• Imagining LIS Futures Together: Mail Art with ArLiSNAP x Artifacts

    Author(s):
    Sam Regal (see profile)
    Date:
    2022
    Subject(s):
    Career development, Art, Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.), Critical thinking
    Item Type:
    Conference poster
    Tag(s):
    2022 ARLIS/NA Conference, Art librarianship, Professional development, Critical making
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/wkqy-ex16
    Abstract:
    "Imagining LIS Futures Together: Mail Art with ArLiSNAP x Artifacts" details a creative initiative conceived to build relationships between early-career professionals and to make space for reflection and reconceptualization toward critical library practice. Though the majority of burgeoning art librarians may appreciate the importance of diversely representative, inclusive, and decolonial library and archive spaces, there is little widespread institutional support for the work of imagining/reimagining praxis. Early-career professionals, with new depths of critical insight and keen activist energy, have the capacity to catalyze substantive change in the LIS field. This project, which kicked off in November of 2021, challenged students and new professionals to reflect on their critical, ethical, and activist positioning and to translate that positioning into literal or theoretical praxis. Participants were tasked with creating pieces of original, mailable art that responds, directly or abstractly, to these central provocations: what can we do to exist as decolonial agents within institutional spaces? How can we reflect our ethical positioning in our work? What does it mean to engage in critical art librarianship, more broadly? Rather than seeking discrete answers to these important questions, the intention was rather to engage in this thinking--this future-imagining--together. Once the art was completed, it was collected into a zine and mailed back to participants. The intimate act of mailing and receiving mail reflected the vulnerability required of reformist and abolitionist imagining. Though our present may feel deeply fraught, this project was conceived as an intentional, energetic act of creation towards a more equitable and livable future.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    11 months ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

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