Abstract
By responding to the current-day needs and interests of descendants, oral history interviews are resurrected from archives to become useful tools for self-actualization. Moving beyond mere remembrance into spaces for co-created futures, this study explores how oral history interviews can be used to break cycles and heal division so we can learn, grow and discover new pathways forward that don’t replicate harm from the past. Drawing on oral history, research-creation, autoethnography and ethnic studies articulated through the work of Filipinx scholars, this approach asks the reader to consider oral history interviews as more than historical texts. Through this approach they become valuable resources for descendants. As relics, they carry the potential to strengthen, repair and maintain relationships that have been severed due to colonial rule, displacement, separation, and death. Through oral history interviews and participatory performance art the sharing of stories and memories of the past moves beyond mere remembrance into spaces for co-created futures, where the burden of repair is a collective effort to listen, learn, engage with, and make sense of what was, so we can move forward into what could be. Through images, audio, and film, I share examples of oral history interviews recorded with my grandmother in 2008 that were re-visited and re-purposed in 2023 to produce two participatory art pieces that were performed at the Acts of Listening Lab at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling in Montreal, engaging my mother, daughter and I in a process of co-creation.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Archives, Oral History, Research-creation, Autoethnography, Self-Actualization, Collective Liberation, Participatory Art
