Ongoing (Vol. 1 released October 19, 2020)
Online

PROJECT WEBSITE

Loss/Capture is an ongoing exploration into the archives and collections that preserve and speak to the histories, experiences, culture, and lives of Sixty’s core communities. Volume one focuses on the state of Black cultural archives in and beyond Chicago.

Chicago is home to some of the longest-running Black publications, one of the first African American museums, and ceiling-shattering activists, artists, entrepreneurs, organizers, and scholars. Having such a rich history means Chicago is also home to incomparable archives that capture the quiet, monumental, and iconic people and movements that fuel this history.

While the value of these histories is undeniable, over the past decade many of Chicago’s Black collections have become at risk of being lost. Whether it’s collections being acquired and relocated to other cities, institutional collections lacking caretaking resources and remaining inaccessible, materials being at constant risk of deterioration, or communities lacking access to the kind of information that would help them organize their own collections, Chicago is experiencing an erasure of African American history. And what’s happening in Chicago is being echoed in communities across the country.

It’s hard to feel settled in the present, and we feel the need to look to – and preserve – our past to know where and what we are. This special editorial project aims to explore and celebrate Black cultural heritage and its prospects for liberation.

Loss/Capture, Vol. 1 is helmed by guest editors and archivists Steven D. Booth from the National Archives and Records Administration and Stacie Williams from the University of Chicago Library––both co-founders of the Blackivists––whose visions and work brought this project to life.

Alongside their own ideas, archive discoveries, and inquiries, Booth and Williams are presenting interviews, essays, timelines, conversations, and stories from archivists, curators, artists, and activists.

Featuring:

Ireashia M. Bennett
Dr. Melanie Chambliss
Tracy Drake
Asha Edwards
Steven Fullwood
Erin Glasco
Tempestt Hazel
Christina Shutt
Nita Tennyson
Arlene Turner-Crawford