2025 CPAL Class - Managing Ephemera

CPAL Class - Managing Ephemera

Join us for a new CPAL class on Managing Ephemera. Archives are sites of recovery — touch points for connections to the past. This class addresses ways to move through artists' archives — both papers and objects — to create meaning.

Class title: Managing Ephemera

Instructed by: Sur Rodney Sur

Time: March 26, 3-5pm

Tickets available: CPAL’s website & Eventbrite

This is a two-hour class with the last 15 minutes dedicated to Q&A.

Subjects to be discussed:

• What is ephemera and why is it important?
• What would be considered an artifact?
• Considering inventory spreadsheets vs. data management programs
• Identification standards: everything needs an ID#, category, description, measurement, and location
• Digital files
• Appraisals / Insurance / Valuation?
• How are ephemera and artifacts useful? And to whom?

About the instructor:

Sur Rodney (Sur) is an artistic collaborator, curator, writer and archivist who has worked managing the ephemera and artifacts in his own collection and notable others: neo-Dada collage artist Buster Cleveland; multi-media performance artist Arlene Schloss; concept-based artist and writer Lorraine O’Grady; and most recently his late partner Geoffrey Hendricks, an artist associated with Fluxus, are among them.

For more info, visit cpal-info.com

Host or Publisher Center for the Preservation of Artists' Legacies