Collective Stewardship: Voices From the Field

This session uplifts the collective and community-driven approaches that are reshaping how legacy is held, shared, and sustained. A series of brief presentations highlighting artist-led groups, grassroots archives, and community-based initiatives will offer insights into how they are stewarding cultural memory—often outside traditional institutions and grounded in values of care, access, and shared responsibility.

Presenters will reflect on the ethos guiding their work, the challenges they face, and the victories that keep them moving forward. From post-custodial models to ethical frameworks of preservation, these efforts remind us that legacy stewardship is not only a matter of safeguarding the past, but of activating it—keeping it alive in place, in practice, and in community.

SPEAKER BIOS

Andrew M. Elder

Andrew Elder, University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections at University of Massachusetts Boston, has worked in a number of roles in the Joseph P. Healey Library since 2010. He has been a part of the department’s Mass. Memories Road Show team since 2011 and is co-developer of RoPA, the Roadmap for Participatory Archiving. Andrew is also a longtime volunteer archivist at The History Project, a community archive documenting LGBTQ+ history in Boston. His expertise and areas of interest include digital archives and participatory and community archiving. Andrew received an MS in Library and Information Science and Archives Management from Simmons University and a BA in English and Women's Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Heather Hart

Heather Hart is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the power in thresholds, questioning dominant narratives, and creating alternatives to them. She has been awarded grants from Anonymous Was A Woman, Graham Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Jerome Foundation, NYFA, and Harpo Foundation. Hart co-founded Black Lunch Table with jina valentine in 2005 and has won a Creative Capital award, Wikimedia Foundation grants, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, and an Andy Warhol Foundation of Art grant with that project. Her work has been exhibited at the Queens Museum, Storm King Art Center, The Kohler Art Center, North Carolina Museum of Art, Eastern Illinois University, Seattle Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and University of Toronto, Scarborough, among others. She was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and was awarded the 2025-26 Rome Prize. Hart studied at Skowhegan, Whitney ISP, Cornish College of the Arts, and Princeton University, and received her MFA from Rutgers University. She is an Assistant Professor at Mason Gross School for Art + Design, a member of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums, an external advisor for AUC Art Collective, and a trustee at Storm King Art Center.

Anita Sharma

Anita Sharma is a visual arts archivist, curator, and the founder of the Women Artists Archive Miami (WAAM), a digital initiative committed to preserving the studio archives and legacies of women and non-binary artists in South Florida. With over two decades of experience in archival practice, Anita centers accessibility, collaboration, and equity in her work, challenging institutional models of preservation through community-led, participatory approaches. Her practice bridges contemporary art and social justice, with a focus on uplifting diasporic and underrepresented voices. A first-generation South Asian immigrant, Sharma’s archival work has spanned international contexts, including early contributions to SALIDAA (South Asian Diaspora Literature and Arts Archive) in London and archival stewardship at Bose Pacia Gallery and the studio archives of Indian American printmaker Zarina Hashmi (1937–2020) in New York. She brings a diasporic lens to cultural memory work, emphasizing the importance of reflective, relational, and context-driven archival care. Through WAAM and beyond, she continues to develop platforms for creative preservation that honor lived experience and collectivity.

Sreedevi Sripathy

Sreedevi Sripathy is the Senior Program Manager at the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), where she leads initiatives to ensure South Asian Americans are recognized as an essential part of the American story, overseeing storytelling projects that span 250 years of South Asian American history. She previously served as Managing Director of Distribution and Content Management at ITVS, where she supported independent filmmakers and award-winning series Independent Lens (PBS) and Global Voices (WORLD Channel).

Mindy Tousley

Originally a native of Western New York, Mindy Tousley has lived in Cleveland since 1992. She graduated from the State University College at Buffalo in 1983, with a BS in Design. Tousley brings a unique set of skills and experiences to AAWR, where she has led the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve as Executive Director since November of 2014. She co-directed City Artists at Work for 17 years in Cleveland’s Campus Inc. District. Her past experiences as a former Lakewood gallery owner and Akron Gallery Director, with experience in art conservation and as an independent curator, have given her contacts in the arts communities of Cuyahoga, Summit, Lake, and Lorain Counties. She was Secretary of the Northern Ohio Art Dealers Association for three years and coordinator of the 2014 ART Expo. She is also a proud member of the CMA Print Club, where she currently chairs the Publications Committee, and an award-winning artist herself. Her own work is held in both corporate and private collections locally and nationally.