Who Am I

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In today’s class we each had an oppurtunity to speak about the principles and values that underpin our teaching practice. In light of this I put together a collection of slides that demonstrated how social justice is the foundation for my teaching pedagogy.

I’m interested in working with students to develop and deepen their understanding of different cultural histories, whilst encouraging a critique of the Western canon of art, archiving practices and philosophies. I therefore decided to read the article ‘Archiving Critically: Exploring the communication of cultural biases’ by Hannah Grout, as a way to delve into the subject of how positionality affects how we learn/teach others, and how this relates to the history of archiving, and how this can be considered through a social justice lens.

Grout’s article explored the relationship between what is archived and how this impacts people’s approach to learning from the material provided in the archive. There was disturbing evidence that if cultural biases dictate what/how/if things are archived, then those biases also influence the way audiences are taught to engage with and observe archives, leading to canon’s that uphold racist, sexist and ableist pedagogies. To correct this, it’s important for current pedagogic practices to acknowledge the historical dearth of archives that capture the histories of female, BAME, lower income, LGBTQI+ communities (to name but a few), and work towards changing this endemic biased behaviour. Grout argues that engaging with archives in a critical manner can allow us to use them in our pedagogic practices as a tool to interrogate and develop teaching and learning. If efforts are made to consider how to re-engage with archives through inclusive practices, we can consider the following questions during current and future archiving and learning practices.

How do we go beyond only critiquing institutional archives, to reshaping and diversifying them?

How do/can we dismantle cultural biases that archivists and institutions may practice? 

How do we encourage people who have been excluded from inclusion in archives to engage with this practice?

Should they create their own?

I contemplated these questions as I thought about how to talk about my teaching pedagogy with my fellow students via a five minute presentation. I soon realised that I could use my presentation to highlight archiving practices that work to address the imbalance of exclusionary archiving methods, and I shared slides that showed archive resources that were created by POC, LGBQTI+ and international students to demonstrate how alternative archiving can challenge the inequities of historical archiving practices.

The first example I shared of this is provided below in the image below.

A snippet from the artist’s website Danielle Brathwaite Shirley’s BLACKTRANSARCHIVE.COM, this image is a snapshot into the immersive experience available to those who decide to engage with the online archive Danielle created to gather and honour Black Trans lives. Via gaming software design, Danielle has created an interactive online platform that allows the participant to engage with the archive as either a cis (heterosexual), trans or Black Trans individual to create a space that acknowledges and honours Black Trans people and holds the memory of those who have been erased from history and forgotten. Before engaging with the archive Danielle herself states that, “your own identity will determine how you can interact with the archive”. Openly addressing the importance of positionality, Danielle has created an archive that functions in multiple ways, as it allows for people from different identities to participate in a way that takes into account the relationship between who we are and how this affects our behaviour, and in this case, how we access and engage with the pro Black Trans archive she’s created. It’s interesting to see how someone has taken action to produce an archive for a community of people as a form or resistance and celebration. Danielle has demonstrated the opportunities there are for individuals to create and produce their own archival material, and this is important as it helps us realise there are alternative histories and ways of including them in learning resources we share with our students. Merewether states in Grout’s essay, ‘concepts of the archive have been defined, examined, contested and reinvented by artists and cultural observers.’ As this quote demonstrates, Danielle is amongst many who are engaging with the task of undoing and repositioning the way we relate to and engage with archives, and this work is relevant to us as teachers as it asks us to question what/how we present material to our students .

Another example of such is an alternative archive that UAL student’s contribute to, called Tell Us About It. The archive is made up of artefacts that UAL students of colour have created and shared for students and teachers alike to look at and use as a contemporaneous learning resource. Shades of Noir (an anti racist platform) started this project as a way to produce learning material that could be used to develop people’s understanding of what UAL graduates had experienced during their studies and it’s a great resource for students who are looking to use research material that is eclectic, student led and wide ranging in theme and production. The archive acts as a way to create a safe learning space for those who engage with it, offering people who are from different circumstances a place to feel seen and heard, ”we’ve used it in student workshops for brand new students from overseas, to help them sort of settle in a bit and see what kind of things they might experience along the way, studying in London.” The desire to build an awareness of students’ needs and experiences is addressed by this archive, it acts as a tool to help bridge the gap between those who are unfamiliar with studying in London, whilst allowing others to better understand International students’ experience of studying in a new place. Creating an emphatic and open dialogue is a brilliant way to think about how an archive can exist and how it can be used by students to teach one another/their tutors. This work is exemplary of action being taken to produce archives that differ from traditional forms of archiving. The fact that it is digital, for example, makes it accessible to people in a way that isn’t always possible when considering how to access objects in museums or universities. It can be looked at anywhere, anytime.

Finally, Adrian Piper was the focus of my attention. A one woman band who is the epitome of a living archive, Adrian has spent many years of her life documenting performances and interactions with people in both public and private spaces, as a way to explore, critique, assess, experience the depth of her identity, and other’s reaction/relationship to it.

Working in a range of mediums (performance, drawing, writing, film, sound) Piper is a great example of creating a living archive as a document of a practice that engages with identity in both a public and personal way. Piper has worked performatively throughout her career, and considering how she records these public/private actions helps us to think about how we can document our practice as a form of archiving. She presents the idea that artists themselves can record their work as an ongoing activity. This is an important example for students, as it can be used to help them consider not only the importance of documentation when it comes to assessment, but also for their practice outside of art school. By keeping a record of what she made, Piper took control of a situation, demonstrating how POC who are underrepresented in museums, galleries, universities etc. can create their own alternative histories, using archiving methods as a tool for this. Piper is an important reference as she provides another example of someone forging their own path, centring their experiences as something valid and real.

The premise of Grout’s article is that, ‘In the same way that scholastic institutions teach critical thinking skills to students, in order to develop their work and learning, these same skills would enable those delivering and facilitating teaching to identify points of bias and presumption in their respective practice.’ These artists and archives are examples of people using their positionality within society to provide examples of alternative practices/experiences/perspectives. They show us how we can identify ways to challenge biases by consciously critiquing the material we share/the way we share archival practices and material with students. It was important that I shared the artist’s work above in my presentation as I wanted to show an example of inclusive learning material, borne from my desire to use social justice as the cornerstone of my teaching practice.

*For the purpose of this essay I chose the identity of a Black Trans person in order to demonstrate alternative archive perspectives