Glossary: Medium

Medium

The physical material that serves as the carrier for information.

The materials and technique used to create a work.

Painting · The liquid in which pigment is suspended. (source: https://www2.archivists.org/glossary/terms/m/medium)

Medium can refer to both to the type of art (e.g. painting, sculpture, printmaking), as well as the materials an artwork is made from. - (source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/medium )

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Glossary: Medium

The physical material that serves as the carrier for information.

Glossary: Craft

Craft is a form of making which generally produces an object that has a function: such as something you can wear, or eat or drink from.

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SISTORIES
Volume 1, Resource, Opportunity, Art
SISTORIES
Volume 1, Resource, Opportunity, Art

As an educator who was radicalized by Black feminist and womanist literature, I have always been clear that that was my goal for SISTORIES--to provide the grounds for Black women and nonbinary femmes to adopt a politic to address the root cause of the social issues that cause them harm by seeing and writing themselves into the historical narrative of Black femmehood.

Volume 1, Resource, Opportunity, Art
Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust
Volume 1, Place, Art
Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust
Volume 1, Place, Art

Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust is a public work originally installed for the inaugural Bullfrog Biennial at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in October 2019. The piece memorializes a 1980s dream to establish “Stonewall Park,” a gay utopian effort aimed for Rhyolite, NV, a piece of deserted mining country that lies between Death Valley National Park and the Nevada Test Site.

Volume 1, Place, Art
Acknowledging Archives (after Caswell)
Volume 1, Collection, Art
Acknowledging Archives (after Caswell)
Volume 1, Collection, Art

Developing strong, meaningful, relationships between artists and archivists has so much potential to be fruitful for both fields. Interestingly, both art and archives have been historically undervalued in academia: artistic practice as a vehicle only for expression or reflection of issues, requiring translation by a critic or art historian to make sense of its real value (4), and archivists as “handmaidens of historians,” seen as passive intermediaries between records and the historians who interpret them (5)

Volume 1, Collection, Art
Thread Library: An Argument for Art in the Stacks
Volume 1, Collection, Art
Thread Library: An Argument for Art in the Stacks
Volume 1, Collection, Art

Thread Library, an artwork I made for the Iowa City Public Library (ICPL) in February 2020, suggests that information is always mediated by the tactile, tangible, material, and personal. Simply put, Thread Library is a collection of thread with a card catalog, and each thread is cataloged as if it were a book.

Volume 1, Collection, Art
An Engaging Collection: Folkstreams.net
Volume 1, Collection, Art
An Engaging Collection: Folkstreams.net
Volume 1, Collection, Art

From footage of hollering contests to oral histories of civil rights activists, Folkstreams.net is one of the most dynamic collections of independent films on the internet, containing over 100 documentaries, biopics, and performances available for free, alongside enrichment guides, transcripts, and an easily accessible list of rights information.

Volume 1, Collection, Art
Something(s) I am thinking about: Tobacco Baskets
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Something(s) I am thinking about: Tobacco Baskets
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The absence and resistance of historical context surrounding an object is an intriguing instance of sorts. Being a student of critical craft theory, my passion and research is Afro American craft history and material culture. This, combined with having a true admiration for antiquing, I have arrived at the dilemma I present to you now.

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In the Roots of Wise Women
Volume 1, Collection, Art
In the Roots of Wise Women
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Being an Appalachian woman, artist, and herbalist, I am committed to honoring the women in my community. The women in this series have an intimate connection to the land and a beautiful and poetic way of communicating through plants and herbal medicine.

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Y Bolivia Se Desangró una vez más: Voices in Collective Thought
Volume 1, Collection, Art
Y Bolivia Se Desangró una vez más: Voices in Collective Thought
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...Voices in Collective Thought presents some of the events and popular reactions lived throughout the October 20th electoral fraud and current crisis in Bolivia. Last November, after a thirteen year long presidency and a scandalous attempt at fraud, Evo Morales stepped down from presidency.

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Queer Collections - Interview and Photographs with Artist Truong Tran
Volume 1, Collection, Art
Queer Collections - Interview and Photographs with Artist Truong Tran
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Queer Collections is a series of interviews and photographs exploring the eccentric and carefully-curated manners of collecting within self-identified queer communities. Zoe Rosenblum and Tristan Crane, alongside the collectors themselves, explore how the objects we hold dear inform our construction of identity and belonging—our vulnerabilities and anxieties, our joys and fantasies.

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Against the Best Possible Sources
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Against the Best Possible Sources
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”Against the Best Possible Sources presents the latest chapter of my ongoing project involving extensive research of the TIME, Inc. corporate archive and an investigation of the earliest history of the first professional journalistic fact-checkers, a role created by TIME in 1923 and held exclusively by women until 1971.”

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MEngaging Collectionsglossary, definition, art, craft, medium