Course of Study

• Week 1: Grounding with ourselves, our pasts, and each other

• Week 2: Digging into & outside of archives

• Week 3: Crafting ourselves into ancestral moments

• Week 4: Reconnecting with ancestral crafts, practices, and knowledge

• Week 5: Evoking non-visual senses

• Week 6: Hiding virtual artifacts & portals

• Week 7: Making paper worlds

• Week 8: Prototyping projects

• Week 9: Workshopping projects

• Week 10: Sharing projects

Expectations

Disclaimer

• This is a class made for BIPOC participants. Asian, Black, and Brown applicants will be especially prioritized in the application review process.

Time & Workload

• You can expect to do assignments between classes, including small projects, drawing/journaling, reading, watching, or listening. Expect about 3-4 hours each week.

• Over the last 3-4 classes, this will increase somewhat as we prepare our final projects - this could take the form of virtual enclave-building or possibly paper enclave building using techniques we’ll learn in class.

Technical Experience

• You can expect to learn a variety of creative techniques ranging from digital to papercraft as forms of reconnecting with ancestors, to build skills and self-support systems for engaging with archives and ancestry, and to be in a mutually supportive group who are taking steps on similar journeys.

Materials

• A laptop and smartphone. Some family or archival photos you are in relationship with or wish to deepen your personal relationship with.

Is this class for me?

This class may be for you if:

• You are on a journey of reconnection with your heritage or ancestry

• You are interested in how your creative process (be it writing, crafting, singing, cooking etc) helps you on such a journey

• You are navigating a complex relationship with archival materials (and potentially their colonial legacies)

• You wish you could step into a picture of your grandparent and look around

This class may NOT be for you if:

• You want to build advanced 3d modeling skills

• Your interest in archival materials does not feel deeply personal

• You think you would probably be perfectly comfortable if you were transported into the past

Testimonials

• “I really loved learning about how this new tool could be used to create a multi-sensory, multi-dimensional, spatial memory of a place/feeling of a place. I loved how it was taught in an entertaining way (our instructor as a bird), and just really helped me put myself out of the box to think differently.”

• “It felt both cozy and vastly magical.”

• “Loved the chances for small connections and shared insights across memory enclaves -- that's what makes memories so wonderful, the capacity for people in your present to build upon them! Also the specific suggestions that were preemptively typed up prior to the workshop -- felt like they were not just wonderful suggestions but that they also came with readily available pathways of execution on that day.”