Maroon Archives: Cartographies of Freedom | Marilyn Nance, Zakiya Collier, Kleaver Cruz, and Sed Miles
Join us for an intergenerational line-up of Black artists, activists, archivists, creatives, and scholars who will speak on the power, present, and futurity of Black archives, Marronage, and the politics of memory.
The panel discussions will emphasize the importance of Black Diasporic archival strategies as critical tools for narrative power and (re)construction; will interrogate the politics, possibilities, pitfalls, and limitations of memory work and archival recovery in the Diaspora; and will discuss how archival and political practice(s) offer insights on Black fugitivity, worldbuilding, solidarity, refuge, and even contradictions and queries across digital and physical modalities.
These teach-ins offer crucial insights into how Black feminists have always been engaged in world/space/placemaking. By examining both the preservation of our histories and the active creation of liberatory futures, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the ongoing project of Black feminist world-making.
Maroon Archives: Cartographies of Freedom is part of Black Women Radicals x The School for Black Feminist Politics (SBFP) teach-in series, “Black Feminist Marronage,” and Kinfolk Tech’s Dreaming with the Archives Initiative. This is a virtual event accessible via Zoom. ASL interpretation provided.
Featured Panelists
A lover of words and their meanings across languages, Kleaver Cruz (they/them) was born and raised in Uptown, NYC between The Bronx and Washington Heights with their twin and small Dominican family. Kleaver is a writer, educator and artist that is deeply interested in the crevices of archives and history. Those dusty spots that get less light and care but are brilliant all the same. Their work is the marriage between curiosity of what has come before and the creative imagining of what can be; there's an insistence on creating mirrors and clearing up the ones already there. They have presented and conducted work across the African Diaspora. Kleaver is the Facilitator of The Black Joy Project, a digital and real-world affirmation that Black joy is resistance. Kleaver is a 2024 nominee for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Debut Author.
They are the author of The Black Joy Project: A Literary and Visual Love Letter to How We Thrive.(Mariner/Harper Collins). Kleaver believes in the power of words to write the stories that did not exist when they needed them the most.
Zakiya Collier is an Afro-Carolinian archivist, memory worker, and educator. Her work and research explore archival practices that account for the material conditions of Black life and the role of cooperative thought in the sustainability of cultural memory. She leads The Black Memory Workers, a community of over 300 Black diasporic memory workers committed to practicing care and intention as they prioritize the documentation, long-term preservation, and celebration of Black life and experiences. Zakiya is currently a 2025 Create Change Artist-in-Residence with The Laundromat Project, an Adjunct Professor at Queens College (CUNY) and New York University, and the Program Director for Archiving the Black Web. She is also a co-producer on the forthcoming documentary film, Somebody’s Gone, and co-editor of a special double issue of The Black Scholar on Black Archival Practice.
Kleaver Cruz is lover of words and their meanings across languages, Kleaver Cruz (they/them) was born and raised in Uptown, NYC between The Bronx and Washington Heights with their twin and small family. Kleaver is a writer, educator and artist that is deeply interested in the crevices of archives and history. Those dusty spots that get less light and care but are brilliant all the same. Their work is the marriage between curiosity of what has come before and the creative imagining of what can be; there's an insistence on creating mirrors and clearing up the ones already there.
They have presented and conducted work across the African Diaspora. Kleaver is the Facilitator of The Black Joy Project, a digital and real-world affirmation that Black joy is resistance. Kleaver is a 2024 nominee for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Debut Author. They are the author of The Black Joy Project: A Literary and Visual Love Letter to How We Thrive.(Mariner/Harper Collins).
Kleaver believes in the power of words to write the stories that did not exist when they needed them the most.
Sed Miles Scholar. Artist. Global Strategist.
Sed Miles is a Fulbright Fellow and interdisciplinary artist working across photography, painting, mixed media, and participatory performance. His projects have been exhibited in more than ten countries, weaving together academic research, visual storytelling, and community-driven art.
As founder of Atlantic Archives, a global movement amplifying historically underrepresented voices, Miles builds bridges between scholarship, cultural memory, and civic engagement. His practice, rooted in the Black Atlantic, explores archives, surrealism, and the lives of working-class communities as sites of beauty, dialogue, and resilience.
Marilyn Nance’s artistry takes on many forms including photographs, prints, fiber arts, installation, and social practice. A graduate of New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, Nance is a digital pioneer. Her website soulsista.com, an artifact of the ancient web, has remained online without interruption for more than 25 years. She is known for her persistence, meticulous recordkeeping, and preservation, and vigorously encourages others to care for their collections. Nance’s motto is: Keep the archive safe, Organize the archive, and Make the archive accessible.
Nance's photographs are active agents in the work of diasporic memory, a concept elucidated by Nydia A. Swaby, a Black feminist, artist-researcher, and curator in her book, “ Amy Ashwood Garvey and the Future of Black Feminist Archives”. Nance’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Library of Congress, and has been published in The World History of Photography, History of Women in Photography and The Black Photographers Annual.
Sed Miles is a Fulbright Fellow and interdisciplinary artist working across photography, painting, mixed media, and participatory performance. His projects have been exhibited in more than ten countries, weaving together academic research, visual storytelling, and community-driven art.
As founder of Atlantic Archives, a global movement amplifying historically underrepresented voices, Miles builds bridges between scholarship, cultural memory, and civic engagement. His practice, rooted in the Black Atlantic, explores archives, surrealism, and the lives of working-class communities as sites of beauty, dialogue, and resilience.