Eye on the Triangle

Shradha Bhatia 0:02
You are listening to eye of the triangle WKNC weekly public affairs program from the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Any views and opinions expressed during eye of the triangle do not represent NC State or student media.

Shradha Bhatia 0:20
Welcome to the WKNC eye on the triangle. I'm your host. Shradha Bhatia, we'll start with the breaking news. NC State's campus health building is closed through second September after a broken pipe caused flooding on the first floor. Updates will be shared as they become available. And in today's episode, Evie dallmann interviews Leah Torrey and Virginia Ferris about archive storytelling and moral agency. We'll also hear from the North Carolina News Service about two statewide issues. Congress considering legislation to increase North Carolina's Farm to School pipeline and how the US pledge to expand electric vehicle Sales could benefit manufacturing hubs here in North Carolina.

Evie Dallmann 1:29
This is Evie from WKNC Talking to Leah Torrey and Virginia ferris about archives, Special Collections, foraging and upcycling of materials, storytelling, moral agency and more enjoy. I'm Leah Torrey. I'm the director of special initiatives at Duke Chapel, which just means that I oversee a portfolio of programs called say the thing, which is all about storytelling and moral agency.

Virginia Ferris 1:54
I'm Virginia Ferris. I work at the libraries at NC State in the Special Collections Research Center, and my work focuses on outreach and teaching with historical materials and making our campus community and other folks aware of what we have in Special Collections, but also how they can think about archives and their histories, how they can preserve their own histories and kind of create their own records and preserve memories that are important to them. So the

Evie Dallmann 2:27
first thing that I was thinking about is like preservation and autonomy and making archives. And I'm curious if, like you see this way of someone seeing themselves represented in a print a text that kind of tangibleizes their existence and helps them better understand like you will be remembered in history. I'm curious about how this places us in that environment.

Virginia Ferris 2:49
Yeah, that's like a really important element of archives. And there's a really fabulous thinker and writer, Michelle Caswell, among many others, but she termed this phrase representational belonging, where there's this effect of seeing yourself existing in archives, seeing your likeness, your community, the kind of heritage and the legacy of your ancestry represented In archives as this very affirming, life affirming, you know, validating experience. And there's a lot of very problematic kind of legacies of archives that have not included really important stories and experiences and histories because of the kind of power structures involved, and the, you know, judgments and biases of historical forces of power. And so there's a lot that's missing in archives. And I think one of the important things in our work now for archivists and librarians is to really connect with people today whose voices have been excluded in the past and and share with them, you know, all of the ways that they can be integrated into archives going forward, how they can create their own archives and preserve their materials independently from an institution And and, I think most of all, connecting them with whatever historical kind of records or archives might exist that can help strengthen that sense of connection to an identity, A community, history and ancestry that can really be empowering and liberating for folks. So there's, there's a lot of potential for harm and a lot of potential for kind of liberation in archives, I think, depending on how someone's history has been documented and represented and or how it's not been but there's also a lot of agency. For folks today to kind of engage with and interrogate what is or isn't there for their histories, but then create what they want to have remembered. So that's kind of one of the exciting things about this event, where people can create a zine that is completely open creatively to make what is going to be important for them, what story they want to share, what kind of image they want to create that could be theirs to keep personally or and or to share a copy with the community and to deposit a copy in the archives for other folks to learn from and generations ahead.

Evie Dallmann 5:44
Yeah, I'm curious. Leah, how you see like this idea of agency that it allows as it relates to, kind of your ideas of foraging and found materials and storytelling in that way? Sure, so one of the elements of what we do is we do

leah torrey 6:02
pop ups that we call larks, like they're these fun, whimsical, but also

leah torrey 6:09
deeply serious opportunities for people to restore themselves to themselves. So oftentimes, we encounter students who are walking from like econ class to grab, you know, a 15 minute lunch and then run off to chemistry class. And we love to offer these pop ups where we interrupt their day and

leah torrey 6:32
help them re remember the bigger story of their lives. Right? They're not just a compilation of projects that they turn in and grades that they get, and that they are a larger whole. And so these pop ups are engineered. We call them kind of like spiritual engineering. They're designed to help you engage with some of life's bigger questions, or for you to tap back into the bigger story of your life at a moment when you weren't expecting to and they're all really fun, like the joy is part of the design, because if you're going to do life, life is hard, and so we don't need the things that are healthy for us to also be distasteful. We want them to be fun and cool and super beautiful. And so that's a that's a that's a piece of what we're doing. And what we really try hard to do is to integrate as many found materials into the pop ups as centerpieces as we can, because we see what we're doing as an opportunity for people to invest in their own futures, in their current well being, but also in their futures. And so we don't think it's ethical to simultaneously divest from people's futures by using materials that contribute to climate change and also contribute

leah torrey 7:59
to unfair, you know, labor practices and perpetuations of a kind of materialism that degrades from the life of others, including the planet. So we love being in relationship with some of the really gnarly and amazing departments across our campus, especially the libraries. The libraries the libraries have been some of our greatest, greatest collaborators, who, when we reach out to them, we say, what materials are you finding yourself discard, discarding like, what do you what is the trash that you produce? And then we are, we usually try and collect a lot of that stuff and then use it as one of the muses that helps us sort of do this design work, to create pop ups that are going to really begin to fill a need for students in a way, to help them reflect on their lives in a way that's fun. And I think one thing that's been really such a joy in this process is like it's not just us saying, Okay, this thing that we've long declared as dead, giving it new life, but we the partnerships that we've had, like the librarians, the gym,

leah torrey 9:15
the the chapel, the our arts facilities and stuff. They are also really saddened when they watch themselves throw this stuff into the trash. And so they are so excited to re enliven the materials that they were really they had a sense in them too that they didn't want this stuff to be thrown out. So that kind of trash foraging that we do is not just life giving to us and not just life giving to the people who participate in our pop ups, but are really is life giving to our incredible partners that we see around campus as well.

Shradha Bhatia 48:58
the music we heard in the story was F 16 by the gray room, licensed under the YouTube Audio Library reporting for eye on the triangle. This has been Shradha Bhatia. Thank you for listening. Peace out.

Shradha Bhatia 49:11
This has been eye on the triangle from WKNC, 88.1 FM, HD-1 Raleigh. Our theme song is Krakatoa by Noah Stark, licensed under creative dependent.

Shradha Bhatia 49:28
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening.

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