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Single Parent Archive

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Single Parent Archive formed in the spring of 2021 and is a slow-growing archive that houses collections of the multiplicity of experience connected to single parenting. The archive intersects the single parent identity, politics around care/care labor value, and archival/preservation practices. The goal is to highlight the identities of single parents while drawing attention to the lack of support that many of these parents and caretakers experience. And to provide a space for reclamation of power and joy. Meanwhile, the archive researches alternative preservation protocols, to refuse the historical, institutional practices of divorcing communities of their objects and stories. The slowness of the archive development is part of that research and is an intentional form of care practice. There isn't gatekeeping of self-identification as a single parent, understanding the many entry points of being a sole provider for dependents. As the archive structures itself, the Art and Social Practice Archive at Portland State University Special Collections helps support the collections.

Black/white photography by Amy Schuessler, 2020: two large rocks on a sandy beach Photograph taken by co-founder Rebecca Copper of their child, 2014: small child on coach beneath window, smiling from behind couch pillows Tuna bake recipe scan submitted by Peter Freeman: crinkled paper, tuna bake recipe handwritten in pen The Tapes, Conversation I published in the SoFA Journal. An online journal put on by the Portland State University's MFA Art + Social Practice program. Pictured: in black type: The Tapes, Conversation I, December 12, 2021, Text by Rebecca Copper with Marti Clemmons and Gilah Tennenbaum. In red type: "...There was that fear: What if I don't have full parental rights, just because I'm not the biological mother? - Marti Clemmons. Below the text is the photograph of a red tomato with a green stem. Baked meat loaf recipe scan submitted by Peter Freeman: scanned page from a recipe book with water spots on the right bottom corner. Book cover by Amy Schuessler: background is a grainy/distorted sky fading upward from light to dark, a line in angled from. At the bottom script reads: A Piece of Stone Fell From the Crumbling Wall Black/white photograph taken by Amy Schuessler: shown upside down, ocean tide crashing in against rocks on the shore Box of audiotapes given to Portland State University's Special Collections and Archives, from the feminist bookstore, In Other Words. Black/white image taken by Amy Schuessler, 2020: Shown upside down, tall grass in a body of water Mart Clemmons, co-founder of the Single Parent Archive: Marti in foreground, left side with children and ocean cost in the background.