Welcome to VERA Collaborative

VERA (Visual Electronic Representations in the Archive) is the first collaborative of art historians, archivists, librarians, researchers, engineers, and computer scientists working to build innovative and responsible archival practices around the visual and material cultures of communities of color.

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Archival technologies are not neutral and erasures in the archive are not inevitable. If we want to modernize our archives, the processes must be inclusive and ensure that everyone is visualized. Individuals and institutions creating, maintaining, and circulating archives must make more informed choices about how to structure collections so that they fully represent all of us.

Dr. Lyneise Williams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

What we do

As the first collaborative of its kind, we work to raise awareness and organize widespread collective effort at the intersections of archives, representation, and technology.

  • We advocate for culturally-responsible archival practices that address the significant erasures in visual, material, and historical representation disproportionately affecting communities of color.

  • We bring together practitioners, institutions, professionals, and scholars from a broad range of intellectual and technical backgrounds to develop better strategies for retaining visual and cultural integrity of communities of color in historical archives.

  • We provide a model for archives, libraries, museums, and cultural heritage centers around the world about the aesthetic, cultural, and social implications of visual representations found in the archive.

Our Partners

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