Welcome to Archive/Counterarchive

Archives in Action Public Plenary | 6pm, July 10, Innis Town Hall, Toronto

A circular logo on a white background that says "Archives in Action" in stylized sans-serif font.

Archives in Action: Collectivities and Kinships

Archives in Action Public Plenary
July 10, 6 pm – 8:30 pm
Innis Town Hall, Innis College, 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5

6 - 7 pm: 
Lobby Reception. Catering provided by Levant Pizza


7 - 8:30 pm: 
Public plenary

This is a free and public event, however, we do ask interested attendees to
please register here Eventbrite Registration link.

ASL interpretation will be provided.

Roundtable Moderator

Roundtable Participants

Plenary Description:

This plenary brings together academics, cultural workers, and community practitioners to discuss key access, creative, and policy issues affecting marginalized audiovisual archives in Canada. Drawing from professional experience and recent archives-related research, plenary participants will address pressing issues that communities face vis-à-vis the preservation and exhibition of, and access to, vulnerable audio-visual heritage. Considering these media archives through creative and policy lenses, overlapping critical tensions emerge and constitute a rich area for praxis-based interventions. From a material preservation perspective, the lack of financial and technological infrastructure increases the urgency of digitizing decaying recorded media, which capture an against-the-grain portrait of Canadian cultural narratives and identities. Addressing this lack, preservation efforts in which academic, artists, and activist communities collaborate reveal uneven power dynamics. A counter-archival response to this issue involves the development of a reciprocity-focused, non-extractive approach to a project’s governance and activation. More particularly, the plenary invites discussion about some of the possibilities and challenges concerning the implementation of counter-archival practices on community, national, and 2 international levels. These include contemporary issues relating to intellectual ‘property’ rights management, remuneration structures, and modes of (in)access to archival material. As a praxis-centered roundtable, we aim to name, identify, and discuss tactics for ethics, practices, and legacies of care in archival practices, rooting our discussions in lived experience, best practices, and lessons learned. 

As a public event for the Archives in Action symposium, the plenary draws on lessons learned in the multi-year SSHRC-funded Archive/Counter-Archive project (https://counterarchive.ca/), particularly through the work of the Cultural Policy, IP, and Rights Ecosystems Working Group, to help set the stage for the upcoming international conference, Global Audio Visual Archiving (GAVA) Conference (https://counterarchive.ca/gava-2024).

Participant Bios:

Mark V. Campbell is a DJ, scholar and curator. As founder at Northside Hip-Hop Archive, Dr. Campbell is currently the Principal Investigator in the SSHRC funded research project, Hip Hop Archives: The Poetics and Potentials of Knowledge Production. He is co-editor of Hip Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of Knowledge Production with Murray Forman. Dr. Campbell is Associate Professor of Music and Culture and founder of the Afrosonic Innovation Lab. 

Stacey Copeland is Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage & Identity at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. From radio archives to podcast platforms, Copeland’s research focuses on queer feminist politics and aesthetics in sound media. As co-director of the Amplify Podcast Network, she actively works to produce publicly accessible sonic scholarship that bridges research and creative practice. 

MaryElizabeth (“M.E.”) Luka is Assistant Professor, Arts & Media Management, at University of Toronto, where she examines modes and meanings of co-creative production and distribution in the digital age for arts, culture, and media, particularly as these address social justice and inclusion in society. ME 3 co-leads the Archives in Action symposium, and chairs the Archive/Counter-Archive Cultural Policy Working Group. 

Ma̓la̓gius, Gerry Lawson is from the Heiltsuk Nation and currently manages the Oral History and Language Lab at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. With over 20 years in the field of Information Management and Heritage Digitization, he works to develop practical, scalable resources for Indigenous cultural heritage preservation, and to decolonize information practices. Gerry also acts as the Technology Lead for the UBC Indigitization Program and sits on the Board of Directors for the Indigenous Heritage Circle. 

Leslie Supnet is the Executive Director of the Winnipeg Film Group, since 2022. She has an experimental filmmaking and animation practice and completed her MFA in Film Production at York University in 2016. Leslie’s works have screened at festivals such as TIFF, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), International Film Festival Oberhausen, Images Festival, and more, and has commissions for Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, ArtSpin/Pleasuredome, Film POP!/POP!, Plug In ICA and WNDX Festival of Moving Image. She has taught animation at various artist-run centres across Canada, sessionally at OCAD University, and through TIFF’s Reel Comfort Program. She has mentored emerging artists through the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), the Toronto Queer Film Festival (TQFF), and Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), and has served on artist-run Boards since 2007.

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