Healing Through Archives
Date: Monday, March 24, 2025
Time: 5:30-8pm
Location: 599 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Cost: None. This workshop is sponsored by the Association for Manitoba Archives with co-sponsorship from the Kishaadigeh Collaborative Research Centre (University of Winnipeg).
Archives can cause pain; but archives can also heal. Many of us have witnessed both pain and healing in our reading rooms and in talking with researchers.
Please join Vanessa Cook, Krystal Payne, and Greg Bak for an evening discussion on integrating healing-centered engagement into your archival practice. We envision this as a free-flowing discussion within our community of practice, it will not be a repeat of the workshop from last year.
If you attended our workshop last year, we would love to hear how you have been using what you learned and make space for any follow-up questions that you have. If you are not familiar with healing-centered engagement (HCE), a set of practices developed within the fields of education and public health, we will also talk through how HCE concepts can contribute to healing archives.
We will be meeting in the Kishaadigeh Collaborative Research Centre, located on the 3rd floor of the Richardson College for the Environment building at 599 Portage. While this building is a part of the University of Winnipeg, it is located off the main campus. There are bus stops nearby, and paid parking is available at the back of the building. When you come in the front doors, there will be a hallway directly in front of you just past the security desk, and the elevator is on the right-hand side of this hallway. When you arrive at the third floor, you will find the entry door to the area that 3RC060 is located within directly to your left.
Supper will be provided. If you have food allergies or sensitivities, please let us know in advance (email Sarah Story, AMA Admin Assistant, at ama1@mts.net).
Facilitator Bios:
Vanessa Anakwudwabisayquay Cook (Peguis First Nation/Winnipeg) works for The People as a Shkaabekwe (Helper). As an Indigenous Health Facilitator, an Adult Educator with Righting Relations and as a Director of Red Tent, which provides anti-oppression training, she has delivered thousands of workshops on decolonizing mental and sexual health, substance use and relationships. She prides herself on Indigenous education, graduating from Children of the Earth High School and obtaining a First Nation Counselling Degree from Brandon University. Her highest education comes from Sundance/Fasting ceremonies, time spent in nature with Elders, Medicine People and Family who grace her life. She is a Mother of two and an Aunty to many.
Greg Bak is an associate professor of archival studies at the University of Manitoba, and a settler of Polish descent on Treaty One lands and the homeland of the Red River Métis. A Fellow of the Association of Canadian Archivists, his research and teaching focus on archival decolonization, digital archives, and the histories of digital cultures. He is a co-editor of All Shook Up: The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook (SAA 2020) and The Nordic Model of Digital Archiving (Routledge 2024). Prior to 2011 he was a senior digital archivist at Library and Archives Canada.
Krystal Payne (she/her) is a settler archivist and PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba (Treaty One Territory and the homeland of the Métis nation). Krystal came to archives after working in community health where she developed and delivered health education and harm reduction services for a variety of audiences. She is interested in continuing to apply feminist, social justice and healing-centred relational orientations to her archival work. Krystal’s research on archival harm reduction has been published in Archivaria, and she is currently studying at the intersections of settler colonial archives, archival violence and supporting Indigenous archival sovereignty.
