REMIX | Art from the Archives Contest: Celebrating American Archives Month

Posted on: September 14, 2016

By Halle Forbes, Special Collections Student Assistant

American Archives Month is right around the corner in October! This year, various Archives and Special Collections throughout Virginia are teaming up to give YOU a chance to showcase your talents, while celebrating the importance of archival material. You could even win a $100 gift card!

REMIX | Art from the Archives is a contest created by the Virginia Caucus of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference to inspire literal and figurative out-of-the-box ideas for cultural heritage collections. Archives aren’t just about serious research—they can be about serious (or not so serious) art! Redaction poetry, GIFs, collages, coloring pages, memes, and other digital interventions are all ways to remix.

One of the photos you could reinvent. The possibilities are endless! Submitted by University of Virginia – Claude Moore Health Science Library

Interested already? Entering is easy!

Simply craft your submission with materials from the Virginia Archives Month 2016 Flickr album. Re-imagine or reinterpret the source material through your personal artistic lens. Then head on over to the REMIX Art from the Archives Tumblr to submit your creation. You can enter up to three submissions between September 1 and October 14, 2016. Submissions will only be accepted digitally, though you may choose to print and manipulate the source material through a variety of artistic methods. Take a photo of your finished product for the submission! Also, all source material must be marked as in the public domain, have a no known copyright restrictions statement, or have a Creative Commons license, allowing for reuse.

Explore, reinterpret, create, submit! It’s that simple.

How do I win, you ask?
A selected panel of local artists and area creatives will judge! These judges will award one supreme REMIX winner, as well as 3 runners-up. The submission with the most Tumblr ‘notes’ will also receive a Congeniality Award for People’s Choice.

Prizes include:
Winner:

  • $100 Amazon gift card
  • Rivah Platter or Christmastime in RVA
  • Choice of literary tote bag
  • Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni or All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani
  • LVA magnet and LVA keychain

First Runner Up:

  • $75 Amazon gift card
  • Norfolk Southern “Rail Life” travel cup
  • LVA magnet and LVA keychain

Second Runner Up:

  • $50 Amazon gift card
  • Norfolk Southern Locomotive USB drive
  • LVA magnet and LVA keychain

Third Runner Up:

  • $25 Amazon gift card
  • Norfolk Southern “Rail Life” T-shirt
  • LVA magnet and LVA keychain

People’s Choice:

  • Norfolk Southern prize pack
  • Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni or All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani
  • LVA magnet and LVA keychain

All entries will be judged on creativity and originality of entry. All eligible entries that meet the criteria outlined in the Submission Guidelines will be showcased on the REMIX Tumblr and otherwise celebrated via the Interwebs.

How could you reinvent this old postcard from 1937? -Submitted by Shenandoah County Library System

Unsure of what to make, or maybe you just don’t see yourself as artistic?That’s okay! There are plenty of resources anyone can use for some inspiration.

Enjoy embroidery? REMIX a photo by adding some color to an old photo, as shown here.

Love GIFs? Why not take a stab at making your own to add life back into archives! There are plenty of tutorials and online GIF Generators to help you along the way.

Check out the Resources page for even more ideas.

The possibilities are endless and we want to see YOUR ideas!

For more information about REMIX | Art from the Archives, visit the contest’s Tumblr and Flickr pages.
If you have further questions, visit the Ask page.

Happy remixing!

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