What have we been up to this year?
Interference Archive has had a busy and amazing 2018. While settling into our new home on 7th Street, we held more than 100 free public events and hosted over 25 class visits from high schools and higher ed institutions, in addition to hosting open hours four days per week and providing remote research assistance to comrades from around the world.
We wanted to share a few of our highlights with all of you. In this email, you’ll find updates from volunteers on their favorite projects, working group highlights, a recap on the exhibitions we presented, and some things to look forward to at the start of 2019. A big thank you to all who have shared their time this year at the archive!
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News from our Working Groups
We have several active and engaged working groups that help power the archive, and new members are always welcome. Want to collaborate? Email info@interferencearchive.org to get connected.
Education Working Group
The Education working group has hosted several workshops this year. Highlights include
- four wikipedia edit-a-thons that increased online representation of social movements by using our collection as source material;
- hosting a workshop on end-of-life discussions;
- a series of programs on design and social justice with Anna Feigenbaum; and
- a 5 week absurd performance (no)work (no)shop with Hugh Sillitoe. In Sillitoe’s (no)work (no)shop, participants took inspiration from archival materials documenting past absurd and punk street actions, and developed characters and creatures (and most importantly, costumes). This all culminated in a public performative intervention outside Brooklyn Borough Hall and the adjoining federal courthouse.
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Participants in Hugh Sillitoe’s absurd performance (no)work (no)shop testing out their characters in the wild (Park Slope).
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Audio Working Group
Some highlights from Audio Interference and the audio working group over the past year include presenting Politics of Sound: Listening to the Archive, an event exploring the ways in which archiving sound can be a political act; publishing 13 episodes (with 1 more scheduled to be released by the end of 2018) covering the Seattle WTO Protests, Bread and Puppet Theater, Appalachian Movement Press, and more; celebrating our milestone 50th episode, a conversation between Carol Wells of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and Interference co-founder Kevin Caplicki; and presenting a workshop on field recording in public space, How Public is Public Space?.
Our episodes continue to be broadcast on Lumpen Radio in Chicago, WRFI in Ithaca, NY, and WRFU in Urbana, IL. And, stay tuned for news about an exhibition on pirate and community radio in Summer 2019.
Born Digital
The Born Digital working group is excited to be working with XFR Collective to set up a digital transfer station at Interference Archive. This will help us improve access to our moving image collection, and will create the opportunity for learning and sharing skills related to AV digitization.
Cataloging Working Group
For catalogers at Interference Archive, 2018 was marked by the *joy* of learning how to deal with ongoing server issues. We’re excited to have migrated our online catalog to a new server, and we’re working on software upgrades that will make it easier for everyone to search our collection online in 2019.
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Karaoke singers at the “Keeping it Cool” Benefit in September
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A year in exhibitions
Our ongoing exhibition series is a great way to start conversations about, and learn from, the material in our archive. Read to the bottom of this email for news on the next exhibition in 2019!
no. NOT EVER. January 18 – April 15
Interference Archive partnered with the Seattle-based collaborative If You Don’t They Will to present this exhibition— drawing from the collections of both organizations — which focused on the organizing strategies of rural and suburban grassroots groups who fought back against white nationalist attacks on their communities.
La Lutte Continue…The Struggle Continues …Lotta Continua…La Lucha Continúa… April 29 – May 26
50 years after the global uprisings of 1968, this exhibition looked back at the protests, demonstrations, and occupations that defined this moment of political unrest across a number of different nations and cultures—one of the last major instances of truly global protest.
Agitate! Educate! Organize! Agit Prop into the 21st Century June 12 – Sept 30
This exhibition reflected on historic and current uses of agitprop at the intersection of design and political organizing, and it included a programming series of propaganda parties in collaboration with local organizations.
Free Education! The Free University of New York, Alternate U, and Learning Liberation October 11–January 27, 2019
There’s still time to see this exhibition, kindly selected by Hyperallergic as a top Brooklyn art show of 2018! Ryan Wong writes that the ephemera on view “are a treat to read through, a reminder that the debt-free, anti-hierarchical, progressive school we need is not only possible, it’s already happening.”
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Some of our favorite moments from 2018
...a list of highlights shared by Interference Archive volunteers:
- Getting to know the new archive space on 7th Street (and meeting a great many people in the process)
- Hosting Radical Playdate Storytime with Sari Sari Storybooks and Callaloo Kids
- Making over $100 for IA by singing "War Pigs" and "Informer" during karaoke at our annual fundraiser. -- Leigh
- A group of teenagers visiting the archive on a Saturday afternoon to play records and board games (note: we have multiple copies of Class War. Come play with us!).
- Our Feminist Urbanism reading group and Wikipedia edit-a-thon inspired terrific conversation, resulted in a new Wikipedia article, and was included in the Now What?! exhibition by Architexx on advocacy, activism, and alliances in American architecture since 1968.
- Meeting students on class visits and orienting them to the archive -- Daniel
- The La Lutte Continue exhibition on the 50th anniversary of 1968 uprisings: it was good to look at France, Mexico, Italy, and around the globe in that year. I was a teenager when '68 happened and was energized by it then. Now, I learned new things about its successes, limitations. It was visually stimulating to engage with the silkscreen street posters. It was a long time ago, things have changed. But a non-capitalist, participatory society they were striving for is still being struggled for today. -- Duff
- Sharing amazing material from our collection through loans to other institutional exhibitions. We were so grateful to hear from students at Kenyon College about how a loan of exhibition material on the School of the Americas Watch impacted their studies. -- Jen
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Hanging out at our 2018 Holiday Open House
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How did we get all of this done?
You! Our monthly sustainers continue to help us cover our most important overhead costs every month: rent and utilities. You can join this effort by signing up as a sustaining member on our website.
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We’re also grateful to have received support this year for specific exhibitions, including grants from Brooklyn Arts Council and Humanities New York for our Agitprop and Free Education! exhibitions, respectively, and funding from the Wikimedia Foundation towards a series of edit-a-thons. And, we’re incredibly grateful to support from Metabolic Studio for their generous contribution to our operations this year.
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Looking ahead to 2019
We have some great programs on our calendar already for the coming year. Check them out and mark your calendars!
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HI-VIS: AUSTRALIAN POSTERS 1979–2019 opens on February 8, 2019. Curated by Alison Alison Alder, this exhibition of screen-printed posters provides a visual commentary of politics and life in Australia over the last four decades. Renowned for their high visibility, particularly in the 1980s with their saturated fluorescent colours, these posters describe the times and events that have engaged socially active artists throughout periods of major change. Read more info on our website.
Save the Date: Radical Archives Happy Hour
There’s nothing we love more than hanging out with folks who love archiving and who want to celebrate the work of radical archives. Join us on Thursday, February 7th from 6-8pm at Strong Rope Brewery in Gowanus for Radical Archives Happy Hour! Not only do we get to support an amazing local family-owned brewery, but $1 of every drink will go to Interference Archive. And, you can stick around past 8pm for live folk music!
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Interference in the Classroom: an archives orientation and discussion for educators
K-12 teachers (and beyond!) are invited to join members of the Education Working Group at Interference Archive on Thursday, January 17 from 6-7:30pm for an archives orientation and discussion about how we can use archival material with students in the classroom. Read more on our website.
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