Editors Note

Welcome to the twelfth issue of Acid Free, a biannual online publication of the Los Angeles Archivists Collective. 

This issue arrives at the end of a devastating year.  As we contemplate what the future holds, issues of control seem to touch every aspect of what we can conceive.  In archives, as elsewhere, control is a dynamic thing. Too often, it involves issues of authority and marginalization.  And yet control, when it implies the power to name and define, is essential to combating ongoing erasure and healing unresolved historical trauma.  Agency is integral to repair and reparation.

In this issue, we hear about community-centered collecting and redescription projects in a variety of contexts. At the Archives of American Art, efforts are underway to redescribe collections related to African American art and artists in a way that honors their creators’ identities.  At the Getty,  the African American Art History Initiative sets the stage for a Bibliographer to expand the library’s collections of African American art. To the North, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (TWN) is developing archives to preserve the knowledge and histories of its people and to challenge settler power structures in British Columbia, Canada. And to the East, the Village of Ossining, New York, is addressing the absence of Black voices and communities in its historical record, particularly through the work of its Village Historian.

Archives and records also form the core of demands for justice.  Movements for records justice in Los Angeles and New York seek access to documentation of police misconduct and community surveillance, transforming them from carceral weapons to vehicles for justice.  At UCLA, an abolitionist digital project partners with the Freedom Archives and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners to amplify the voices of incarcerated people.

Control generates resistance in various ways, as we see in the creative output of the Polish School of Posters at the time of the People’s Republic. Finally, we consider the dynamics of power and authority in academia and archives as we revisit the legacy of an influential philosopher.

We hope you enjoy this issue, and as always we would love to hear from you! Email Acid Free at acidfree@laacollective.org, or give us a shout out @laacollective.

Redescribing African American Collections at the Archives of American Art

Rayna Andrews discusses some of the concerns and processes that guide her work as part of the Henry Luce Foundation African American Collecting Initiative at the Archives of American Art.

Because We Can, and Because We Must
 

Denise Mc Iver discusses the need to elevate Black voices and communities in archival collections, and describes the efforts underway in her hometown of the Village of Ossining, New York.

Rebel Archives

Julia Tanenbaum, an MLIS student at UCLA, discusses creating the Rebel Archives, an abolitionist digital project in partnership with the Freedom Archives and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.

We're Coming for Your Records

Anna Robinson-Sweet explores the movement for records justice and details activists’ successful efforts in New York and Los Angeles to gain access to police records that document internal discipline and community surveillance programs.

Interview · Simone Fujita

Simone Fujita talks about her role as Bibliographer at the Getty and how the position, newly created as part of the African American Art History Initiative, functions within certain parameters while also expanding the underlying definitions that structure those parameters.

Fever Dreams

Kate Orazem broadens our lens on what lessons Derrida offers for students and scholars of archives, contextualizing his actions regarding his own archives alongside his oft-assigned theories of desire, power, and the law.  

Chasing the Monolith

Eng Sengsavang breaks apart the notion of the monolithic “archive” while describing her time working with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (TWN) and the greater mobilization of grassroots archival entities.

The Polish School of Posters

Susan Malmstrom and Annamaria Roskewitsch discuss creative resistance to state censorship in the output of the Polish School of Posters, via collections at the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography Archives.

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Issue 11: Fictions

Issue 10 · Roots

Issue 9 · Movement

Issue 8 · Sex

Issue 7 · Space

Issue 6 · Design

Issue 5 · Organize

Issue 4 · Occult

Issue 3 · Awards

Issue 2 · Disasters

Issue 1 · Labor