>> Maya Cade: I'm Maya Cade,
Scholar in Residence.
>> Jeffrey Yoo Warren:
I'm Jeffrey Yoo Warren,
Innovator in Residence.
And we're here at the
Library of Congress.
And we're here at the Pickford
Theater to talk about our work.
>> Maya Cade: So, Jeffrey,
tell me about your
work at the library.
>> Jeffrey Yoo Warren:
Well, my work involves
archival research into early
communities of color,
and especially Asian American
or Chinese American
communities of color, and the
virtual reconstruction of some
of the neighborhoods that
people lived in and an attempt
to better understand
their lives in those places.
So a lot of what I'll do is
I'll go through old photographs,
maps, newspapers and other
kinds of records, and I'm just
keeping my ear open to see any
little clue I can about sort of
what a neighborhood not just
looked like, but what was going
on, what it might
have felt like.
And through that, to actually
build a 3D model of it.
And the goal is not necessarily
to make a perfectly precise
model, but to make
a model so that
as an Asian-American person,
I can try to experience
immersively the
feeling of being there.
And I think that comes
from the fact that
I'm not a historian or
academic, professionally
I'm an artist and an educator,
and I'm very interested in how,
especially Asian American
people can better understand our
own histories and the histories
of our communities early on
in this nation's history.
And yeah, I think
this kind of immersive
and also creative
space making is--
You know, it's an interesting
way to do it, but it's also one
that kind of reflects some of
my background and my ways of
thinking about
history and identity.
>> Maya Cade:
And that's beautiful.
But aren't artists
and teachers the first
historians anyway?
>> Jeffrey Yoo Warren:
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah. And I guess
I'm just so much more
interested in what the history
means to us today.
So I'm really interested in how
people are going to make meaning
from it. What we learn from
these stories will inform how we
sort of shape our own futures.
And so I really see it as this
sort of interactive thing.
And I also want to see people
like inserting themselves into
those histories to
have a sense of the
feeling for it
rather than just
the facts, you know?
>> Maya Cade:
Oh, my gosh. You know,
my work at the library is
similar in that kind of way
where I'm looking at
tenderness and Black film.
So one of my main projects that
I'm working on now because
it's a two year fellowship.
It's a two year residency.
I am really looking at early
film history and my work with
Black Film Archive, my site.
Which launched in August 2021.
The genesis of that really was
this moment of racial reckoning
during the George
Floyd protests.
And that's when I had
the desire to create
Black Film Archive, which is
a living archive of Black film.
And I think that
It comes from this idea of
people believing that Black
films past is rigid, that it
can only exist in one way, that
it's only racist,
it's only this.
It's only that when there's
abundant possibility
in Black cinema's past and
tenderness comes into play
because I'm thinking about ways
that people can navigate the
past. I just kind of
want people to have
some pool to the past,
especially if the conversation
was a flat one.
And that's kind of how
I was entering the space.
And so why not tenderness
and why not pool infinite
possibilities from the past
with this as a guide?
And tenderness to me is a
poignant moments of Black
affection. And the films that
I'm pulling from, really, they
run the gamut of things that
may have been seen in one way
before, but now
I'm trying to awaken
a new possibility in them.
>> Jeffrey Yoo Warren: Yeah.
I think your project
is so beautiful and I
really like how it focuses on
your own experience
of a film and your own
relationship to it, as
opposed to, say, what a film is
trying to say to like the
broader public or something.
>> Maya Cade: Yeah, you
know, I think my work
because it centers
community first.
I know as a member of that
community that my impression of
the film has some value, but
also my research impression.
You know, anytime
I watch a film for
Black Film Archive or for this
project, I'm, you know, taking
notes throughout the film.
I'm scrolling through, oh, this
moment because often I'm
answering queries
about films too.
And that also influences how I
display the films, whether it be
this project or otherwise,
because I think archives
are only as visible as
they are to the community
they're trying to serve.
At least that's the perspective
I'm hoping to illustrate.
And so I must be responsive to
this community that may not have
had access to these films,
may have not had a
relationship to them because
they've dismissed them or didn't
have the knowledge
or whatever it may be.
And I can't shame
them for that opinion.
But I can give them new
ways to navigate the past.
And it sounds like that's really
what you hope to do as well.
>> Jeffrey Yoo Warren:
Yeah, I love that. I mean,
it's like you're seeing that
there were all
these messages sent
and you're trying to make sure
they get to their recipients
or something, you know?
>> Maya Cade:
Yes. Yes. No, that's right.
[Laughing]
>> Jeffrey Yoo Warren: One thing
I do a lot in my work is I look.
I feel like I spend a
lot of time just like,
really zooming
in on things.
Like I often want to see,
you know, like in a picture,
especially if there's people or
sort of a home scene of some
kind. I get like, really
fixated on like, what's on the
wall, like what's on the table.
Like, what are these objects?
What do they mean?
And I'm curious, when you watch
a film, you know, there
probably are many different
ways you watch.
But, you know, do you find
yourself pausing and going back
and looking at something and
trying to get a little deeper
into the world than just
maybe not a casual, but
then the way you might watch
it narratively. You know.
>> Maya Cade: What's so
interesting about that question
is I went to school
for journalism,
and there's this idea in
journalism that too much
research is the enemy
of progress. Like that.
You know, staying
with something for too long
won't allow you to fully see it.
But I think both of our works
speak to this idea that in the
minutia there's so much
possibility, there's so much
that can be there that you
can extract from and not just
have an extractive relationship
to it, but to really pull new
possibility that wouldn't
be seen otherwise.
And so when I'm watching a
film, I really am just thinking.
First of all, myself, I think
the first time I watched
something, I don't want
to be in translation.
I want to grasp the film and I
want to just understand how I
feel about it. And this is
when I have time, I should say.
Then I go to the research
and see what has been written
about it and how my view of it
contrast with that, because
often there are films that there
hasn't been new look, that
there hasn't been like a modern