Native Memory Tracking: a collaborative project and workshop

Museum of Everyone (MOE) Communal – The Art of Coexistence

Native Memory Tracking is a collaborative project and workshop Thaís Muniz and Éireann and I. Native Memory Tracking is a tool (the workshop) used to record how much memory each program or application is occupying on the computer (our whole body) and in the operating system (our brain).

The objects we carry often reflect our own history and share narratives of movement and displacement as we do. They work as a source of information, identity and memory. They can be inherited, given or acquired. In this workshop, we invite you to look through your own family archives. We will explore the questions: How do the items we hold dear to us connect us to our lineage, from past and future? What do they tell us about who we are and what we value?

This workshop is an invitation to create an expanded archive reflecting on the thin line that separates intimate and everyday life objects between identity and possessions. How can our memories and connections enable the sacralization of the ordinary, to infuse new memories and identities with deeper meanings? Your traces become a part of your heritage and ongoing journey. By injecting new cultural frameworks into the practice of archiving, we can keep our stories alive.

Using objects and photographs brought to the workshop by participants, we will collectively construct a live installation in the Galway Arts Centre. At the end of the workshop we will share a collective reading of a text.

What we need from you:

We invite you to bring one object and one photograph that represents the history of you and/or your family. This workshop is contingent on everyone participating fully, meaning everyone must bring an item. Here are some suggestions of objects you can bring:

• A voice recording
• A letter
• A postcard
• Tapes
• An item that you have inherited or intend to pass on (jewellery, textiles, recipes)

The workshop will take place at Galway Arts Centre on September 21st. It will begin at 5:30 pm and end at 7:30 pm with refreshments provided at the start. This event is for people who have first or second-hand experiences with migration.

Native Memory Tracking is a workshop led by artist Thais Muniz and Joselle Ntumba, a co-curator of Eireann and I, a black migrant archive. This workshop is part of a collaboration between the Museum of Everyone in partnership with the Galway Arts Centre for Culture Night 2023. The installation with the objects and images will remain in exhibition until the end of Culture Night, on September 22nd.

This event is supported by the Creative Communities Award,  Creative Ireland Programme 2023, Galway City Council, Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.