Rooted in Memory: Personal Preservation and Archival Methods with Sierra King

The SGA Summer Workshop Series: Rooted in Memory highlights the value of Archives and Preservation in Black communities.  This 5-month series highlights the importance of preservation from knowledge production at the level of the body to institutional repositories.  These workshops center work of HBCU archives, archivists, and Black Memory Work(ers) and will take place during the Summer and Fall quarters of this year and will be open to the public.

Workshop: Personal Preservation and Archival Methods

Description: Your memories are important to the larger history of your family and your legacy. Your home and place of living becomes filled with things that over time deserve a bit more care than expected. This workshop is ideal for you if you are ready to begin the journey of preserving your memories guided by implementing new habits and routines into your daily life. Learn how to care for photographs, documents and other materials over time rather than being overwhelmed with a box of things too heavy to carry. You are encouraged to attend with a small sample of digital and/or physical photographs and documents to process in real time.

Sierra King is a multidisciplinary artist, archivist, and curator. Her introduction to archiving began with her Great-Grandmother, Annett L. Battle, a well-known child-care provider in the Collier Heights neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art from Valdosta State University. She is the founder of Build Your Archive, a memory work lab where Black Women Artists build their archives in real-time. In 2022, she was an Arts & Social Justice Fellow at Emory University in collaboration with Dr. Paul Bhasin, Director of the Symphony Orchestra. As of 2023, she is a Sweet Auburn Artist-In-Residence at Remerge Atlanta (@remergeatl) and Social Justice for Archivist Scholar Graduate Student at the University of Alabama.