How We Gather Now: A Finding Aid

Abstract:This article documents the ongoing development of the virtual exhibition currently titled How We Gather Now: A Finding Aid. This exhibition, created in collaboration with the Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance research project (www.gatheringspartnership.com) aims to generate a virtual space to facilitate ongoing access to a curated selection of recorded online conversations about performance in Canada generated since March 2020. These recorded conversations between people who were not usually, easily, in a room together, represent a new archival object emerging from the simultaneous and intersecting truths of a global pandemic and protest against anti-Black racism. The article applies the structure of the Zoom conversation—which the exhibition aims to document and interpret—to offer readers a view, through isolated windows, into a research-creation process in progress. Through this contribution, the project’s curatorial team and research collaborators identify the key questions that motivated the exhibition’s development, outline the shifts in curatorial approach, and present the methodological approaches currently taken to historicize new and urgent forms of performance-related gatherings.