A Call to Action: Documenting Santa Barbara’s Art and Activism

How has your life been changed by 2020? What do you want future generations of Gauchos to know about what you have experienced?

The COVID-19 pandemic and increased calls for racial justice are shaping our lives and our experiences during this tumultuous time. As we weather simultaneous threats and crises to public health and our democracy, our collective and individual voices are powerful artifacts that represent the perspectives of people who have lived through these shared experiences.

Building on the COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter Community Archives Projects, UCSB Library faculty and staff are documenting art and activism in the now in the form of an exhibition showcasing the variety of works submitted to these projects. As we weather simultaneous threats and crises to public health and our democracy, our collective and individual voices are powerful artifacts that represent the perspectives of people who have lived through these shared experiences.  

UCSB’s institutional record is not comprehensive, and there is a significant gap in materials representing students’ and community members’ perspectives and experiences.  UCSB Library invites Santa Barbara community members and UCSB students, faculty, and staff to submit original works that address how the pandemics of racial injustice and coronavirus have shaped their lives  – that’s you!

Works can include a wide range of formats, including journal entries, poems, course work, photographs, videos, social media posts, zines, or audio recordings. We encourage folks to submit works under their own or an assumed gaucho name for either one of the digital collections. The deadline to submit your works for inclusion in the 2021-2022 exhibit is June 20, 2021. 

For more information about how the Library will store, maintain, and make accessible these works, please see the project landing pages here:

UCSB COVID-19 Community Archives project

Black Lives Matter Community Archives project

Please note that there are two separate submission forms for each collection.  If you feel moved to submit works to both projects, you may do so as often as you wish. The exhibit will showcase submissions from both collections. 

The curation team welcomes questions, comments, and suggestions about integrating this project into your course, campus, and local projects. Please write to us at: outreach@library.ucsb.edu .

This article is originally published on UCSB Library’s website.

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