EDWARD J. WILLIAMS COLLECTION for THEASTER GATES STUDIO - ARCHIVE PROCESSING, DOCUMENTATION, & CATALOG PRODUCTION
While staff Archivist at Theaster Gates Studio, an unprecedented archive transferred into Gates’s possession. The Edward J. Williams Collection contains over 4,000 objects showcasing damaging stereotypes of Black people as depicted in the American Jim Crow Era zeitgeist. Williams had amassed the collection in an effort to remove these depictions from public view. Theaster Gates received the collection as a means of preserving history as well as allowing new engagement to recontextualize the narratives.
Media included a wide range of materials from “Mammy” saltshakers, toys, illustrations, books, and fragile documents, including handwritten correspondence from the 1800s. As photographer and archivist my role was to guide the collection from acquisition through documentation, resulting in a digital database and physical catalog. This was done while coordinating with a rotating team of extraordinary artists, archivists, and interns. Deemed “Negrobilia” by Gates, the physical collection currently resides at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago, along with the four-volume encyclopedia detailing and visually representing each item.