Jazmin Benton

ARI Supported Project:

The goal of the Black Student Archives Project (BSAP) is to create a physical and digital “counter-archives” project and exhibition dedicated to documenting, preserving, celebrating and showcasing the rich culture and history of Black students and our experiences at UC Santa Cruz. Led by Black UCSC students, this project will center Black lives and decenter the traditional narratives surrounding us. By counter-archives we effectively mean alternative sources and/or found materials, which allow us to tell counter-narratives that conventional archives cannot tell; these found materials are political, ingenious, resistant, and community-based. Rather than tokenizing or commodifying, BSAP will allow Black student experiences to be shared in ways that are appropriate to our community. An exhibition will create an opportunity for former UCSC students to congregate and celebrate one another. Counter-archives are embodied differently and have the explicit intention to historicize differently, to disrupt conventional local and institutional narratives, and to write difference into public historical accounts. BSAP aligns with counter-archival work currently being done across numerous institutions that seeks to challenge the hegemony of traditional archival sources that have normally neglected or marginalized Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities, women, LGBT2Q+ and immigrant groups across North America. The project is currently materially supported by the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery and UCSC’s Special Collections and Archives.