Archive of Urban Futures
Research Group | Researcher, Photographer, Filmmaker
Led by Dr. Brandi Summers (Columbia University) and University of California, Berkeley researchers, the Archive of Urban Futures investigates the past, present, and speculative future of Black Oakland, an Oakland safe for Black and therefore all oppressed residents. We work with Moms4Housing as a community and archiving partner - we look through the lens of their political work to understand the lineages and dis/continuities that connect generations of care and organized power to maintain the right of Black residents to Oakland.
From the Archive of Urban Futures website:
"Organized by three themes: "The Afterlife of Urban Renewal," "The Living Archive," and "Reclaim and Remain," this project documents Black Oakland’s history and how it has changed over time, as well as efforts to produce new worlds and urban futures.
The Archive addresses questions about the right to place, memory, erasure, and community value, by focusing on the meaning of place as we cultivate ways for Black Oakland residents, both past and present, to reinsert themselves into the urban landscape from where they have been displaced."
I work as a documentary photographer and filmmaker for the product, creating a visual geographic archive of the work of Moms4Housing after their famous occupation of the previously developer-owned Magnolia Street house. My work is produced through a careful and attentive relationality - the process of gathering and co-producing archival materials is as much a part of the story as the final images that are produced.
My scholarly work tracks the visual techniques employed by the many cataloguers of Moms4Housing's impact and legacy (mainstream media, popular culture, etc.) and how they communicate the relationships between illegality, home-making, spatial memory, blackness, femininity, motherhood, and the right to home.
I also write about collaborative film practice and the stakes of narrative and documentary works in talking about place, memory, reclamation, and racial-gendered techniques of representation.
