Archive Find of the Week

by Kiani 2 Comments

A small green journal containing entries from early 2000s. Contains entries noting details about performances, to do lists, personal thoughts, and number lists. Telephone numbers of acquaintances and friends are scattered throughout pages. 

This object was of particular interest to me because of the nature of my project. I am interested in evoking the “archival body” as it appears in bodies of text. The journal is an obvious, yet appropriate, body of text. It evokes a fullness of a text while also alluding to bodies and spaces in the entries. In the pages of this journal, Ntozake Shange talks about spaces she’s inhabiting and other bodies that she’s interacting with. This object thus functions as an art object, a collection of memories, and a memorandum of physical activity.

I located this object in the Ntozake Shange papers at Barnard College and will be utilizing the permissions given to the Digital Worlds of Shange Class to use and publish choice sections and aspects of this journal.

I am not aware if there is any metadata associated with this item as I am almost certain I am the first to digitize the object.

Comments ( 2 )

  1. Kim Hall
    Lovely post Kiani. I am particularly interested in your evolving thoughts on the archival body, particularly on the relationship between the archival body and out actual bodies. Is the archival body a more expansive mode of embodiment because of its materiality? That is, it is a material trace of the sometimes ephemeral connections we have to others? Zakettes have the unique opportunity to shape Zaki's archive by creating metadata for your images. I hope everyone is using this opportunity!
  2. Kim Hall
    Kiani, I meant to put in my other comment that the location of the items in the Barnard archive is also metadata.

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