SPEAKING THE MATTER
                     

LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY ARCHIVE & EAST OF BORNEO | 2023





Speaking the Matter is a skill-building and reference book for artists developing oral histories and interview-based projects.

This workbook approaches the practice and application of oral narratives as a co-constructed creative endeavor rather than reparative “truth” work. Resisting the idea of a recorded interview as a neutral historical document, this skill-building workbook instead shares perspectives on listening, remembering, gossiping, questioning, and framing, with the aim of telling our stories not as fixed subjects but as artists who are alive and breathing.

Collected together are methods and models for experimentation and collaboration in oral history projects or interview-based works. Included are practical documents created by Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA) for individuals or working groups, and approaches to the artist interview by East of Borneo. These documents address artistic outcomes, the design of outlines and interviews, consent, transcription, and the annotation of oral history records. The intent is that artists can refer to these documents to experiment in creating new works and explore the meaning-making processes by which our practice is guided.




Download the digital book here.






the weeds that grow from concrete 
                     

GLORIA GALVEZ | 2023





gloria galvez’s the weeds that grow from concrete presents a collection of facts, thoughts, and portraits of weeds, all contemplating their complex ecological, political, and material existence. Patches of crabgrass and pine tree seedlings sprouting from concrete floors invite the reader to reconsider what a weed is and what its role can be in our human world. And through poetic narrative, the book reexamines and subtly poses the hostile conditions and survival strategies that weeds use to survive them as strategies that can be used by people to survive the hostile conditions of capitalism.









LACA Course Reader III 


2018





The third and final iteration of the LACA course reader focuses implementin ethical strategies for archivists.

Jose Munoz
Ephemera as Evidence Introductory Notes to Queer Acts

Michelle Caswell
From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics - Radical Empathy in Archives

Piere Bourdieu
Reflexive Sociology Paris Workshop

Hailey Loman
Policy Briefing









Bread Story 
                     

LÚCIA PRANCHA | 2019





Bread Story: Some research for an oncoming film, 2019

Based on the script “The Bread-King Learns to Bake Bread by Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) and Prancha’s experiences wit LA baker Roxana Jullapat. The concurrent narratives of Brecht and Jullapat create the structure for the book and the film.

The book consolidates research into ideas of American labor and production from 1941 to today and functions as an unconventiona script for the film in progress. The series of printed materials uses LACA’s Risograph printing technique to mass produce an iteratio of the original book in order to disseminate information an participate in a level of production associated with propaganda and consumerism.

Edition of 25+5 A.P.









CRG Bookmark 
                     

ALEX DELAPENA






Community Bookmarks 
Alex Delapena
Proceeds go towards the Community Reading Group lecture series which is free and open to the public.