This talk will address theories and practices of vulnerability within audio-visual archives, anchoring in the practices of the Vulnerable Media Lab. Audio-visual cultural heritage has not been cared for equally and the cultural practices of women, LGBTQ2, Black, migrant, and Indigenous peoples are in urgent need of a dedicated archival framework and a differentiated archival praxis. The talk emerges from the intersection of two projects: the Archive/Counter-Archive research project and the Vulnerable Media Lab, both dedicated to the study of community-based archive and media collections and collectives through the preservation, migration, and remediation of the rich and varied audio-visual production by diverse communities. Key objectives of these projects are to work with “born digital media” alongside a variety of “obsolete” and “marginal” media, all of which share their own kinds of material vulnerabilities, and to engage in new conversations about preserving and making accessible cultural heritage.

Cosponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. Organized by Lázaro González, a doctoral student in the UC Berkeley Department of Film & Media.