This summer, I had the privilege of interning with Arts in the Margins x Kalmunity. This opportunity was supported by The Faculty of Arts Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism Fund.聽
I applied for this internship because of my personal and academic interest in the ways that archives shape our understanding of history. I wanted to contribute to the preservation of stories that are often overlooked or undocumented, specifically those of Black individuals and their communities. Kalmunity, as one of Canada鈥檚 longest-standing Black artistic collectives, has had a significant impact on Montreal鈥檚 musical and cultural life. The opportunity to work on building a functional and accessible archive on their materials aligned with both my values and my desire to gain hands-on experience through research and documentation.
Arts in the Margins is a project that supports cultural initiatives that highlight marginalized voices. My work was focused on an archival collaboration with the Kalmunity Vibe Collective; this included a vast collection of media: compact discs, cassette tapes, posters, photographs, and more. My primary role was to develop and implement a system for cataloguing these materials and to begin entering and preserving detailed metadata that would allow future researchers, artists, and community members to access the archive more easily.
Over the course of the internship, I catalogued over three hundred items, created a standardized metadata structure, and documented recurring technical issues with various media formats. I listened to audio materials. I also catalogued physical materials, such as flyers and posters, whilst noting important information for each one.
My academic background in Literature and Philosophy was very helpful during this process. Through the vast amount of close reading you are required to do in these two disciplines, I have been taught to pay attention to nuance and to think structurally.
Some of the most meaningful moments were when I first listened to the first few discs. I think being able to hear the music and the voices of people who look like me from over 20 years ago was very empowering in a sense. Being able to trace the history of Kalmunity鈥檚 impact through these materials was amazing, too. These bits of history reminded me just how important it is to preserve not only the voices of these institutions but the creative lives of communities.
One of the biggest challenges was the sheer labour involved. I did not realize how intricate, and slightly tedious, setting up an archive was. The initial start-up took a lot longer than expected, as coding the archive to work the way one wants includes a lot of trial and error. Organizing, scanning, moving, naming, and inputting materials required hours of back and forth between devices and platforms. I also managed several folders and backups across local and cloud drives to ensure nothing was lost. However, seeing all my hard work come to fruition was very rewarding.
Financial support from the Anti-Black Racism Fund made this internship possible. Without it, I would not have been able to afford to take on this unpaid work. I sincerely thank the university for supporting Black students in gaining critical and academic experience.
