Zata Banks invited to contribute to the AHRC-funded “Pararchive” Conference at Leeds University

I am delighted to have been invited to contribute an academic presentation called The PoetryFilm Archive 2002-2015 to the Pararchive Conference at Leeds University.

This AHRC-funded conference and community showcase marks the climax of an eighteen-month multidisciplinary research project entitled Pararchive: Open Access Community Storytelling and the Digital Archive. The project is based at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds and  seeks to build new interactive environments that explore issues of ownership, public and institutional relationships and provide tools for collaborative community research and creative expression using digital heritage resources.

Many thanks to the team at Pararchive for the invitation.

Friday 27th March 2015 – Saturday 28th March 2015

stage@leeds, University of Leeds

We have been asking how best to approach these problems and deal with issues such as copyright, collaborative working, impact and building an open source digital environment to facilitate connectivity and build a set of lasting legacies. We now want to widen our conversation by inviting community groups, activists and campaigners, researchers, creative professionals, cultural institutions and policymakers interested in developing and promoting research, education, collaborative working practices, policy and activism around the notion of an open access digital space to this conference and showcase at which we will celebrate the launch of Pararchive and our community partners’ research projects.

Pararchive was motivated by the recognition that communities are encountering real barriers to organising and connecting to resources and each other. In the field of heritage particularly, it is often difficult to access archival materials from public cultural institutions owing to bureaucratic, commercial and geographical barriers, something that impedes community research and connectivity. It is often difficult to establish relationships between communities and institutions that could and should be mutually enriching.*

*Text taken from the Pararchive website