Regional Media Legacies Post-Graduate Fellowships
In the Fall of 2019, the Regional Media Legacies (RML) project appointed its first full-time Post-Graduate Fellow at host location Long Island Studies Institute (LISI) in Hofstra University. This initial appointment was scheduled for September 1, 2019 - August 31, 2020. For the third year of the RML project, two full-time Post-Graduate Fellows were active on Long Island from September 1, 2020 - August 31, 2021. Fellowship information for the next phase of the project will be announced in the new year!
During the 2020/2021 academic year, RML Project Fellows Robert Anen and Claire Fox continued to support a great deal of groundwork in establishing a longer-term fellowship program for future MIAP graduates, as well as continuing to build a network of local cultural organizations with hidden media collections in New York City (Brooklyn and Queens) and Long Island. The Fellows worked remotely and occasionally alongside host organization staff to support the archiving of hidden collections or neglected audiovisual material documenting local history both within that organization and throughout the region, with support as necessary from the RML Project Manager. These appointments provide the opportunity for the fellows to bring their specialized training to the service of partner organizations, and exchange knowledge with permanent staff and leave behind documentation that can sustain increased confidence in staff members' stewardship of audiovisual collections.
Regional Media Legacies Project Fellow 2019/2020 & 2020/2021: Robert Anen
Robert Anen was appointed the first post-graduate RML Fellow in September of 2019, and accepted an additional year-long term in September of 2020. He received his undergraduate degree in 2011 from Hofstra University in Film Studies and Production. He is a 2017 graduate of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. In 2016, he was featured in the New York Times article “A Lost Snippet of Film History, Found in a Home Movie Shot in 1964” for his part in the discovery of footage of a film installation created for the 1964 World’s Fair called “Think” by Charles and Ray Eames, tucked within the home movies of Edward R. Feil at the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archives. After graduation, he spent his time preserving a film collection of home movies at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island. In 2017, he also published an article in the film journal Black Camera titled “Community Archiving with the National Black Programming Consortium.” As an RML Fellow, Robert Anen utilized his local knowledge and specialization in film care to bring to light the film collection of the Sea Cliff Village Museum through inventorying, inspection, and rehousing - the collection consists of 16mm home movies of Roslyn and Sea Cliff families. He also worked on the 16mm film collection of Frazer Dougherty, the co-founder of the LTV Media Archive located in Wainscott, NY.
Regional Media Legacies Project Fellow 2020/2021: Claire Fox
Claire Fox was the second post-graduate RML Fellow, appointed to the project in September 2020. She is a 2020 graduate of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program, where her research focused on topics in digital preservation, time-based media art conservation, and community archiving. Her thesis, Not Normalized: Born-Digital Camera Original Video Formats in the Archives, centered her research on an examination of complex born-digital file formats. Beyond her MIAP coursework, Claire was a participant in the 2019 Audiovisual Preservation Exchange (APEX) program in Puerto Rico, where she collaborated with her MIAP peer Brianna Jones and archivists Osvaldo Rivera and Orlando Alonso Fortier of the Archivo de Medios Audiovisuales at the University of Puerto Rico on an assessment of the Archivo's television archive. Also as part of APEX, she collaborated with her MIAP peers Danielle Calle and Caroline Gil, Amye McCarther from the New Museum, and the artist María de Mater O'Neill on an assessment of O'Neill's 1990s e-zine, El Cuarto del Quenepón -- a collaboration that continued with assistance from a Strategic Growth Grant from the Society of American Archivists. Claire is also a member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists Continuing Education Advisory Task Force, which aims to develop an online education program for audiovisual archivists and preservationists. As an RML Fellow, she utilized her digital preservation knowledge and community archiving skills when working with a wide range of partners based on Long Island, Brooklyn, and Queens; including Coney Island Museum, Railroad Museum of Long Island, L.O.V.E. Tape Collective, and Long Beach Historical Society.