The concept of “the archive” and its attendant possibilities for contemporary artists is vast – expanded by online access to institutional archives through digitization and by interventions from postcolonial, queer, and disability theory that introduce forms of communal memory preservation outside of institutions. In working in this broadly defined archival space, how do visual artists engage with or resist notions of historical “authenticity”?  What is the role of what Saidiya Hartman has termed “critical fabulation” in filling in the gaps of what is left out of the archive? How are the visual arts uniquely situated to contribute to a public understanding of archival materials and the histories they carry? This session seeks papers from artists and arts educators who are drawing on archival research in their practice or designing curricula that draw upon historical primary source materials. 

Co-chaired by Etai Rogers-Fett and Beauvais Lyons at the 2026 SECAC Interwoven Conference in Winston-Salem, NC.