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Ancestral Futures: Speculative Imaginings from the Archive

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What stories can we find in the archives about Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)? Whose stories are missing, and what new creations can these archives (or the gaps in them) inspire?
In Fall 2023, UCR Special Collections & University Archives hosted a Call for Submissions for the inaugural issue of Ancestral Futures, an arts & literary magazine combining creative practice with archives. The call invited everyone, including members of the general public, artists, writers, poets, and creatives, to visit the archives and speculate how these materials can be reimagined, and metaphorically remixed, to tell new stories. Submissions were asked to draw from Afrofuturism, Latinx/Chicanx Futurisms, Indigenous Futurisms, Asian Futurity, and related fields to explore how the intersection of art and archives can inspire new ideas, interpretations, and engagement with the past.

Ancestral Futures was always envisioned as a print publication with a digital counterpart. There is power in print (and nothing quite like seeing your work become tangible on paper), but there is also power in the flexibility and visibility that comes with digital space. Our ultimate goal is that everyone be able to access and share Ancestral Futures. Therefore, in the spirit of zine culture, we have provided a PDF copy of Ancestral Futures for free download (see "Download this Zine").
How to Navigate This Site:
You can dive right into the submissions by clicking any of the images below. If you would like to learn more about the Ancestral Futures project, goals, and vision, please see the additional links below.

Permissions & Fair Use
Acknowledgements
Journey
Introduction

Please direct questions and comments about this project to Sandy Enriquez, project organizer, at sandy.enriquez@ucr.edu.
Download this Zine

Ancestral Futures was always intended to be accessible and shared freely. We have made the print version available for PDF download through a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This means anyone can copy, redistribute, and share it; however, please give attribution and refrain from commercial usage.
Journey
The Ancestral Futures Call for Submissions went live in September 2023. We invited everyone, including members of the general public, artists, writers, poets, and creatives, to visit the archives and speculate how these materials could be reimagined, and metaphorically remixed, to tell new stories.

Submission Parameters
Formats requested included micro fiction, poetry, and any form of (digitized) art. We asked that submissions draw from Afrofuturism, Latinx/Chicanx Futurisms, Indigenous Futurisms, Asian Futurity, and related fields to explore how the intersection of art and archives can inspire new ideas, interpretations, and engagement with the past. We required that each submission cite at least one archival item as the original inspiration behind the piece.

As the project grew, we expanded the call to be more inclusive. We welcomed submissions using archival images from outside UCR’s holdings, and submissions that focused more on local history and the experiences of BIPOC communities in the Inland Empire. As this was an experimental project, we wanted to test the waters and see what interest/needs the community had, and respond to it.

Workshops
In October 2023, we organized two hands-on workshops that combined creative practice with archival exploration: “Little Big Stories” and “Navigating the Archive.” Our goal for these 2-hour workshops was two-fold: help introduce/demystify the archive and cultivate spaces where we could create in community. Many of the submissions received were born from these workshops.

"Little Big Stories" was led by Professor Wallace Cleaves (Gabrieleno/Tongva) who shared an introduction to Indigenous Futurism through the lens of micro fiction, and led the group through a creative writing exercise inspired by curated materials by UCR Special Collections.

"Navigating the Archive" was led by interdisciplinary visual artist, cultural producer, and independent curator Chelle Barbour. Barbour gave an overview of her work in surrealism and Afrofuturism, and guided the group through a collaging activity using reproductions of materials from UCR Special Collections and other institutional archives. All images for that workshop were found and curated from the digital repository, Calisphere.

Results
Eight finalists were selected for publication by the 2023 Selection Committee. In an effort to promote sustainable artistic practice, all finalists were compensated with a $50 Visa gift card and a print copy of Ancestral Futures. A copy will also be preserved in UCR Special Collections, and may be added to UCR's circulating collection as well.

Future
We received many fantastic submissions, and we regret that we could not accept them all. We hope to continue this project in 2025, with a new theme and focus, to promote more archival exploration and engagement. Stay tuned!
Acknowledgements 12 plain 2024-01-24T13:22:37-08:00
Ancestral Futures was made possible by the generous funding and support of the following organizations:
- Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage
- Rare Book School
- UCR Library
- Native American Student Programs at UCR
- California Center for Native Nations at UCR
We also want to thank the following people who contributed their time and expertise to the success of this project:
- Dr. Wallace Cleaves
  - Instructor for “Little Big Stories: Indigenous Micro Fiction and Futurism” workshop
- Chelle Barbour
  - Instructor for “Navigating the Archive: Reimaging Visual Narratives & Portraits” workshop
- The 2023 Selection Committee:
  - Dr. Phoenix Alexander
  - Adrian Dizon
  - Mariah Green
  - Andrew Lippert
- Krystal Boehlert
  - Co-creator of the digital Ancestral Futures space
- And everyone who sent in a submission!
Without your support and participation, Ancestral Futures would have remained a dream on the shelf.
Permissions & Fair Use
Both the digital and print versions of Ancestral Futures launched in January 2024.

This collective work is shared under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. You are encouraged to copy, redistribute, and share it; however, please give attribution and refrain from commercial usage.

Out of respect to the artists and writers who contributed to this project, “Ancestral Futures” cannot be remixed, transformed, or built upon and then distributed.

Artistic and archival works remain under the copyright of their original creators. The archival images used here are reproduced under the fair use doctrine. Ancestral Futures is a not-for-profit, educational project that promotes the use of archives in creative arts, resulting in transformative artistic works. Archival images are included at the minimum needed to give context to the elements of research and scholarship that contributed to the artistic creation.
Introduction
As a librarian and a woman of color working in the archives, I have often felt like a conundrum.

I work to protect this history, and help make it accessible, but at the same time, the stories of my own ancestors and communities are so often missing from these spaces. “Ancestral Futures” was dreamed up as a way to combat this erasure, to reconnect these materials with their communities, and to inspire new ways of thinking about the archive as a whole, all through a means more accessible than traditional research: art. By welcoming artists, writers, and other creatives to the archive, we open the doors to new beginnings, and new pathways to engaging with these materials and histories.

I hope that the art shared here inspires and moves you, as it has me. I will always remember these narratives and stories anytime I see these archives and materials again. That connection is powerful. For that reason, we have chosen to include images (and if applicable, institutional descriptions) of the archival materials that inspired each submission.

With appreciation,
Sandy Enriquez
Organizer for Ancestral Futures