Individual Project

– Presentation and reflections on the Feminist Search Tools project with Hackers & Designers, Read-in and IHLIA LGBTI Heritage

'Feminist Search Tools' is an ongoing artistic research project that explores different ways of engaging with the items of digital library catalogues and their systems of categorization. The project attempts to stir conversations around the inclusion and exclusion mechanisms that are inherent to current Western knowledge economies.

The project is made accessible on a website that documents a range of prototypes and forms of tooling aiming at critically and creatively evaluating the back-ends of library catalogues. The Feminist Search Tools website functions as a conversation piece contextualizing online research in digital library catalogues and addressing power structures that library search engines reproduce.

The presentation of the project will contextualize the functionalities of the tools by reflecting on choices and collaborations that informed the project in its current form.

– Panel: Marginalized voices in queer and trans archives with Eliza Steinbock, Naomie Pieter, Nina Littel, Wigbertson Julian Isenia

This panel will revolve around questions of thinking with and caring for marginalised voices in queer and trans archives.

How do we collect and use archival materials in an inclusive and decolonial way? Which methods are used to find certain marginalized groups in the archive? Which dilemmas and questions arise in finding particular perspectives in queer and trans archives? How are intersections in the archive erased or maintained? That is, in what ways are the databases and keywords we use conducive to an intersectional research.

And finally, how are marginalized voices included in archives? Who gets included, and when?

The presentations will take place at OBA (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam). The audience is invited to follow and interact via live.hackersanddesigners.nl

For more information please visit IHLIA and Hackers & Designers
Anja Groten is a member of collective Hackers & Designers.