WORKSHOPS
CURRENT OFFERINGS
DO NO HARM: ARCHIVAL PRACTICE AS CARE
A workshop on digitization ethics, oral history, and feminist archival practice.
Contact collectivememoryworkshop@gmail.com for booking, pricing, & questions.
As our world becomes increasingly digital, so do archives. Bringing materials online presents a unique set of challenges. This workshop will allow participants to learn and discuss the ethics surrounding digitizing personal cultural material and oral histories. It will examine key questions and challenges related to access, description, privacy, and ethics.
By looking at digital archival projects like The Feminist Institute, the NYC Trans Oral History Project and others, we will uncover core principles grounded in feminist ethics of care. We will put action to these core principles through discussing different praxis, like collaborative cataloging models, to learning about structures of reciprocity within archival project design.
This workshop is geared towards anyone interested in creating a portrait of their personal life or community and want to understand how their role implicates themselves as custodian of their subject’s legal, emotional and social well-being. This line of care work, called reciprocal ethnography, asks questions like, “how do we give agency to our narrators to be advocates of their own stories?”
Participants will get hands-on experience in wrestling with digitization ethical considerations, an oral history overview, and imagine together what can be created out of participatory archives. Workshop available in 2-hour, 4-hour, and all-day formats.
PAST OFFERINGS
The Impact of Digital Technology and Creating Public Access for Creating Archives, Presenter, JUNE 2025
Hosted by the LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project, The Feminist Institute, and the American LGBTQ+ Museum, this workshop focused on digital archiving within queer and LGBTQ+ communities. It showcased collaborative efforts to preserve and provide public access to important cultural materials, addressed challenges in digital preservation, and highlighted innovative projects centered on community involvement and archival justice. Participants gained insights into best practices for sustaining and sharing LGBTQ+ histories.
Ethical Digitization Considerations Workshop with Archivists Roundtable, facilitator, June 2024
This workshop, developed in collaboration with ART, METRO, and The Feminist Institute, explores ethical considerations in digitizing personal materials and conducting oral histories. Grounded in feminist ethics of care, we examined collaborative and community-centered approaches to archiving, including reciprocal ethnography and participatory cataloging. Participants engaged in hands-on exercises and reflective dialogue around consent, access, and relationship-building in archival work. Ideal for those interested in ethical, inclusive, and grassroots documentation practices.
Attention Collectors: Wikimedia Commons Needs You, facilitator, MAY 2024
This virtual workshop, hosted by The Feminist Institute and Art+Feminism, explored the benefits of uploading primary sources to Wikimedia Commons. Using examples from The Feminist Institute’s public digital archive, including materials from artist Dindga McCannon, the session highlighted the power of open access and information activism. Participants received practical training on how to upload materials, with hands-on opportunities to contribute their own. The workshop covered both the philosophical importance and technical steps of sharing archives openly.
TFI Pop-Up Memory Lab Workshop: Digitizing VHS, Hi8, and MiniDV Tapes, facilitator, March 2024
As part of the Pop-Up Memory Lab at Pen and Brush, The Feminist Institute offered a public workshop on digitizing VHS, Hi8, and MiniDV tapes. Participants received hands-on training from TFI staff and learned workflows to preserve their personal archives. The session also provided guidance on equipment purchasing and best practices for digital preservation.
Memory Labs as Participatory Archival Spaces: A Feminist Perspective, facilitator, November 2023
This workshop, hosted by Counter-Archive, explored the history and importance of Memory Labs as participatory archival spaces. Participants engaged in discussions and activities focused on community-building, political activism, and practical planning for Memory Labs in their own communities.
