Single Parent Archive is a growing archive that centers the multiplicity of experience connected to single parenting or caring for a dependent on one’s own. Co-founded with Marti Clemmons, the Single Parent Archive intersects identity, politics around care/care labor value, and archival/preservation practices.
As of current, the Single Parent Archive is still in the midst of strucutural development and has acquired a small collection. The collection contains poetic narratives, photography, interviews, scanned recipes, illustrations and more. The philosophy of the archive is to investigate alternative practices of archiving; to inquire and learn responsible modes of preservation that refuse the “capturing” and of objects/stories/experiences from communities; to find regenerative aspects of preservation.
The first collection of the archive is a series of conversations about audiotapes given to Portland State University by the feminist bookstore, In Other Words. The recordings are of mothers and fathers sharing stories about battling for custody of their children after coming out in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The audiotapes are closed to the public and there is little information identifiying who was recorded. Marti Clemmons, who works at the Special Collections and University Archives of Portland State University, found the tapes. We began researching possible folks associated with the tapes and recorded our own conversations as we moved through our search. The first three conversations were transcribed and published in the Social Forms of Art Journal (SoFA Journal). The conversations are ongoing.
For more information about this and the archive’s collections, click here
As of current, the Single Parent Archive is still in the midst of strucutural development and has acquired a small collection. The collection contains poetic narratives, photography, interviews, scanned recipes, illustrations and more. The philosophy of the archive is to investigate alternative practices of archiving; to inquire and learn responsible modes of preservation that refuse the “capturing” and of objects/stories/experiences from communities; to find regenerative aspects of preservation.
The first collection of the archive is a series of conversations about audiotapes given to Portland State University by the feminist bookstore, In Other Words. The recordings are of mothers and fathers sharing stories about battling for custody of their children after coming out in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The audiotapes are closed to the public and there is little information identifiying who was recorded. Marti Clemmons, who works at the Special Collections and University Archives of Portland State University, found the tapes. We began researching possible folks associated with the tapes and recorded our own conversations as we moved through our search. The first three conversations were transcribed and published in the Social Forms of Art Journal (SoFA Journal). The conversations are ongoing.
For more information about this and the archive’s collections, click here
