Tag: boundaries

S4.8: Candace Ming: Immediate Access, Weird Collectors, and the Necessity of Personal Time

As usual these days, I’m behind. I keep feeling like I’m going to catch up with myself and the podcast and maybe I will but it seems like life and this horrible pandemic and Other Stuff keep coming up.

But I want to reiterate that this podcast is still important to me and I am still extremely dedicated to it, even in the middle of whatever chaos is happening.
As usual, thank you for your patience and continued listening. I believe in you, these guests, and every conversation and issue that we discuss. It’s just that whole…life thing, amirite?

THAT SAID, I want to bring you an incredible conversation with an invaluable member of our archiving and preservation community, Candace Ming. When I first met them, I was so excited! To me, just hearing the name “Candace Ming” attached was legendary- they had always felt like superstar-tier. And then I got to hang out with them at an AMIA conference and it was so cool! I just felt like a million bucks!

Recording this was an absolute blast. And I really hope that you enjoy it and get as much out of it as I did. Candace is authentically one of the best humans with some GREAT things to say.

Two quick things:
-this was recorded before the elections so some of the conversation is a *wee* bit dated. This is what happens when life (my life) gets in the way of my podcast and a brilliant conversation. Again- apologies all around.
– please note that I used the pronouns “her/she” in the introduction and beginning of the show. These are not Candace’s preferred pronouns. The correct ones are they/them and those should be used going forward.

And now…Please enjoy the amazing Candace Ming on Archivist’s Alley! As usual, bio and copious links are below the podcast!

Candace Ming is the Media Conservation and Digitization Specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.  They are a graduate of NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. They have a wealth of experience as an archivist (Carnegie Hall Archives, Alaska Film Archives, Missouri History Museum) and as a film projectionist (Landmark Theaters in their native St. Louis). They are the former Project Manager/Archivist of the South Side Home Movie Project where they were responsible for digitizing and preserving all home movies donated to the SSHMP and also conducted community outreach. They are on the Board of Directors for the Center for Home Movies and the Association of Moving Image Archivists. they also serve as Secretary for the International Association of Audiovisual Archives Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee.

LINKS! CHECK ‘EM OUT!!!


https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAAHC.SC.0001?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=great+migration&i=0


https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/great-migration-home-movie-projecthttps://www.centerforhomemovies.org/


https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/https://sshmpportal.uchicago.edu/

Archivist’s Alley Goes to AMIA 2018- Claire Fox: Queer Community, Student-ing, and Navigating the Future

This year’s AMIA conference was wonderful. I personally feel like losing my voice to a whisper meant it was extra successful. I spent the entire time focusing on conversations about how to rearrange our field to genuinely reflect the community that it is made of and how to respect/pay respect to those of us who work tirelessly to make memory institutions less structured towards the elite and privileged. It was terrifically exciting! 
For a small taste, if you haven’t checked out the panel I was lucky enough to moderate, it can be found right here.

Spoiler alert: it’s mid-December & I’m still recovering 😀

One of the things I made sure to do while there is record a few podcast episodes with people live at the conference. So this conversation with Claire Fox is the first of a 3-part-series, you might say.  I am particularly enamored of this ep because we got into the intricacies of labor, queerness, being a student, and aspects of the AMIA Conference. I loved being able to talk about student things. THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT.

As usual, the episode is here and the guest’s links and bio are below.

But I want to include Claire’s statement first. It is 100% why I love doing this podcast and knowing that it has this effect on my colleagues & friends that are my guests makes me ecstatic:

AMIA was a transformative experience for me as a newcomer to the profession, and recording this episode similarly changed something within me. While I’ve talked with my peers and instructors about archival practice, and I’ve spoken about myself personally in different contexts, I don’t think I’d ever had anyone ask me about my experience as an archivist.  Many of the things I said during this episode had only existed in my head before. Articulating them verbally made me instinctively challenge my own ideas. It made me feel a little vulnerable. If you haven’t spoken out loud about your experience as an archivist — preferably with someone recording you — I absolutely recommend it!

Claire Fox is a first-year student in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program at NYU. She worked a handful of archival gigs prior to her time at MIAP, but you may know her best from serving you coffee, beer, or pizza in Seattle, Los Angeles, or New York. Lately, she’s been working on web archiving projects at the New Museum, and she looks forward to working on the database for the Queer Cinema Index at IndieCollect in the coming months.

BIO:
Claire Fox is a first-year student in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program at NYU. She worked a handful of archival gigs prior to her time at MIAP, but you may know her best from serving you coffee, beer, or pizza in Seattle, Los Angeles, or New York. Lately, she’s been working on web archiving projects at the New Museum, and she looks forward to working on the database for the Queer Cinema Index at IndieCollect in the coming months.

Links:
Twitter: @clairefox (https://twitter.com/clairefox)
Queer Cinema Index: https://indiecollect.org/initiatives_queer_cinema.shtml