Personal Archives & Visual Memoir

by Emily Bluedorn & Taylor Zhang of Choo Choo Press

Personal archives are just one way to make sense of one’s own life, to give shape to one’s day to day. Both of us have been drawn to collecting our entire lives. Emily grew up collecting stickers from movie theater vending machines, and Taylor saved all of her old birthday candles. Both of us still have every handmade card and letter we’ve ever received. These “receipts” of time spent inspire our own artistic practices, from collage paintings to poems engaging with ephemera. For us, these small artifacts are what most accurately map daily life—with all its friction,  surprise, and wonder.

In order to form your own personal archive, each day for the next week you will document your life by keeping a journal, taking photographs, recording videos, and collecting loose items that speak to you. By the end of the week, you should have amassed a large collection of images, text, and objects—you might be surprised by just how much you have accumulated!

At this stage, you’ll review and organize your materials, effectively acting as a curator of your own life. Once you’ve sorted out your collection, you will create one collaged memoir that draws on your sources. Every single person has an interesting life worth highlighting, and we have full faith that you’ll find plenty of surprising themes, motifs, and questions that arise from your week of archiving.

Recommended Reading:

Recommended Viewing:

Assignment #1: Written Documents & Visual Record—One Week!

  1. Grab a notebook or journal that you feel comfortable carrying with you throughout the day. Inside, write small notes and asides or simply paste in ephemera from your day (receipts, ticket stubs, etc.) The only rule is to keep your notes dated (by time, by date, by week—up to you!).
  1. Begin a visual collection of your work—record a few minutes of each day on a camera, take a photo of each destination once you leave the house, etc. Try to keep your recording consistent.
  1. Take note of any ephemera that pops up in your life. Save receipts, ticket stubs, letters, stamps, match boxes—any object that feels meaningful to you. Keep your items in an undisturbed place in your home. If a method of organization occurs—great! If not, there will be time to organize your materials at the end of the week.

**It’s important to keep recording. If you skip a day or two, try not to beat yourself up—negative spaces can be just as interesting in your story. But a blank space implies an ongoing record, and it’s important to keep collecting, writing, and observing!

Assignment #2: Curation

Reread your journal and peruse your visual collection. When finished, you might want to organize your materials into different “groups.” Your system could be based on different interests, relationships, or periods of your life. Remember: no one method will perfectly encapsulate your life; the point is to work through your materials with relative ease.

When finished, write down a few observations that surprised you below.

  1. Were there any recurring themes?
  1. Why do you think these motifs populated your archive?
  1. Is there some underlying significance? 

Assignment #3: Visual Memoir Project

Now that you’ve collected all of your materials, organized your thoughts, and brainstormed a few ideas for your story, you’re ready for your final assignment. We’ve listed a few options below, but feel free to deviate if a particular form calls to you. A hybrid of the listed options is also available!

Option 1: The Zine

You can bind your visual essay into one handbound book that you feel comfortable distributing in your community. You can use an extra-large sheet of paper and make a classic 8-fold zine, gather together a few sheets of paper and staple them together, or even sew your books. Zines were typically made on a Xerox copier and sent to several recipients, so in keeping with this ritual, the only requirement for a zine would be that you make more than one copy to hand out.

A helpful step by step guide on producing your own 8-fold zine: https://www.icaboston.org/articles/make-your-own-mini-zine/

Option 2: The Collage

Feel free to collage together several old photographs (either found, in your possession, or from your week of archiving) that fit with your theme. Your entire essay could be one single collage spliced together or five separate ones—the goal here is to have your images speak in conversation with one another. Paragraphs lifted directly from your journal, as well as found text, could easily be pasted on top of your images.

An example of collaging text and image together to contextualize and explore a personal archive: https://goodpress.co.uk/products/the-knife-by-charlotte-york

Option 3: The Comic

Beautiful comics can be made using simply stick figures. The success of a comic essay comes down to the amount of planning behind the project. Think carefully about what will go in each box; it may help to go through a few drafts before you begin.

A clean format for a daily diary: https://pelagicschool.net/prompts/warmups/lynda-barrys-daily-diary/

Wrap-up: Distribution & Review

Perhaps you’d like to distribute your project within your community or simply pass it on to one close friend or family member. The fate of your final project is up to you, but we’ve left some space below for you to collect your thoughts through this week-long journey. Maybe this document itself can find its way into your collections. :)

  1. Thoughts on Archival Work:
  1. Reactions to Final Project:
  1. Surprising Archives (things you didn’t consider an archive, but now do):