I contributed a piece of writing to the inaugural “Digital Dialogues” section of Panorama Journal, an engagement with Maryland Institute Black Archives (aka MIBA), a fascinating born-digital archival project initiated and passionately maintained by Deyane Moses. It’s a great example of post-custodialism in practice, and it’s inspiring to follow Deyane’s pathway in bringing an idea to reality. What began as a photo documentary of Maryland Institute College of Art’s Black community (students, faculty, and staff) became an exhibition and then digital humanities project that has navigated a complex relationship with institutionality. It’s a remarkable example of storytelling that excavates institutionalized racism while sharing silenced or manipulated histories, all while maintaining a commitment to collective care for Black Baltimoreans in the present. The full article lives here.
Citation: Ellen Y. Tani, “Maryland Institute Black Archives: A Post-Custodial Project,” review of
Maryland Institute Black Archives (digital archive), Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of
American Art 8, no. 2 (Fall 2022), https://doi.org/10.24926/24716839.14589.
