Archives, Museums, and Experimental Memoir
with Tawnya Selene Renelle

Full Price: £240 for all or £30 per session (Free Merch Gift)

Concession 1: £120 for all or £15 per session (limited to 6 spaces)

Concession 2: £80 for all or £10 per session (limited to 6 spaces)

2 Free Bursary Spots (with application)

Starts Thursday January 12th

6-8:00pm (GMT) via Zoom

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As individuals how do we curate, collect, collate, store, and exhibit the experiences that are our life? This 8 week course will ask you to enter the imagined archive of your life in order to find the materials for writing. It is designed to provide a new and experimental way into approaching personal narrative, memoir, and nonfiction, but is open to writers of all genres. If we use the ideas and practices of archiving and museums can you find new and unexpected ways to explore and experiment with the writing of your life? This course will culminate in a virtual and IRL exhibition and pamphlet. 

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All registered attendees will have access to recordings of sessions, copies of exercises and a variety of optional materials including book excerpts, videos, music, and more.

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You are welcome to sign up for all or just the weeks that most interest you and your project.

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Week 1 January 12th: Introductions

What do you know about museums and archival practice? What do you want to know? How will this lens shape your writing?

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Week 2 January 19th: Playing in the Archives

Public Records, Ancestry.com, journals, and more. This week we will talk about what our archives may be and was we can interact with them.

Week 3 February 2nd*: The Body Archive

If many of our experiences can be described as embodied how can you archive, collect, and record these experiences?

* We will not be meeting the week of January 23rd-27th as Tawnya will be out of the country.

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Week 4 February 9th: Collecting and Memories

In what ways is the act of writing about your memories a practice of collecting? What can you collect from the archive of your experience?

Week 5 February 16th: Missing Archives

How do you gather and create of an archive that doesn't exist? Is it an imagined archive? 

Can your writing fill in the gaps?

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Week 6 February 23rd: The Object Archive

What are the objects you have curated to create the archive of yourself? What objects do you deem worthy of being housed in your museum?

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Week 7 March 2nd: In The Museum

Now that you have your objects, how will you build your museums? In what ways is your writing a museum?

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Week 8 March 9th: Exhibiting Exhibitions

How is your writing the exhibit of your experiences? How do you construct the exhibit that works best for you?

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Optional Open Mic March 16th

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