School of Media Studies

Join Natalie Milbrodt, Director of the Queens Memory Project, in conversation with Regina Carra, Rapaport Archivist at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM), on archiving stories of resilience, hope, mutual aid, and loss amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Special guest, artist Alexis Ward will join the conversation to discuss her artistic practice.

Learn how the Queens Memory Project and AFAM Archives quickly shifted their collecting practices to capture a record of the impacts of the pandemic on the communities they serve. This program will feature artworks and responses archived so far, information about how to contribute in the future, and a discussion of how “archiving the present” is part of larger, ongoing archival efforts at the Queens Memory Project and AFAM.

Space is limited and advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.

After registering, you will receive an email confirmation with Zoom instructions. Please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org if you have any questions.

This program is organized in partnership with Queens Memory Project, an ongoing program supported by Queens Library and Queens College, CUNY, designed to collect stories, images and other evidence of life in the borough of Queens. The Queens Memory Project also provides training and materials for anyone wishing to contribute interviews, photographs, or other records of their neighborhoods, families and communities. The Queens Memory Project empowers residents from diverse backgrounds to document the personal histories that together tell a more complete story of life in the borough.

Natalie Milbrodt is an information professional and content developer with 20 years of experience working in small business, academic, cultural heritage and library settings. She currently manages the Metadata Services Division within the Queens Public Library’s Technical Services Department in New York City. In this role, she oversees archival digitization and the creation and management of metadata for the library’s physical and digital collections. This includes the preservation of local history on behalf of the library’s community archiving initiative, the Queens Memory Project. Milbrodt serves on the Oral History Association’s Metadata Task Force and as an advisory board member for New York State Historical Records, Global Grand Central, and Wikitongues.

Regina Carra is the Rapaport Archivist at the American Folk Art Museum. She manages over 700 linear feet of archival records, including the Museum’s institutional records and distinctive special collections, which exemplify nearly 250 years of the history and development of folk art, self-taught art, and art brut. She is an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference and is a soon-to-be member of the ArchivesSpace User Advisory Council. Regina also volunteers her background in oral history to help her colleagues at the Queens Memory Project archive the history of Queens, the borough where she currently resides.

Images from the AFAM from Home Archive by Elizabeth Gronke and from the Queens Memory COVID-19 Project by Alexis Ward.