“Built from the ground up by Black trans coders and developers, The Black Trans Archive takes the form of a video game, allowing visitors to interact with its content in real-time, making their own contributions in the process. It’s also specifically designed to ensure that this work can never be deleted, allowing everything contained within it to persist long beyond anyone who was involved in its creation. Brathwaite-Shirley sees The Black Trans Archive as a departure from other archives documenting the history of marginalized communities — according to her, it’s not a “study” about the Black trans community nor is it some voyeuristic informational document meant to spotlight the elements of trans identity that cis people find most fascinating. Instead, she wants to use the archive to make space for members of the community who have long been excluded. As such, the artist hopes to ask Black trans people what they’d like to include about themselves in the archive rather than leaving these decisions up to an outside observer. She wants Black trans people to ask themselves what kind of stories they want to tell.”
External sources:
Posted by
on
