Symposium explores Black memory
The exhibition “Archives for Black Lives: A Liberated Archives” has been on view in the Knight Library since fall term. The exhibition centers on education, documentation, and preservation of history. Through a partnership with the City of Portland Archives, the organization Don’t Shoot Portland gained access to material that informs current systems. These educational assets are vital to sustaining social change and building on these dialogues through a historical context.
To commemorate the closing of the exhibition, the Knight Library is bringing together speakers and members of the UO community for a two-day symposium that will explore the significance of Black memory as it intersects with archives and museums. “A Liberated Archives Experience: Black Memory, Social Justice, Art, and the Archive” will take place February 23 and 24, 2023 in the Knight Library Browsing Room and the DREAM Lab. This event is cosponsored by the OHC’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities.
Archivist Bill Doggett will talk about the significance of early recorded sound and how technology commercialized structural racism with the phonograph and the phonograph record. Doggett’s research explores how the convergence of race, music, and technology aligned at the dawn of the 20th century to create a recalibration of 19th-century “Lost Cause” Confederate nostalgia which defined and shaped our understanding of race and racial hierarchy in both the 20th and 21st centuries. He is the nephew of Bill Doggett, the renowned 1950s Rock ’n’ Roll, R&B, and jazz organ headliner.
La Tanya Autry will conduct a workshop “Arts & Social Justice Workout” for students. Students will be asked to explore the challenges and possibilities of cultural work, and to develop their own ethos and analyses of existing power structures. Autry is a cultural worker, curator, and educator committed to liberatory praxis.
The event will culminate in a conversation between Autry, Doggett, and Teressa Raiford. They will share experiences of working both within and outside of cultural institutions, and the power of art to activate issues of social justice. Raiford is the founder of Don’t Shoot Portland, a Black-led and community driven nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, that advocates for accountability to create social change in the spaces of human rights and racial justice. A reception and tour of the “Archives for Black Lives: A Liberated Archives” exhibition will follow. Information: library.uoregon.edu