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Documentation Team

One of the long term goals of ARTOGRAPHY is to broaden the language and definitions used in the mainstream to define aesthetics and artistic practice. Through collaboration with a documentation team, community responsive arts organizations will have an opportunity to explore various forms of documentation that help to describe their aesthetic practice and organizational processes based in the changing cultures within their communities. We will share lessons learned and best practices with the broader field and aim to provide case-making tools to reframe and highlight the value of diverse artistic practices throughout the United States.  

The documentation team will use their collective expertise in art-making, academia, ethnography, and writing to share the first voice experiences of organizations working with multiple cultures and art forms as reflected within their organizational practices. Resulting forms of documentation will depend on the aesthetics and practices of the organizations participating in the program. Such forms could include journalism, ethnographic writing, archiving, oral histories, video, blogging, and new digital forms of communication. The team members are:

  • Maribel Alvarez: an Assistant Research Professor in the English Department and a Research Social Scientist at the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona. Maribel is currently writing a book on artisans, artisanal labor, and the marginal crafts of “tourist kitsch” of the U.S.-Mexico border. Her writing from the first cycle of ARTOGRAPHY can be found in the Resource Center of this website (Documents).
  • Jeff Chang: a cultural writer who has written for such publications as Vibe, The Nation, and Mother Jones, and was a founding editor of ColorLines magazine. His first book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation received such honors as the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award.
  • Bill Westerman: a folklorist who has worked throughout his career with immigrant and refugee communities in museums and arts and social service organizations. He presently teaches a course in the Princeton University Writing Program entitled “Refugees, Immigrants, and Social Justice.”