This post is the first in a series during the month of December 2016, where we are reflecting on the things — issues, movements, and ideas — that give us a reason for existing here at Interference Archive. We wanted to take this time to think about what these critical elements and movements bring to us, | More »
“The main idea is to empower people who are observers, and provide them with tools to become participants in the political realm.” – Cleo Barnett, The Amplifier Foundation In this week’s episode, we take a close look at activist art produced by the Amplifier Foundation. We speak with Cleo Barnett from the Foundation about their | More »
Dear Friends of Interference Archive,
The closing of 2016 has been challenging for all of us, but we have found strength and hope in the amazing community that surrounds Interference Archive. The integrity, heart, and commitment of New York City activists is even stronger in these times. Thank you to everyone who has brought their voice to Interference Archive and linked arms in the struggle to make the world a more just place.
“I was born and raised here, and the fact that I went to college, I’m a working professional, and I can’t come back to my own community and buy a house, is a very big problem.” In this week’s episode, we look at the struggle for housing here in Brooklyn. We speak with Jean Stevens, | More »
Our 2016 benefit was so much for — thank you to everyone who joined us! Spending an evening with so many people who we care about and who care about us is absolutely what we needed right now, and your generous support raised almost $4000 for Interference Archive. Below: Louise and Kevin call out our | More »
For this weeks episode, Charlie Morgan and Louise Barry interviewed Silvia Federici about Italian music in the 1960s and the Wages for Housework campaign. Music: “Prendiamoci La Città” by Pino Masi. “Per i morti di Reggio Emilia” by Fausto Amodei “O cancellier che tieni la penna in mano” “La ballata della Pinelli” by Pino Masi | More »
“It was extremely traumatic…mothers didn’t send their kids to school, people didn’t go to work, because of these raids.” – Tania Mattos UnLocal is a New York-based legal services organization, which works with immigrant communities to provide legal representation, education, and advocacy. UnLocal’s collaboration with Mobile Print Power was included in the recent Interference Archive | More »
For our upcoming exhibition Finally Got The News: The Printed Legacy of the U.S. Radical Left, 1970–1979 we are producing our most ambitious publication yet! The book that accompanies the exhibition will collect almost 100 images of materials included in the show, original essays by 14 contributors, and a round table discussion amongst a broad | More »
The Village Voice has just named Interference Archive on it’s “Best of NYC” list for 2016. Check out what they have to say about the amazing work our community is doing! Interference Archive BEST PLACE TO LEARN ABOUT THE REVOLUTION The average Gowanus party doesn’t come with a sign proclaiming “an end to segregation because of | More »
Friday, November 18, 2016
Doors open at 8pm; the party ends at 11pm
Location: Verso Books, 20 Jay St
Join us for an evening of friends, refreshments, and art as we raise money to support Interference Archive. Get ready to bid on our auction of art and social movement ephemera.
Advance tickets available for $20
Tickets at the door for $30
“There are fewer squatters because of state repression–because of the way the law has changed and the way the police enforce that law.” – Greg Ryan This episode is about the effects of UK housing law on the London squatters movement. Louise Barry talks to Myk Zeitlin of the Advisory Service for Squatters, former squatter | More »
Today marks the 45th anniversary of the beginning of the Attica Rebellion. “The Attica prison riot began on September 9, 1971, when about 1,000 of the approximately 2,200 inmates in the Attica Correctional Facility, in Attica NY rebelled and seized control of the prison. The riot was based in part upon prisoners’ demands for better | More »
For almost fifteen years people have been marching in the streets, singing, chanting, insisting, “From Iraq to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!” Booklyn is pleased to announce Up Against the Wall, an exhibition of prints compiled from Imaging Apartheid and Celebrate People’s History: Iraq Veterans Against the War—two projects that highlight the work of overlapping | More »
Monday, September 5th, 2016
3-7pm
Over the past four months, community organizations have come together to engage in the collaborative process through this exhibition. This Labor Day, we will come together one more time to celebrate the work of community building with music, live silk screening, refreshments and fun!
Durante los últimos cuatro meses, organizaciones comunitarias se han unido para participar en el proceso colaborativo a través de esta exhibición. Este Día del Trabajo, nos reuniremos una vez más para celebrar las obras de creación comunitaria con música, serigrafía en vivo, refrescos y diversión!
The exhibition catalog for Mobile Print Power’s Soñamos Sentirnos Libres: Under Construction exhibition. 80 pages, full color.
“It’s people who are more familiar with archives who have more trouble figuring out how to negotiate this space…There’s one researcher I remember, she came in with this question about Adrienne Rich, so I mistakenly assumed that she wanted to see Adrienne Rich’s papers. And so I took down the box and she was just | More »
For those of you who don’t get to visit Interference Archive regularly, we thought we would start a series of short posts about what we do as volunteers. This post was written by Chris Moy, who has just gotten started as a volunteer over the last few months.
A new volunteer, Arlen Austin, has been busy scanning a nice, wide collection of some of the great publications we have at Interference Archive. It’s going to take us a little time to get these PDFs into our catalog, so in the meantime we thought it would be nice to share a sampling here on | More »
“The image allows for the viewer to interpret it quickly. And I guess that’s what an advertiser tries to do–that’s what a propagandist tries to do.” – Kevin Caplicki In this episode, Brooke Shuman talks to Kevin Caplicki, one of the founders of Interference Archive and a member of Justseeds. Founded in 1998, Justseeds is | More »
For those of you who don’t get to visit Interference Archive regularly, we thought we would start a series of short posts about what we do as volunteers. This post was written collaboratively by the members of Mobile Print Power, who have worked with us on the current Soñamos Sentirnos Libres // Under Construction exhibition.
“We were subject to an FBI sting. We were placed under surveillance, and we were able to discover the surveillance and get rid of it, but then for the next nine years we were living underground.” – Diana Block In this episode, Lani Hanna speaks to Diana Block about her life as an activist, organizer, | More »
For those of you who don’t get to visit Interference Archive regularly, we thought we would start a series of short posts about what we do as volunteers. This post was shared by Rob Smith. If you’re interested in volunteering at Interference Archive, check out our website for info on how to get involved, or email info@interferencearchive.org. | More »
“We were still coming off the afterglow, in many ways, of May ’68. There’s no question about that.” – Greg Sholette. In this episode, artist, writer, and activist Greg Sholette relates the history of the political art collective PAD/D, and how the collective used art to resist gentrification in 1980s New York. Sholette was interviewed | More »
We have very exciting news to share: this Sunday, we went over to Sean Stewart’s apartment in Brooklyn and picked up his “Babylon Falling Collection” of underground press and related ephemera. We’re talking twenty-three flat archive boxes, seven binders, one large banker’s box, and two giant plastic tubs filled with extensive holdings of underground newspapers | More »
For those of you who don’t get to visit Interference Archive regularly, we thought we would start a series of short posts about what we do as volunteers. This post was shared by volunteer Michele Hardesty.
After several years of coming to Interference Archive events, and even doing a bit of work in the collections, I became a sustaining contributor last fall, and then I began staffing the Thursday evening shift…
“I think about posters as a way of starting a conversation, but I don’t feel like we talk enough about how that conversation is started and where that conversation goes beyond talking.” — Kameelah Janan Rasheed On Nov 4, 2015, Interference Archive hosted a panel entitled Solidarity, Distribution, Design: The Poster Today, which explored the | More »
For those of you who don’t get to visit Interference Archive regularly, we thought we would start a series of short posts about what we do as volunteers. This post was shared by volunteer Louise Barry. If you’re interested in volunteering at Interference Archive, check out our website on info for how to get involved, or | More »
“We’re blessed with being the keepers of some very valuable stuff. It’s not ours. It’s intentional that this is part of the community and belongs to the community.” – Claude Marks
Volunteers at Interference Archive do absolutely everything, from painting the walls between exhibitions to sorting book donations and answering questions from visiting researchers. For those of you who don’t get to visit Interference Archive regularly, we thought we would start a series of short posts about what we do as volunteers. To kick this off, | More »
Saturday, May 21st, 2016
1-5pm
Off-site at IMI Corona!!!
In 2014, the IMI Corona Community Council developed a series of values to guide the work and vision of IMI Corona. MPP will host the first of a series of collaborative design and screen printing workshops at IMI Corona, inviting the larger IMI Corona community to turn the recently published values into a visual work.
En el 2014, el Consejo Comunitario de IMI Corona desarrolló una serie de valores para guiar el trabajo y visión de IMI Corona. MPP presentará el primer de varios talleres de serigrafía y diseño colaborativo en IMI Corona, invitando a la comunidad de IMI Corona a ilustrar los valores que recientemente fueron publicados.
Saturday, May 14th, 2016
3pm
In this community conversation, MPP, Interference Archive, and Talk is Cheap will discuss different models of collaboration by describing our approaches to collaborative art production, sharing the ways that collaboration shapes our practices.
En esta conversación comunitaria, hablaremos de diferentes modelos de colaboración reflexionando sobre los diferentes tipos de estrategias que utilizamos para producir arte colaborativo, y compartiremos como estas colaboraciones le dan forma a nuestras prácticas.
“Before we ask questions, we find out more about the problems that are happening. And sometimes we even go out and ask the people around us: what is something that you don’t feel comfortable with? Where do you feel disconnected?…I think that’s the way that we actually find political issues to do art with.” – Stephanie Roman
Come work with us! Interference Archive has co-working space available May 1st. Desks are in a naturally lit room with windows facing out at street level and adjacent to the Interference Archive exhibition space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Your individual desk is in a shared work area (of four desks) with an attached kitchenette, rent is | More »
“I just remember when I was first making comics, it just felt really powerful. It’s kind of like that feeling when you first start riding a bike.” – Jan Descartes
“I really wanted people to understand what the past was. At its base level, this is what happens when women have to use a coat hanger when they need an abortion.” -Leela Corman
Racial Justice: A Collection of Books and Print Ephemera from Brooklyn’s Interference Archive by The Night Library originally published at: http://www.artslant.com/ew/articles/show/45503 At our request, the Interference Archive, based in Gowanus, Brooklyn, kindly agreed to curate a collection on the theme of “Racial Justice” to present on ArtSlant. In keeping with the spirit of the project, | More »
May 1st, 5-8pm: Opening Party
This opening party kicks off a summer-long series of workshops developed around the exhibition Soñamos Sentirnos Libres : Under Construction.
Esta fiesta de inauguración inicia una serie de talleres que fueron desarrollados en torno a la exposición Soñamos Sentirnos Libres : Under Construction.
“We saw the hierarchical constraints of the society our parents created, and we wanted to do it differently. So we created this flattened, non-hierarchical approach to almost everything we did.”
“What I value about a political event, or what I value about a dance party–I don’t know if those are very separate values at the end of the day.”
The Our Comics, Ourselves exhibition is on Tumblr! Because of such a positive response to the Our Comics, Ourselves exhibition, we expanded its scope to include a curated Tumblr. We invite weekly contributors to post their favorite comics from their personal collections—works by other creators that either ignited their curiosity in the medium, or influenced the work | More »
“Jean would take her income tax refund check and go to the track and bet on horses, and whatever money she made funded Tabloid.”
“The importance of art in the movement was that not everyone could see themselves at the front lines…art allowed for a more inclusive community.” – Tina Orlandini, writer, organizer, and curator of an exhibition on the UPR student strike.
We’ve been hard at work on the upcoming exhibition Our Comics, Ourselves, which opens this Thursday at Interference Archive. Take a peek here!
If you missed the Just Cause : Bad Faith exhibition at Interference Archive last month, show curator Steve Sewell from the Art Handlers Alliance has captured everything on display in a series of photos.
Frame up is a series of conversations with filmmakers about the intersection of cultural production and politics, produced by the Interference Archive. In episode 1, Kelly Gallagher and Alex Johnston talk…
On December 14, 2015, Suad Amiry visited Interference Archive to share stories from her best-selling book, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law. Her book on life in the Occupied Territories is the January 2016 selection for Librarians and Archivists with Palestine’s One Book, Many Communities campaign.
“It’s so difficult for people to imagine an organized workplace in the arts, but we really want to make it a reality.”
A big part of our mission at Interference Archive is to start conversations about social movement culture and the histories we collect. Over the past year, we’ve seen some of those conversations happen in the press. Here’s a roundup of conversations about Interference Archive happening in the press over 2015.
Amit Gilutz is a composer and activist originally from Israel/Palestine, now based in the USA. His work is interdisciplinary and conceptual, particularly focused on the question of music’s ability to participate in the practice of social justice. This mixtape was originally prepared for “Sounds of Protest”, a course I designed and taught at Cornell University | More »
We are looking for new playlist submissions for the if a song could be freedom mixtape series. Please submit or share with people whom may be interested! Interference Archive is looking for your submissions in the ongoing series if a song could be freedom political mixtapes. To accompany the exhibition if a song | More »
“It’s not about the things, it’s about the people: who made it, who saw it, who was influenced by it.” -Lincoln Cushing
Available for order now, this catalog accompanies the exhibition Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art. Our Comics, Ourselves exhibition aims to generate open conversation and deep discussion about the power of comics to address issues of identity, expression and representation. This catalog provides a way for us to hear directly about this from some of the comic artists whose work will be on display.
Black Lives Matter w/ Jamil Smith, Korean Rap & Parents | Maz & Juan Strike Back | Ep. 4 Maz and Juan speak to Jamil Smith, Senior Editor of The New Republic about the Black Lives Matter movement and the role it plays in Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton’s election campaigns. Also discussed: Bridging the | More »
In our newest podcast, Dread Scott, artist and friend of Interference Archive, speaks with Vero Ordaz about his art, life, and connections to the Chicago punk scene–including memories prompted by his recent donation of posters to the archive.
As our Armed by Design / El Diseño a las Armas exhibition comes to a close, it’s amazing to look back at everything that was involved in this show. Armed By Design/El Diseño a las Armas: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL) was public exhibition and | More »
Susan Jahoda is an artist, educator, and organizer whose work includes video, photography, text, performance, installation, and research-based collaborative projects. Charlie Morgan speaks with Susan about her experiences organizing the September 2014 exhibition at Interference Archive about the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, a 19-year anti-nuclear protest and encampment at a U.S. Military Base in Berkshire, England. This | More »
Doom and Gloom: Prog-Metal Playlist, by Paul Messersmith-Glavin I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Chicago, predominantly Catholic, with Irish, German, Polish, Puerto Rican and Asian folks. For us boys, our form of rebellion was growing our hair and listening to metal and progressive rock (prog rock). Our embrace of metal expressed our | More »
if a song could be freedom mixtape 013 A Brave New World is a Post Punk, Industrial music, and youth movements in Europe, East and West, during the late 1970s and early 80s, curated by Jamie Chaoten. Jamie has been a supporter of Interference Archive since the beginning, and was born and raised in Brooklyn, | More »
We spent Saturday, October 17 with Combat Paper NJ (Montclair, NJ) and Mobile Print Power (Corona, Queens), setting up a day of interactive art production in the Interference Archive parking lot.
We invited everyone to come out and work with Combat Paper NJ to pulp and pull sheets of paper with their mobile paper making set-up, and work with Mobile Print Power to learn basic printing with their ice cream cart turned screen print studio. Both groups asked the question “What does solidarity mean to you?” and “How can military veterans and immigrants (and immigrants who are vets) work together to improve their communities?”
“Communities have given up our power to police and institutions, and we have to take it back.” –Laura Whitehorn
if a song could be freedom – 013 – Injustice For All is a mixtape by Lara Messersmith-Glavin. “I grew up in very remote, rural areas of the Pacific Northwest, in predominately white, working-class communities. The only music I heard was country, bluegrass, classical, and—for the freaks—metal. I didn’t hear punk rock until I was | More »
In this first entry in our new podcast series, Greg Mihalko interviews Josh MacPhee, co-founder of Interference Archive, about his collection of hardcore punk flyers and ephemera, some of which were featured in our recent exhibition, If a song could be freedom…organized sounds of resistance.
Lani Hanna and Jen Hoyer, curators of our current Armed By Design/El Diseño a las Armas exhibition, speak about the exhibition on WBAI’s Cuba in Focus show.
if a song could be freedom mixtape 012 #SeguimosRevolusonando was produced and submitted by Suena a Revolución. an audio/podcast project that started in April of 2014. Suena a Revolucion focuses on music of contemporary independent artivists from Latin America and the Caribbean that use music as a vehicle for social movement. Our goal is to | More »
Thanks to everyone who joined us on September 16th for the opening of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL). We wanted to share some photos of the opening; it was incredible to see all of this on the walls!
if a song could be freedom mixtape 011 – Paredon Records is produced by Erin Yanke and Alec Icky Dunn. “Founded in 1969 by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber, Paredon Records was part of a wave of cultural expression that accompanied the worldwide struggle for economic, racial, and social justice and national liberation of the | More »
Check out this great video preview of our upcoming exhibition, Armed by Design/El Diseño a las Armas!
We are honored to announce that WGXC radio will be streaming each of the 10 current mixtapes over the airwaves tomorrow September 12th from 8pm until 5:30am. Wave Farm‘s WGXC 90.7-FM is a creative community radio station based in New York’s Greene and Columbia counties. Sep 12, 2015: 8pm – Sep 13, 2015: 5:30 am | More »
As we wrap up the if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance exhibition this weekend I wanted to share another response to our prompt “What song has been politically influential to you?” This final response was sent to us by Gee Vaucher, an artist that has been very influential to me. Gee is | More »
Early in the organizing of if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance exhibition we wanted to know “What song or album has been politically influential to you, and how?” Here is what Penny Rimbaud of Crass responded with: Benjamin Britten’s ‘War Requiem’ is probably the greatest musical/lyrical influence of my life. As a | More »
Thanks to DJ Trouble for coming by Interference Archive for the if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance exhibition. And especially for dedicating half of Tuesday, September First’s radio program This is the Modern World to songs inspired by the exhibition. You can listen to the archived stream of Trouble’s set “baby, baby, | More »
Mixtape 010 Protest and Survive is brought to us by Brandon Bauer. Brandon is an artist based in Wisconsin. His Euromissiles Crisis print series critically examines the nuclear abolition movement in the 1980s. The series references cultural, political, and activist events of the era, and serves as an allegory of citizen involvement, as well as | More »
For the last month Brooklyn Independent Media has been shooting an upcoming program called Maz & Juan Strike Back at Interference Archive. Here’s one of the few shorts they’ve recently released. In this Maz & Juan Strike Back Extra, The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain and Juan Thompson strike back on the Black Lives Matter protester’s who | More »
if a song could be freedom mixtape 009 – Burning Cop Car was produced by Frank and the folks at submedia.tv. subMedia.tv is a video production ensemble, which aims to promote anarchist and anti-capitalist ideas, and aid social struggles through the dissemination of radical films and videos. Founded in 1994, subMedia.tv has produced hundreds of | More »
From Punk to American Folk: Two Takes on Music and Politics by Scott Borchert on August 18, 2015 At the center of Folk City, through January at the Museum of the City of New York, is a clue that the exhibit is more about space than about music. Fixed between the two main rooms is | More »
Interference Archive is preparing for its next exhibition, Armed by Design/El Diseño a las Armas. As an accompaniment to the exhibition, we have put together a collection of writing which discusses the intersection of graphic design and political solidarity work in revolutionary Cuba through the lens of the graphic design production of OSPAAAL, the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
if a song could be freedom mixtape 008 lives at archive.org. if a song could be freedom mixtape 008 – “Tahrir Square” is curated by Ganzeer. Ganzeer is the pseudonym of an Egyptian “contingency artist” operating mainly between graphic design and contemporary art since 2007. “He is not an author, comic book artist, installation artist, | More »
This weeks mixtape is curated by Xaviera Simmons. Jamaica is just all of it..Stunning landscape, diversely populated, politically charged and creativly genius.. For me popular music starts in Jamaica as it’s basically where DJ’ing and mc’ing began and it’s where rap took flight to give us modern day hip hop. I constantly look to Jamiaca | More »
Here’s a pop-cultural response to this tragedy. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Enola Gay Little Boy, the first nuclear bomb used in war, was dropped at 08:15 (Hiroshima time). It took 43 seconds to fall from the Enola Gay aircraft flying at 31,060 feet (9,470 m) to the predetermined detonation height about 1,968 feet (600 m) | More »
Our mixtape files live at our page on Archive.org where they can be shared and downloaded more easily. This installment of if a song could be freedom mixtapes is curated by Tom Roe from Wave Farm. Tom co-founded free103point9, in 1997 as a microradio artist collective in Brooklyn, New York. Today, he serves as the | More »
Our mixtape files live at our page on Archive.org where they can be shared and downloaded more easily. Here is this weeks if a song could be freedom mixtape 005 is a Detroit themed set curated by Dan S. Wang. Dan is a writer, artist, organizer, and printer who was born in the American Midwest | More »
Interview with Kevin Caplicki, Interference Archive on “if a song could be freedom…” if a song could be freedom… Organized Sounds of Resistance exhibits the crucial role of music in movement building and participatory democracy… When thinking of political movements and the artifacts they leave behind, music isn’t necessarily the first medium to come to | More »
Watch Josh MacPhee and Amy Roberts discuss the if a song could be freedom… Organized Sounds of Resistance exhibition on BK Live.
The Red Power Mixtape by che christ The Red Power Mixtape is a collection of underground hip hop tracks dedicated to all forms of indigenous resistance. CHE CHRIST – POET, EMCEE, STREET JOURNALIST Che is born of the people, in the desert lands of his pipá/quechan (Colorado River Tribes) ancestors. Raised on traditional teachings, bird | More »
Friday, August 7, 2015
8pm
Interference Archive will present a screening as part of the Third Annual Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space Film Fest: I (HEART) NRCHY; Subversion & The City. This event brings together three short films that emerged out of community-based collaboration and organizing: Voces de Fillmore, Claiming Our Voice, and Falling.
This weeks if a song could be freedom…mixtape Tuning Baghdad / Captiva version, is curated by Regine Basha. Mixed and Mastered at the Rauschenberg Residency by Jason Stilp Salah and Daood Al Kuwaiti – Walla ajabni jamalak Salah and Daood Al Kuwait – Ishrab Kasak Salima Pasha – Sa’at Janooni il wilfy wa dooni | More »
This mixtape can be shared and downloaded more easily at Archive.org This weeks if a song could be freedom…mixtape, of radical brass bands, was made by Phil Andrews. Phil has been an organizer for over 15 years and currently the Director of Retail Organizing for the RWDSU/UFCW. He is also a musician and songwriter, and | More »
Bad ass new promo video for if a song could be freedom…, produced by archive organizers Chris and Vero! if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance from Interference Archive Music has been at the core of hundreds of political and social struggles across the globe. With if a song could be freedom . | More »
This mixtape can be shared and downloaded more easily at Archive.org This weeks mixtape was put together by Skot! Oh, host of Sunday Morning Coming Down a radio show on People Will Radio.org. Skot! has been a DJ for the last 12 Years on various pirate radio stations in Austin, Tx and also an | More »
Here’s a piece from WNYC’s, Studio 360, about the Black Panther band The Lumpen. We feature a small collection of music related to the movements and organizations discussed, in our new exhibition if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance.
Thanks to everyone who joined us on June 25th for the opening of if a song could be freedom… Organized Sounds of Resistance. We wanted to share some photos of the opening; it was incredible to see all of this on the walls and spend time listening to music together! For those of you who couldn’t | More »
We will be releasing a mixtape each week for the duration of the if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance exhibition. We have asked organizers, musicians and fellow travelers to curate songs on a variety of themes. It brings us great pleasure to share with you the first installment of If a song | More »
Promo cards for our next exhibition, if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance. We’d love help getting these out in the world; to events, record stores, venues, and your fridge!Drop by the archive and pick some up! Opens June 25th, 7-10pm
Interference Archive is preparing for its next exhibition, if a song could be freedom . . . Organized Sounds of Resistance. As an accompaniment to the exhibition and catalog, we will also be pressing a limited edition 7” vinyl record in collaboration with Textual Records.
Thank you to everyone who joined us on May 21 for our panel discussion on the role of law and litigation in the housing movement. Listen to an audio recording of the event here:
TABLOID, a collectively edited critical journal of mass culture and everyday life from the late 1970’s and 1980’s, has arrived at Interference Archive thanks to the generous donation from the Tabloid collective via Mary Louise Pratt. If you are interested in seamlessly crafted compilations of critical analyses, book and music reviews, and graphic designs about | More »
Friends in Montreal have been pasting We Won’t Move posters up on the streets there. Tenant organizing everywhere!
Thanks to everyone who came out to Verso Books on April 30th for the panel discussion on policing and gentrification. The panelists included Joan Gibbs (Activist, Writer, Attorney), Mayzabeth “Ginger” Lopez (GOLES), Victor Moses (Equality for Flatbush) and Marcus Moore (Picture the Homeless). The conversation was facilitated by Christina Hanhardt. Listen to audio of the | More »
The Film and Photo League by Martin Lucas Images of Social Change If asked to think of images of the 1930s Great Depression, we think typically of still photos: stark black and white shots of the misery associated with being jobless in a society where this meant starvation and homelessness. We see soup kitchens with | More »
Over here at Interference Archive we are in the heavy organizing stages of our upcoming exhibition about the intersection of music and politics: if a song could be freedom. . . Organized Sounds of Resistance.
So much of what is politically important about music is rooted in our experience of listening to it, in how it becomes the soundtrack to meaningful and transformative experiences in our lives. We are looking for people to respond to the prompt: What song or album has been politically influential to you, and how?
Please send us your thoughts (250 – 1000 words is perfect) in an email to music@interferencearchive.org by May 15, 2015. We hope to incorporate a number of your responses into our exhibition design, along with the music that inspired your writing.
The following short video provides a brief tour of our current We Won’t Move! exhibition. We hope you’ll able to visit soon and explore for yourself!
Thanks to everyone who joined us on March 26th for the opening of We Won’t Move!
For those of you who couldn’t make it, this exhibition runs through June 15, 2015
Interference Archive is excited to continue our education series, and we’re inviting you to get involved by proposing a single-session class you’d like to teach.
In November, a small group of us from Interference Archive (Jen Hoyer, Josh MacPhee, and Greg Mihalko) had the amazing opportunity to travel to the UK and speak with a lot of great people about the work we do here in Brooklyn. Our trip started at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we joined a | More »
As we approach our three-year anniversary this December, we wanted to share some of the major accomplishments of 2014, and to let you know what’s on the horizon.
Interference Archive will be closed on Saturday, February 14, 2015, for our annual volunteer retreat. We’ll be open for our regular open hours the rest of this week.
We’ve collected some links to online resources about Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp.
The Education Working Group at Interference Archive hopes to create educational opportunities that activate the collection at the archive, whether by drawing on similar themes or using the collection for inspiration and research.
In fall 2014, we’ve put together a schedule of classes and workshops that members of the Interference Archive community as well as newcomers have proposed. Be sure to visit the Education section of our website for more info!
In keeping with the mission of Interference Archive, we are hoping to create educational opportunities that activate the collection at the archive, whether by drawing on similar themes or using the collection for inspiration and research.
Trying to put a dent in a large donation of materials from Latin America in the range of 2002-2007. These Autonomía newspapers were published in Mexico City, edited by the Colectivo Autonómo Magonista (CAMA) in 2005/2006. They’re well designed and contain a lot of well cited graphics and illustrations from artists like Rini Templeton (pictured | More »
The following is a review from POZ of our current exhibition. Self-Determination Inside/Out is a new exhibition of cultural materials made by prisoners and their supporters as they struggled for justice within the prison system. The exhibit, which is at Interference Archive in Brooklyn, spans decades of history and sheds new light | More »
As part of Self-Determination Inside/Out, former political prisoners, family members and advocates lead a tour and share stories related to the exhibit.
We will be closed Sunday September 21st for the People’s Climate March. All of our Sunday staffers will be marching. Join us!
As part of Interference Archive’s upcoming exhibition, Self-Determination Inside/Out, we’re hosting a reading group for James ‘Yaki’ Sayles’s Meditations on Wretched of the Earth.
As a result of the daily massacres that happen in Gaza, I decided to share some of Marc Rudin’s poster work during my shift at the archive today. We have an exhibition catalog of poster designs he made while cooperating with the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) from 1979 through 1991. The | More »
I first became acquainted with Nancy Peckenham, an American activist, documentarian, and journalist, through her donation to Interference Archive, an extraordinary collection of posters from the 1970s and 1980s, expressing solidarity with people’s movements in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. A few months ago, I reached out to Nancy and was able to interview her | More »
To celebrate Emma Goldman’s 145th Birthday, here is a little sample of Emma Goldman Books and posters from our collection. There are plenty more, for those you’ll have to come on by during our open hours and rummage! Emma Goldman was born, June 27, 1869, Kovno, Russian Empire. She was an Anarchist known around the | More »
A friend of Interference Archive dropped by our open hours today to deliver some underground comics from the 1960’s and ’70’s. Many of them illustrated by R.Crumb, all of them are illicit in some form.
An aspect in the struggle for autonomy is auto-sufficiency and controlling the means of production. One such project in the Zapatista government centers, know as Caracoles, was a boot-making taller. I’ve just donated a pair of combat boots, produced in Oventic, Chiapas in 2004, for the La Autonomia es la Vida, La Sumisón es la | More »
In solidarity with the Zapatistas and as part of their call to action, we had visitors to La Autonomia es la Vida exhibition take photos to participate the #Zapatistasnoestansolxs social media campaign. Here’s some of the images:
We are excited to announce that Interference Archive just received a $2000 grant from the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute’s Social Justice Fund for our upcoming exhibitions and programming! Thanks A.J. Muste, for your support! A.J. Muste Memorial Institute’s Social Justice Fund is a grant for grassroots activist projects in the US and around the world, | More »
Interference Archive folks will be at two conferences in the coming weeks: Queer Internet Studies and the Radical Archives Conference [registration is still open, and free]
Sayonara Nukes, 2012
311 Action New York
Fabric banner
Courtesy of Sanae Maeda
Photo by Yuko Tonohira
March 11, 2014 marks the third year anniversary since the beginning of Fukushima Daiichi disaster. There are actions happening all over the world to demand accountability from TEPCO and the Japanese government, and a call to end to nuclear power.
Two years ago, Interference Archive and Todos Somos Japon collaborated on an exhibition to show the creative resistance of people fighting against nuclear power called RadioActivity! Anti-nuclear Movements from Three Mile Island to Fukushima. We explored the culture of anti-nuclear movements and how they have addressed a multitude of issues including feminism, anti-militarism, anti-capitalism, peace, alternative energy, environmentalism, and most important, everyday survival.
Here are some photos from the show of banners used in demonstrations. Watch for them in the streets in the coming days.
We just received this beautiful card from Tomie Arai, celebrating the beginning of 2014 Year of the Horse. We’ve been so happy to see Tomie Arai around the Archive during the Serve the People exhibition. If you haven’t had an opportunity to visit the exhibition yet – or if you want to check it out | More »
Here’s some flicks of the Serve the People exhibition, on its own. Come see it in person, it runs until February 23rd.
I recently pulled out the Voices From Outside portfolio, produced by Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, when a friend asked me if I knew of any prison related graphics. They were producing a flyer for their organization, Milk Not Jails, and a campaign to reform the Parole system in NYC. While looking through the prints in became | More »
On December 10, 2013 IA was a packed with people excited to learn about the “Serve the People” show. Watch a video excerpt of the tour!
Sinovision Journal—Serve the People: The Asian American Movement in New York
December 2013
We started installing the Serve the People exhibition today. It’s exciting to see it all come together, and to start getting posters and records up on the wall! Thursday’s opening is going to be great.
What makes art activist? What makes it political? Does who is using it matter? The Interference Archive is uniquely situated as both a living collection of activist cultures and ideas, and a site of popular education and engagement with these ideas. One way we integrate these facets is by offering lectures/tours/workshops to groups and classes. | More »
We are an independent group of librarians and archivists who traveled to Palestine from June 23 – July 4, 2013. We come from the US, Canada, Sweden, Trinidad & Tobago, and Palestine. We bore witness to the destruction and appropriation of information, and the myriad ways access is denied. We were inspired by the many | More »
The above image is a link to the NY Times slide show. Check it out if you haven’t yet!
Most days Ramallah feels like the world’s biggest construction site. Buildings are going up everywhere you look, the street leading up to our hotel didn’t have a sidewalk when we arrived last week, now it does. Amongst the cement bags and rebar there are some strange sculptures going up. I quite like this one, in | More »
While in Nazareth we took a tour with British journalist Jonathon Cook, who lives with his family in Israel/Palestine. He brought us to the remains of the Palestinian town of Saffuriya, which up until 1948 had been one of the largest towns in Northern Palestine and the Galilee. It had been a central site of | More »
When I was in school, it took two years of organizing to get our college library to build their collection of books about prisons from a dusty shelf of old criminal justice sociology texts to a clutch of volumes about prison movements and books written by prisoners. At al-Quds University in Abu Dis, there is | More »
The walls of Palestine are alive with messaging and communication, including layers of posters for cultural events, political martyrs, commercial advertisements, and election campaigns. While the martyr posters are mostly left to fade away, or eventually be covered by a new generation of martyrs, the election posters are regularly scratched, torn, and intervened in. Some | More »
While almost all the graffiti across Palestine is either directly political (exhortations from one political party or another) or utilitarian (so and so street, Mohammad’s shoe shop, etc.), in Ramallah there is a burgeoning “street art” scene. There is emerging a form of graffiti much more familiar to the West, individual artists signing their work, | More »
There is a way that the occupation of Palestine seems to have frozen in time certain aspects of life in certain places, creating strange anachronisms. In the old city of Hebron, where there is an intense Israeli military presence and a large group of vicious and brutal Brooklyn-born settlers (who taunted us and took our | More »
There is a lot of amazing graffiti here in Palestine, but I think this might be the best thing I’ve seen so far. This hand is so pretzeled to make the two-fingered peace sign, it raises serious questions about the costs of that peace. -Josh
I barely got used to seeing the pay-to-ride CitiBikes around New York City before I left town. Although these bike programs seem to now be a prerequisite for any city that wants to pass itself off as successful, fun, and vigorous, I didn’t expect to see them in Yaffa, the Palestinian city strapped to Tel | More »
There is a lot of graffiti here in Palestine, but almost all of it is in either Arabic or English, with a very, very small smattering of French. It was exciting to see some solidarity painted in Korean on the walls at Aida Refugee Camp. -Josh
This is the largest key in the world. It sits at the entrance to Aida Refugee Camp, which sits on the edge of Bethlehem, pushed right up against the Israeli Apartheid Wall. 6,000 residents are squeezed into the equivalent of two New York City blocks. Aida is also home to Lajee Center, which does great | More »
While being here we’ve heard so many stories of oppression and repression of Palestinians by Israeli Jews (about 25% of Israelis in pre-67 borders are Palestinians, who are “citizens” of Israel, but regularly denied equal services and opportunities, thus it is important to distinguish between Israelis and Israeli Jews) there are also many signs of ongoing | More »
One of the most universally popular symbols I’ve seen here (possible second only to the Palestinian flag) is the cartoon image of Handala. He is a young Palestinian refugee, tattered and back-turned, refusing to grow-up until he can return to his homeland. He is seen as a symbol of popular defiance here, and is seen | More »
This is an 8 track railroad crossing in Lyd, a historically Palestinian city within pre-67 borders Israel (called simply “48” by most Palestinians) which is very poor and is undergoing a heavy process of Judaization (the structural and ideological process of converting more and more parts of Palestine into Jewish-only areas). This crossing is the | More »
Being here in Palestine visiting libraries is a bit like being in a candy shop, with an entirely new and different range of books and design styles. The book above is in the Al-Bireh Municipal Public Library in the West Bank. It’s a copy of What Self Government and to Where? by Dr. Muhammad Nayrab. | More »
Ramallah is the geographical seat of the Palestinian Authority, but it is becoming increasingly clear that there is far from a consensus amongst Palestinians regarding them. The PA has gone two years over their mandate without an election, yet have been pushing ahead with state-building activities without any clear direction or input from the vast | More »
The walls have so much texture here. This image is from Ramallah, and a good example of walls that have been painted over, and over, and over again for years. Meanwhile, many places are pristine. I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but being surrounded by so many rich palimpsists makes for a | More »
Today we spent the day in Nablus, with half of the time in the Balata Refugee Camp. The camp was set up by the UN in 1948 after the Israeli’s violently expelled the Palestinians. The original camp was set up in 1952 with about 5,000 exiles from the town of Yafa in an area of | More »
On May 16th, Interference Archive hosted a screening and discussion of the film Wildcat at Mead. Chronicling a successful 1972 wildcat strike at Mead Packaging, an Atlanta, GA cardboard plant, Wildcat at Mead highlights the struggles of the predominantly Black workers on strike, who had been battling racism within their labor union as well as with | More »
Molly and I (Josh) are in Palestine for two weeks as part of a librarians and archivists solidarity trip. Today was our first day, and we visited a half dozen libraries desperately trying to preserve irreplaceable manuscripts like the one above. This is hand-scripted, illuminated, Ottoman Empire-era Koran held and maintained in the Khalidi Library | More »
On Mayday we got a chance to talk to some of the folks who made it out to the main demonstrations in Union Square- here’s what some of them had to say: Henry, 21 Are you here with any organization(s)? I’m here with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. What do you think is the | More »
We’ve been getting some good press lover the past year here at Interference Archive, and thought we’d share some of it with you! Our recent Book Bloc exhibition has been written up all over, including in the New York Times and the New Yorker: The New Yorker says “Reach For the Book—It Is a Weapon,” | More »
Russian writer, Mikhail Trofimenkov, visited Interference Archive today. He wrote this review of the Rebel Newsprint exhibition in Kommersant Daily.
IN HONOR OF MAY DAY INTERFERENCE ARCHIVE OPEN CALL FOR MEMES For an upcoming exhibition about work stoppage—Strike Then, Strike Now!—we need your made and found memes depicting labor, bosses, anti-work sentiments, strike, etc! Memes will be exhibited anonymously on continuous loop via computer screen on view from May 3–July 31, 2013 at Interference Archive. | More »
From Italy to England, Sweden to Spain, Oakland to New York, the book bloc has surfaced as a street protest tactic in which people create and use shields that resemble giant books. These shields are both practical and symbolic in asserting the power and importance of culture, while protecting protesters from the police. Here are step by step instructions on how to make your own shield!
Guest blog by Sean Stewart
For my money, the underground press is the best window into the 1960s’ youth rebellion.
Opening tonight at Interference Archive, the exhibition Rebel Newsprint: The Underground Press features a wide range of over a hundred underground newspapers from my collection, and will include a handful of papers for people to flip through (no white gloves required); a full paste-up issue that perfectly illustrates the incredible amount of work that went into creating each issue; and a couple pieces of original art. I’ll also be giving away twenty-four copies of my book On the Ground: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties’ Underground Press in the U.S. (PM Press, 2011).
Here are ten covers from the show that I’ve specially selected to share because of their convenient location at the top of the install pile.
Hands-on learning and militant research for Brooklyn teens
November 14, 2012
6 – 8 pm
We’re organizing an exhibition to open August 9th of prints and posters from Quebec’s Maple Spring (and Summer). Here’s a preview, with posters from the École de Montagne Rouge. Members of the École will be coming to Brooklyn to help install the show, and present their work.
