Discussion
The Radical Archive of Preservation is an archival services agency, educational resource, and small performance production company. At the foundation of this organization is the study of Black performance cultures and ways of preserving embodied knowledge for historical storytelling.
The organization manages 3 collections, however only 2 appear on the site. Africulture and Ballethnic Dance Company are performing arts companies based in Tanzania and Atlanta, respectively. T.R.A.P. organizes their archival materials and creates different forms of use of their collections. The T.R.A.P. library is also a resource for the clientele of this organization. Books reflecting Black studies, Performance cultures, dress culture, feminism and art constitute the largest portion of this library. T.R.A.P.’s collaborations with other artists and companies can be found in the portfolio of this website. These partnerships reflect how the organizations engages with the community externally and the role the community plays in their organizational structure. This summer T.R.A.P. has partnered with The Society of Georgia Archivists to offer workshops in Black memory work centering the voices of the marginalized and creating a space for institutional workers to learn from community caretakers.
Conclusion
In Conclusion, The Radical Archive of Preservation represents and serves a community that is historically and inherently marginalized. This makes it difficult to measure the success of inclusion and diversity within this organization. However, this assignment forced the evaluator to think of how the diversity might be captured using these charts. The website, www.theradicalarchive.com, actually does a great job of articulating the aspects the assignment was designed to engage. By visiting these pages we learn about the organization's collections, resources, diversity, engagement, and upcoming events.
This project was conducted as part of the CIS 650 (Applying Diversity Leadership Theories and Praxis) class during summer 2023 that involved assessing the web information (and more) to reflect Black feminist performance-based art practices in The Radical Archive of Preservation located in Atlanta, Georgia.