INTENTION

Lex

I think a lot of it is in that case, I mean, I think maybe it's, it's interesting in a museum because I don't know, like once someone's art is in a museum or connected to a museum,there's this idea that it's important, right, and it is, you know, in whatever way but that person already thinks of their things as important in some ways. And I spend a lot of time with people who maybe don't think of their stuff as important. Or, yeah, maybe they do but they don't think other people would think that it's important. And so it's trying to support people to see on a collective or individual level like that, and trying to make an intervention on that all the time, which is kind of hard. But yeah, important. Yeah.

Vita

Yeah, definitely. That's what I admire, from what I know about the work that you do. There is a kind of intimacy about the care of memory work in a community based practice and teaching people that what they have is valuable when they might not have thought that it was valuable.

Lex

I think something I like about the community archives and my family history stuff, is like, sometimes I want things to stay scrappy a little bit because it's closer to the ground, closer to people. But then, of course, obviously resources are important and we should have them and people should have them. These types of archives and materials and stories deserve to be resourced in a way that will preserve them. But it's always complicated because of what comes with that.

Vita

Yeah, I think it's true that the intention was to gather all this information of Black art and bBlack creative practice, and safeguard it and steward it. I think this is what is the case with many museums, it just takes so long to realize that there's like a room full of stuff. And then you're like, oh, we have to do something with that stuff. And now there is a push to really uncover what was there. A lot of my work is to make a case why it's so important to continue to maintain but also to, to give access to it.