{"exhibit":{"id":1,"title":"Imagination and Ancestral Memory in the Halsey Family Archive","description":"

Usage Statement\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This exhibit features images, interviews, and memory work related to the Halsey family. As you enter this space, we ask that you proceed with care and mindfulness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

- The Halsey Family<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2024, I, Jessica Halsey, asked all of my family members to bring any photographs they had of our family\u2019s matriarch, Annie Pearl Halsey, to our family reunion. I was suddenly in possession of several tote bags of photo albums and envelopes of developed film. My father, Dewayne Halsey, gave me a drawer that used to be a part of my Big Momma\u2019s dresser, full of baskets that held some of her belongings.<\/p>\n

This exhibit, \"Imagination and Ancestral Memory in the Halsey Family Archive\" is chapter two of my MA thesis titled, \"Imagination and Ancestral Memory in Memorial Drive\u00a0<\/em>and the Halsey Family Archive\" which can be accessed here (link forthcoming).<\/p>\n

In Chapter 1, I read Natasha Trethewey\u2019s Memorial Drive <\/em>as an archive shaped by Sadiya Hartman's concept of critical fabulation. Defined in her articles \"Venus in Two Acts\" and \"Intimate History, Radical Narrative,\" this archival methodology allows for both the recovering and reimagination of the past. When encountering absences, silences, and gaps within the archival record, Hartman utilizes imagination to fill in what\u2019s missing and to tell the stories of people who have been left out or forgotten by history.<\/p>\n

Trethewey\u2019s engagement with archival materials such as photographs, journal entries, and official documents provide the basis for critical fabulation, in which Trethewey reimagines history and the inner life of her mother. Building on my reading of Trethewey\u2019s memoir, this chapter extends the concept of critical fabulation to the creation of \u201cThe Halsey Family Archive,\u201d a digital archive that I use to explore how imaginative archival methods can shape memory work in both literary and digital contexts. In doing so, I consider the intersections between personal narratives, archival curations, and the digital humanities. I inquire,\u00a0how might critical fabulation function as an effective methodological approach in digital archiving, particularly in the context of Black familial histories?<\/p>\n

By employing Hartman's critical fabulation, this archival exhibit seeks not to establish a complete factual history of Annie Pearl Halsey but instead utilize archival materials as foundations for imagination and narrative. Where archival materials, such as photographs and interviews, contain historical gaps and silences, imagination aids in filling these absences. Among these archival materials, you will experience multiple memories and overlapping points of view. My (Jessica Halsey) imaginative voice is represented through italics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>","credits":"","featured":1,"public":1,"theme":"","theme_options":null,"slug":"imagination-and-ancestral-memo","added":"2025-03-21 18:00:36","modified":"2025-04-28 20:13:04","owner_id":1,"use_summary_page":1,"cover_image_file_id":28},"item":{"id":8,"item_type_id":null,"collection_id":null,"featured":0,"public":1,"added":"2025-03-27 16:34:15","modified":"2025-04-05 21:18:40","owner_id":1}}