Open Dialogues at CPA 2024 

It is a space where participants interact with guest speakers and the larger public to discuss their burning questions from the ongoing archival work. Every month, we will reconvene once.

The video recordings will be made available on our YouTube channel very soon. 

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In the fourth and last open dialogue of the series at CPA 2024, we will critically look at the emotional and experiential claims of an archive. We have invited Prasad Shetty and Sheena Maria Piedade to share their methodologies of building an archive or engaging with it through different community initiatives. Their contrasting practices come together as we look at aspects of healing and care in memory-keeping. However, it may also raise newer questions about the present and future of ethical interpretation. Perhaps, we cannot address it all at once, but let's get started! 

Let's look at the public impact of the archives...

We invite you to the third open dialogue of the series at Constructing Personal Archives 2024. Under this month's theme "Medium and Materiality of Archive Building," we have discussed the varying nature of archival materials, care for their physicality, and the probabilities of digital dissemination. 

In the third open dialogue, we will discuss how archives (or their absence) can affect socio-political narratives and popular culture, through the work and experiences of Dr. Monia Acciari and Tarun Bhartiya. We are keen on understanding how the projects at CPA can be informed by civic, cultural, and community perceptions. Invisible histories are less recognised, but they also have the potential to shift the prevalent narratives. In this dialogue, we will engage the speakers to tell us about societal, political, or personal shifts they might have encountered. Does it then change their relationship with the archives? 

Open dialogues are free for everyone to participate. But registration is required. 

Registration via Google form: https://forms.gle/Sy7XwBRgZnqgjkH2A

This month's theme is “Processes and Purposes of Archive Building”. The participants were urged to think of their journey through some exercises in the workshop module. Our invited community members also shed some light on their “processes”, whether it is about slowly building a resource center, weaving community-engagement approaches, or exploring pedagogical frameworks to pursue different kinds of archival projects.

We have now invited two guest speakers to address the latter part of the theme: the “purposes” of archive building. There are so many! But through their journeys as researchers and practitioners, Architect Deepika Gandhi and Architect Rabindra Vasavada will tell us about a few They have engaged with different kinds of archival materials and their fascinating experiences will lead us to newer imaginations of what an archive can become.

This month's theme at CPA 2024, “Steering Scale and Scope,” prompted participants to reflect on their archives and projects through an institutional lens. They explored strategies for building and processing collections, considering both short-term and long-term goals. The conversation centered around making archives accessible to a wide audience, balancing open interpretation with the multi-dimensionality of the objects collected, and navigating the immense task of archiving with purpose. Participants also discussed prioritizing objectives, determining the level of detail required, and addressing the many challenges that accompany the development of an archive.

Further to these discussions, on 26th October 2024, two guest speakers will engage in an open dialogue to share their experiences in archiving and storytelling. The dialogue will feature Malvika Bhatia, Archive Director at The Citizens' Archive of India, who will discuss how she established the archive to preserve oral histories and material memory, demonstrating how micro-histories can weave into the broader narrative of India. In contrast, Robin Debo will provide insights into using archives as tools for community engagement and neighborhood building. This dialogue will highlight the interplay between constructing, processing, and interpreting archives, offering a valuable perspective on core aspects of archive building & dissemination.