiences passed on from generation to generation through oral traditions and lived experiences— the papers interrogate how creative media practices undo the silences produced by the Archive.
From interactive documentaries and art book publications to the use of streaming platforms and XR, the panellists address how digital platforms and inter/transdisciplinary approaches to digital and analog media creation increase the visibility of marginalized Latin American communities and their diasporas. Addressing the challenges of collaborative media production during the COVID pandemic, they describe methodologies and discuss how digital platforms and border crossings facilitated or challenged their circulation and production. Finally, through careful consideration of established and emerging technologies and media genres, panellists discuss the activation of existing archives by including new voices, mapping collaborations and inter-generational exchanges.

Wednesday, August 2 ( 2:00 – 4:00 pm PST)

– Sarah Shamash (University of British Columbia), “Activating Archives of Latinx Resistance on Coast Salish Territory”
– Catherine Collette Santos (Simon Fraser University), “The Archival and Game Elements of The Quipu Project”
– Gabriel Moura (Simon Fraser University), “Brazilian Rappers’ Use of Digital Technologies during COVID-19 times”
– Maira Castro (Simon Fraser University), “Tambadoras, Dancing with the Palo River and the Challenges of Gold Artisanal Mining in Guachané, Colombia”
– Lois Klassen (Simon Fraser University) and Daisy Quezada Ureña (Institute of American Indian Arts), “Artist Publishing and other ‘Aesthetic Actions’: Research-Creation Beyond Borders”