Connect and Communicate

Sovay M. Hansen

A dear friend and I recently visited the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. We had spent the last few days exploring the metropolis, catching up, and reflecting on our lives since we first met in 2010, our freshman year of college. He had just returned from a solo-sojourn to Europe and I’d just finished my PhD and we marveled and laughed — as only old friends can — at the many exciting events and banal days that have accumulated to make us who we are today, so different (and yet hardly different) from the people we were at 19 years old. Even now, at 31 years old, our conversations still largely revolve around fretting about what to make of who we are and what our futures hold.

Once inside the vaulted foyer of the Brooklyn Museum, we decided that we would see each exhibit — that we would exhaustively explore all the galleries in each of the five floors: ancient Egyptian art and artifacts, Andy Warhol, a COVID-19 memorial, even Bauhaus furniture.

Then, I encountered something unexpected and transformative — but it wasn’t a piece of art. Instead, the title of an exhibit by an emerging Brooklyn artist, Baseera Khan, nearly knocked me over: I am an Archive. “I am an archive,” I whispered with a sharp inhale. My pulse quickened, making me hyperaware of my aliveness — the feeling I always get when I encounter something that expands my understanding of life. Khan’s statement has since lingered in my mind, almost overwhelming me each time I think of it — it calls out to me, challenging me to consider my own self as an archive — imploring me to wonder what that could mean.

What does it mean for one to be an archive? This is a deceptively simple question, one that I’d wager has different answers for each individual. In an everyday and literal sense, an archive is a collection of texts and artifacts, sometimes of various media, produced by an individual, organization, or entity. For example, the UA Library’s Special Collections maintains archives of authors, artists, student clubs, activists, and so on.

Given what an archive is in this everyday, literal sense, how can you yourself be an archive in Khan’s figurative sense? The Brooklyn Museum’s website offers this:

Khan uses their own body as an archive, often employing a variety of multimedia collage techniques to visualize the lived experiences of people at the intersections of Muslim and American identities, both today and throughout history. (“Baseera Khan…”)

Here Khan conceives of their very body as an archive — a complex and intriguing proposition. My cursory read of Khan’s project is that they present their body as an assemblage of culturally and politically charged parts — the facets of which are displayed in the exhibit using an enormous range of media. Khan’s project presents the self as archives of both our private and public experiences and personas: we exist as individuals, but always within a larger community with all the attendant cultural, social, and political forces.

Your ePortfolio is a chance for you to do what Khan did, but specifically within the context of your education. In your ePortfolio you will curate and communicate who you are as a learner for a public audience. You’ll pick and choose which parts of your archive you want to be public-facing and how to exhibit that most effectively.

As you read this last section of Wildcat Reflections and work on your ePortfolio and other final assignments, consider these queries:

• How and in what ways are you an archive?
• Could you contain many sorts of archives? How might you categorize those?
• How can you effectively communicate the archive of your learning to a public audience?
• Khan uses both text and visual media to communicate with the audience. Is this a tack you could take in your ePortfolio? What sorts of media might you use and why?

The authors whose narratives you’ll read in this final section contemplate their educations from different perspectives, but they all generally advocate for the unexpected benefits of taking chances and opportunities outside of one’s comfort zone. As you read their stories, you’ll notice that they themselves are rich and unique archives of experiences and knowledge. As you read, consider your own self-as-archive and how you want to tell – and show! – that singular story.

Works Cited

“Baseera Khan: I am an Archive.” Brooklyn Museum. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/baseera_khan. Accessed 13 Jul. 2022.