Blurring boundaries/Bridging borders: Exploring the Work of the Audiovisual Archivist Today

Whether we conceive of border and boundaries literally, in terms of physical geography and landscape, or culturally, in terms of identities and language, or ethically, in terms of care and responsibility, or even in the disciplinary context of film and media studies operating within the academy itself, the work of the audiovisual archivist is engaged with them all. This article introduces the recent work of a range of US audiovisual archivists: Caroline Frick (Texas Archive of the Moving Image, TAMI), C Diaz (ENTRE, an artist-run community film center and regional archive in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas) and Angie Schmidt (Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections and Archives (APRCA)). It brings to light the ongoing and remarkable efforts that archivists make to challenge, change, confuse and cross traditional boundaries and hierarchies. Conversely, these conversations also highlight the attention given to the maintenance and even construction of distinctions and borderlines.