ARTchivist's Notebook: Knowing is not enough
It no longer seems true that, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Knowing what happened is clearly not enough to stop it from happening again.
I’ve been thinking lately of the old saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (which I just learned comes from Spanish American philosopher George Santayana, also the author of one of the first works on aesthetics in the U.S.). The sentence has been rattling around in my head as we witness the wholesale, willful destruction of U.S. institutions and their support systems, in particular the rolling back of civil rights, freedom of expression, and any kind of effort that seeks to redress the harms inflicted on anyone who’s not WEBCCCHAM.*
Under this repressive regime, it has become painfully obvious that neither knowledge nor memory of the past will save us from repeating it. We are currently struggling under the merciless thumbs of despots who know the past and want to go back there. Clearly, knowing is not enough.
As information professionals and culture workers, we pride ourselves on preserving and providing access to the past in its myriad manifestations. We get excited when people use these histories to study, be inspired, learn.
I have long railed against the so-called “neutrality” under which we are traditionally supposed to provide this access. It simply does not exist — everyone comes with baggage that affects every step of the process, from what is preserved, to how it is described, to how people interact with it. But now “neutrality” is being weaponized in more emphatically destructive ways than I have ever seen before. The historical record of the U.S. has always been partial and biased, but the Trump administration is using the language of neutrality not only to paper over that bias but to destroy many of the steps we’ve taken to make existing here a little more equitable.
What can be done? As someone who does most of my work on the level of “representation” — metadata, writing — knowing (and sharing that knowledge) has been my main mode of activism. I thought, as recently as a few weeks ago, that if only people knew the horrors of the past, they would want to prevent them from recurring. Clearly, knowing is not enough.
If appeals to our common humanity (which I still believe in) go unheeded, and those in power only take care of their own, then we have to take care of ourselves. And that care needs to be intentional, and yes, partisan. Responding to the erasure of trans people, artist Bex Wade recently wrote:
In moments like this, when the law fails us, when public discourse turns cold — art can become a shelter. Not one of retreat, but of resistance. A space where we write ourselves back into history. Where we care for each other in public. Where we refuse the terms we’ve been given.
For museums, Nizan Shaked also has some ideas about what that looks like. She identified this moment as a time to dream even bigger about what we would like our institutions to be. Could they be organized according to the principles of mutual aid? With the understanding that art, culture, and history add value to society beyond the dollars they generate? Could resources and power be legislated away from the rich and already powerful and redistributed more equitably to everyone else?
This may sound impossible, given the existential threats to many archives, museums, and programs. But it is an important reminder that the old structures never served us very well to begin with. Now, it’s not just about knowing what happened; it’s about being intentional about who and what we support moving forward.
*WEBCCCHAM was coined by Hope Olson and enhanced by Marika Cifor. It stands for “white, ethnically European, bourgeois, cisgender, Christian, citizen, heterosexual, able-bodied man.”
So let’s get together!
“Out of the Picture” Screening and Panel Discussion
If you’re in the L.A. area, please join me for a screening of Out of the Picture, a heartfelt and incisive documentary about art critics and the current landscape for criticism, which was dangerously precarious even before the present crisis. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with critics Carolina A. Miranda, Steven Vargas, and Tre'vell Anderson, moderated by Oliver Wang.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2025
6:00 PM - 9:30 PM PDT
Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum
100 North Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
$10 Adults, Free for Youth (under 18), JANM Members
2025 Curationist Metadata Summit: Metadata Outside the Box
I’ll also be moderating the 2025 Curationist Metadata Learning & Unlearning Summit on Thursday, September 18th, 2025, from 12-1:30pm EST! This year's theme, "Metadata Outside the Box", will feature discussions on unexpected, subversive approaches to metadata from panelists:
Hailey Loman, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA)
Kyle Parry, writer and professor, History of Art and Visual Culture, UC Santa Cruz
Lydia Mardirian, Arab Image Foundation
Join us online for an engaging session with short presentations, a panel discussion, and interactive audience Q&A.
Do you make critical content about pop music?
I’m working on another report about critics! If you make critical content about pop music — this could include writing, but also video, audio, or social media posts — we want to hear from you. Our survey seeks to understand the opportunities and obstacles critics encounter over the course of their careers. The survey is completely anonymous and takes about 10 minutes. It is sponsored by Critical Minded, a grantmaking and learning initiative fiscally sponsored by Allied Media. For more information and to take the survey, go to criticalminded.org/survey.