Print Archival Practices and New Media Panel – October 26, 2023
Channel: UNM University Libraries
Date: 12/12/2023

A recording from the Open Access Week event: Print Archival Practices and New Media Panel held on October 26, 2023 at 1 p.m. 

Event Description:
We will be engaging with several poster designs held in the Center for Southwest Research, here at UNM and would be honored if you would join the in-person (and virtual) panel to discuss the visual power of print, as well as how these images can motivate artists and curators, today. For the panel, that will include archivists at UNM, along with other scholars at museums and other institutions, we will be presenting questions like, “how do we maintain both physical and digital archives? How do we make certain that digital processes hold the integrity of the art? What are ways we can connect with artists, enthusiasts, patrons and students for access to these archives that may enhance their work, their knowledge, and their art experience on a global scale? Most importantly, we want to discuss ways to create equitable pathways for better access to art, for all.

Panelists:
Carol A. Wells, Executive Director of Center for the Study of Political Graphics
Emily Sulzer, Archives Director · Center for the Study of Political Graphics
Dr. Kenneth Oravetz, Coordinator and Lecturer of Critical Text Analysis at the University of New Mexico, Printmaker
Dr. Susanne Anderson-Riedel, Assistant Professor of the History of Art at the University of New Mexico.

BIOS
Carol A. Wells
Carol A. Wells is an activist, art historian, curator, lecturer, and writer. She has been collecting protest posters and producing poster exhibitions since 1981. Trained as a medievalist at UCLA, she taught the history of art and architecture for 13 years at CSU Fullerton. Her articles on political posters have appeared in numerous publications, and she has lectured extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad.

In 1988, Wells founded the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, an activist, educational and research archive with more 90,000 human rights and protest posters from the 19th century to the present, including the largest collection of post-WWII political posters in the U.S.

Political posters challenge the status quo, confront our preconceptions, and make us question the world and our responsibilities. By exhibiting posters from past and present struggles for social justice, Wells works to educate and inspire people to work for a better future.

Emily Sulzer
Emily Sulzer began her time at the Center for the Study of Political Graphics as a volunteer in 2015. She is now Archives Director, and oversees three other archivists in the cataloging, preservation, digitization, and management of CSPG’s collections. Sulzer received her MLIS from UCLA and her BA in Art History and Visual Art from Occidental College. She has worked on a variety of archival projects at arts institutions in Los Angeles, including the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and the Getty Research Institute.

Dr. Kenneth Oravetz
Kenneth Oravetz received his PhD in Literature from Northeastern University in Boston, MA in 2023. His research focuses on investigating contemporary media culture, materiality, and reading practices through the study of art comics. His pedagogy focuses on inclusive strategies for entwining instruction in reading comprehension, collegiate success, and multimodal rhetoric. His writing has appeared in Bubbles fanzine and in the comics studies journal ImageText among other venues. His printmaking experience includes risograph zines at Max’s Garage Press in Berkeley, CA and works in letterpress at Huskiana Press in Boston, MA as part of the Letterpress Goes 3D digital humanities initiative. Currently, Dr. Oravetz is the Coordinator and Lecturer of Critical Text Analysis at the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Susanne Anderson-Riedel
Susanne Anderson-Riedel is Associate Professor of European Art and Chair of the Department of Art at the University of New Mexico, USA. She received her M.A. in Art History from Freiburg, Germany, and her Ph.D. from UCLA with a focus on European art of the 18th and 19th centuries. Dr. Anderson-Riedel has extensive international experience, studying, working and publishing in the U.S., Germany, France, and Italy. Dr. Anderson-Riedel’s book, Creativity and Reproduction: Nineteenth Century Engraving and the Academy (2010), tells the story of the printmakers’ rise within the French Academy and their success in transforming a reproductive artform into a creative and original genre. Currently, Dr. Anderson-Riedel is preparing a book publication on the role of prints in the international discourse on politics, ideologies and the arts in the global 18th century. She is also part of an international group of scholars who are preparing a publication on the lavish, 19th century print albums titled Le Musée Français and their global distribution.