COVID – Archivist's Alley:

S4.7: Ferrin Evans : Queer Loss, Marginalized Experiences and Demanding a Seat at the Table

Once again, I must apologize for the long period it has been between recording this and it going live.
I fear that the entirety of Season 4 is going to have some…bumps…in it because there were many moments in the last 6 months where I did not feel comfortable posting a new episode and having any attention taken away from a) what was going on in the news (the protests, etc) or b) lessen the wonderful words of my guests. So you’ll have to just sorta deal with the fact that some of the topics on here are a little dated but it’s interesting to consider them in light of what then occurred AFTER this conversation, for better or worse.
Whatever life is, it is far from boring….

I will also apologize for myself. I got far too excited during this podcast episode and I think I spoke over Ferrin too much and I regret that because while editing it, I realized that there was so much more I wanted to know about and wanted to ask him but I was having such a good time with the kind of energy that he exudes, even over a vocal virtual communication system that I almost forgot what we were there for.
I will have him on again and I promise to be a much better listener next time. Wow am I embarrassed! But it just goes to show Ferrin’s charisma and brilliance. What an incredible human being. I hope you all can get a feel for the groundbreaking work he is doing, the passion he has for life and living and the way he conquers his (and the) world. It’s stunning. Like him.

As usual, bio and links under the podcast!

Ferrin Evans is a Master of Information candidate at the University of Toronto. He currently has two media archiving contracts at the university: at the Media Commons Archive and at the Sexual Representation Collection. In the past, he has worked with the Gay Archives of Quebec, Inside Out Toronto, Toronto Queer Film Festival, Cinema Politica, and the MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, where he served on the Board of Directors. He is currently completing an oral history-centered thesis about risk, desire, and loss on Fire Island during COVID-19.

LINKS:

Article related to my most current media archival work at University of Toronto:http://sds.utoronto.ca/news/new-acquisitions-at-the-sexual-representation-collection/
SAA Community Reflection on Black Lives and Archives (June 2020):https://www.pathlms.com/saa/events/1996/video_presentations/162192
“Treat Them with the Reverence of Archivists”: Records Work, Grief Work, and Relationship Work in the Archiveshttps://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13699

S4.6: Shannon Devlin: Emotional Investments, Good Relationships & the Trouble With Graduation

My utmost apologies for the lengthy time between last podcast release and this one. Things have been a little busy and then just a little wonky around here. I’m sure that everyone can understand that, considering the Pandemic is pretty much making our lives which may not have been stable before…very much less so.

However, I am quite sorry to any listeners who like listening regularly if they missed having stable show “ness” and to the guests whose episodes I recorded before my brief few week break.

However, now I’m back in action and diving right in with my wonderful, talented and eloquent friend Shannon. I wish so much I could give her a hug right now. She’s so sweet and just has the best energy. I think you will hear it in our conversation. What a great asset to media archives and preservation and (for me personally) what a great pal to have!

As usual, here’s the podcast, and bio and cool links are below! Check out those links!

Shannon Devlin (she/they), is a film and media archivist, and recent graduate of the Master of Library Science program at Indiana University. While there she specialized in Archives and Records Management, and worked both for the Indiana University Moving Image Archive as well as for the Mass Digitization Preservation Initiative as an assistant to the Audiovisual Specialist. She was the 2019 Roselani Media Preservation Intern at the University of Hawaii at West Oahu’s ‘Ulu’ulu Moving Image Archive, and is currently working in the film lab at Memnon Archiving Services as well as continuing her role at the Indiana University Moving Image Archive.

Links:

IU Moving Image Archive

MDPI

Memnon @ IU

‘Ulu’ulu

S4.5: Miranda Barnewall: Advocacy, Career Examinations and Material Importance

I loved speaking to Miranda. She’s an absolute jem. And I believe that the route that she’s taking is one that will revolutionize the way the archives/information studies field interacts with its staff and employers.

Pairing social work concerns with preservation is the what we should be going for. For us to look towards care and compassion for those who are doing the work alongside WORKING is (in my mind) the dream.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. Miranda is a really important woman with many critically important observations and experiences. As usual, the bio is right under the podcast!

Miranda Barnewall is a film archivist who has an equal passion for the films she preserves and the people who work alongside her. She received a BA in Film Studies from THE™ Ohio State University in 2016 and a certificate in Film Preservation from The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation in 2017. Miranda’s interest lies in how to strengthen the film archiving field’s infrastructure, advocating for archivists, and how to make film archiving a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive field. While movies became her passion in high school, Miranda rediscovered her first love of reading once she had her first grown-up job. During her free time, she is most likely reading one of the twelve books piled next to her or scrolling through Goodreads adding another book to her to-read list.

S4.4: Claire Fox: Best Case Scenarios, Metadata Milieus & Graduating in a COVID-19 Landscape

Claire & I recorded this podcast in May before she officially graduated and before the COVID landscape went to The Really Extra Bad Place that it seems to be at now.
I delayed the ep due to the critical nature of the discussion of the Black Lives Matter issues that needed to be handled but I feel that what Claire and I spoke about is still incredibly relevant and her points on the internships she had and the possibilities of rehabilitation of our field post-COVID are solid and worth considering.
Claire is an amazing and valuable member of the archival world & I am so pleased to be able to have had her on the show twice now!

QUICK NOTE FROM THE PODCASTRESS:

Season 4 is clearly going to be a unique season. What I thought would be a series of conversations centered on mental health, physical health, archiving and preservation in terms of a pandemic will now be returning to some of the major themes that I have looked at and highlighted throughout my show: racism, systemic oppression, horrific violence in all kinds of ways.

But here is what is crucial: discussing COVID-19 and the way that BIPOC experience “America” and “Justice” are parallel and as such they should be talked about within the same context. What I would like to set out to do in the episodes that I record from this point forward, is attempt to connect these things and also work with how that effects the archives community.

That said, I want to state that I have some already recorded episodes that do not follow what I have stated in the above paragraph but are still incredibly valuable (much like Claire’s) and I believe that they truly deserve a good listen. These individuals from our community continue to provide us with the inspiration and hope we need to continue to do The Work however we are doing it in whatever way we choose to participate.

Keep on keepin’ on!

-Ariel

See below podcast as usual for Claire’s kickass bio, and thank you for your patience and continuing to listen.

Claire Fox (she/her/hers) is a recent graduate from the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program at New York University. Her graduate research focused on topics in time-based media art conservation and community archiving, and she completed internships at the New Museum, IndieCollect, Yale University Library, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art

S4.2: Sydney Perkins: Of Kaiju, “Right People” and How Little COVID-19 Has Changed Life as an Archivist

******** UPDATE TO BLOG *********
Since this was recorded, my guest made some wonderful positive discoveries about herself and moved forward on them. Unfortunately, that made some of the information in this recording no longer valid and rather painful.
A statement from my guest:

“I do not go by the name used in this episode or later ones anymore, and even at the time I was privately aware of the distress that name was causing me. It is completely unacceptable to ever refer to me by that name or record it in any context anymore. Also my pronouns are she/they now.”

I have thusly changed all blog information (including photo) to match her truth, and you will only find the aforementioned references within the recordings. We both felt (as archivists) that it would be a shame to completely delete the podcast but it is my responsibility to support and platform my guests and not do them harm.

I believe that changing information based on these critical life issues need to be attended to, now and always. I hope others do the same.

*******************

I’m thrilled to pieces to welcome my beloved friend and colleague Sydney Perkins to Archivist’s Alley. More importantly, she is my first REAL GUEST from my new home base here in Paju, South Korea!
I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I liked having it.
She is a really special person to me in all kinds of ways and beyond talented. She is funny, charming and delightful. I wish you could all meet her in person. When I say on the podcast that I respect her and wish that I was as talented as she is, I am not even lying. She’s impressive. We should all be so lucky to be as engaged, passionate and gifted in our chosen line of work as my darling pal Sydney is.
As usual, profile and bio below, plus a few frames of the super cool font presentation we talk about on the ‘cast!!!

QUICK NOTE:
As I’ve been here and as things have been getting weirder and more worrisome all over the world, I decided that, as an archivist, archival activist and advocate for change (especially in terms of platforming invisible voices via my podcast) I wanted to cover how COVID-19 is hitting (or not hitting) the people in our community. So if you are reading this and you are a media specialist, historian, information professional of any kind and identify as POC, LGBTQI, differently abled, woman-identifying, or any other marginalized group that my privileged white ass may have not covered (and for which I deeply apologize), please hit me up here archivistsalley@gmail.com

Sydney Perkins is an enthusiastic film arqueervist who loves handling and researching film and thinking of creative approaches to restoration. Currently she is unemployed and probably working on a shitpost for Archivist Memes.