On Monday, March 3, 2008, I participated in a roundtable discussion entitled, Impossible Archives, at NYU’s Kevorkian Center.

ROUNDTABLE 2: IMPOSSIBLE ARCHIVES
This roundtable explored legal, historical, professional and artistic strategies for archiving impossible (unspeakable, unutterable, censored, undocumented, disappeared or disappearing) materials. We discussed the role of artists and activists as archivists of unofficial or suppressed histories; the various manifestations of archive fever; and the relationships between witnesses, testimony, memory and archives.

Participants: Orit + Tal Halpern, Leslie Hewitt, Ramzi Kassem, Althea Wasow, Martha Wilson. Moderators: Chitra Ganesh + Mariam Ghani

This event was part of TRACING THE INDEX: 4 DISCUSSIONS, 4 VENUES, a four-part series of roundtable discussions this March, organized by Index of the Disappeared (Chitra Ganesh + Mariam Ghani), hosted and co-sponsored by the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NYU’s Kevorkian Institute, the New School’s Vera List Center for Art + Politics, and Art in General.

Events in the TRACING THE INDEX series:

ROUNDTABLE 1: COLLABORATION + FEMINISM
SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2008, 3:00 pm, Bronx Museum of Art

ROUNDTABLE 2: IMPOSSIBLE ARCHIVES
MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2008, 5:30 pm, Kevorkian Center, NYU ground floor library

ROUNDTABLE 3: COLLABORATION IN CONTEXT
WEDNESDAY MARCH 26, 2008, 6:30 pm, Art in General, 6th floor gallery

ROUNDTABLE 4: AGENCY AND SURVEILLANCE
MONDAY MARCH 31, 6:30 pm, Vera list Center for Art and Politics, New School for Social Research