Community Archiving Day

Find Visual AIDS at the Community Archiving Day at Queens Museum November 15!

Please join Queens Museum for Community Archiving Day on Sunday, November 15, 2026, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. This event is hosted in collaboration with our current exhibition, About Us: The American Imaginary, in which three curators from Queens reflect upon the question, “what is American about American Art?” This will take place alongside CONECTANDO NYC, a free, bilingual-friendly experience bringing together Latino professionals, entrepreneurs, organizations, and families.

This second iteration of Community Archiving Day will prioritize a multitude of institutional and individual participants, hosting more than fifty projects from across the five boroughs. Participants will share a single project, completed or in-process, ripe for conversation and feedback. Archivists, historians, and collectors invited to present at this special event will offer insight into their physical materials and discuss opportunities for donations, research, and collaboration.

Methods for cultivation, stewardship, and distribution of archives and archival research will be on-display at this event. Visitors can expect zines and books for sale, archival materials to consult, and hearty conversation. Everyone is welcome to this free event to learn about archival practice and preservation efforts taking place across NYC.

Participants include:

• The Black Beauty Archive
• Franklin Furnace 
• City Lore
• Visual AIDS
• Third World Newsreel
• New York Genealogical & Biographical Society (NYG&B)
• Asia Art Archive in America (AAAinA)
• Thicker Than Water Polymedia (TTW)
• ABC NO RIO
• StoryCorps
• The Gates Preserve
• Canal Street Research Association
• Lewis Latimer House 
• NYC Trans Archives
• Cinco Estrellas Honduran Archive
• Morbid Anatomy

Curator-led Exhibition Tour, About Us: The American Imaginary, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

About the Exhibition: Through photographs from the Queens Museum’s collection, About Us asked three curators from Queens to reflect upon the question, “what is American about American Art?” The exhibition suggests that a multitude of histories, cultures, myths, and ideals combine to create our contemporary American experience, and thus our interpretation of American Art. In this city of immigrants, we can learn about global culture by getting to know our neighbors. Every person is an archive worthy of exploration.