Weyland Mckenzie-Witter
Sound System Legacy:
Introduction to creative archive practice
I am a multidisciplinary Audio Artist, Creative producer, writer, and archivist in training from Stoke Newington, London. I am currently working as the Assistant Archivist at 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning.
I've worked as a producer on podcasts for the BBC and Spotify, Somerset House and I've produced radio on radio stations like BBC 1Xtra NTS and No Signal.
I have also produced music and sound design for international Ad campaigns for Just Eat, PGA Tou, Absolut vodka, Spotify, and more.
I am also the founder of the award-nominated NELLO. Through Nello, I have produced various audio productions for The British Library, Tower Hamlets Archive, The National Maritime Museum, South London Gallery, The Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and more.
“My audio practice involves a multidisciplinary layering of archival exploration,
digital humanities, oral history, storytelling, audio production, and exhibitions as
a means of analysing and interrogating history to make sense of the modern
world around us. While developing this intuitive practice, I became particularly
interested in the interplay of pedagogy, oral history, archival activation, and audio
production. At the core of my practice is an exploration of this interplay through
exhibitions, archival workshops, and collaborative production with young people
and those in academic fields.“
McKenzie-Witter, W., (2024) “Beyond The Broadcast: Nello and The People’s Method”, RadioDoc Review 9(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.14453/rdr.1499
“The concept of historical silences is commonly attributed to Haitian historian and anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot in his 1995 book Silencing the Past. The concept refers to the power and politics surrounding gaps or silences in the historical record. As a result, the perspectives, concerns and narratives of those dominated by the imperial powers are left out of recorded history, leaving gaps or silences.” McKenzie-Witter, W., (2024)
“Gaps in the archive” or “archival silences” are a reflection of these larger historical silences
Likkle Theory
Likkle More
“Archival optimism is the notion that we engage collectively in archival work because we have a sense of confidence in a future that will recognise the shared heritage that we build“ - Rebecka Taves Sheffield, Archival Optimism, or, How to Sustain a Community Archives (Chapter 1), "Community Archives, Community Spaces"(2020)
“In an era where we increasingly rely on virtual space; it becomes especially important to create physical spaces where people can sit and talk together face to face”. - Désirée Rochat, Maison d’Haïti’s Collaborative Archives Project: Archiving a Community of Records (Chapter 7) "Community Archives, Community Spaces"(2020)
Critical Fabulation
Critical fabulation combines archival and historical research with critical theory, literary imagination, and speculative narration. It is designed to recover the lives of marginalised and disempowered people.
Assata’s Chant and Other Histories(2020-)
Special Archive collection:
Access Points: Exhibitions, School workshops + Podcast series
ASSATA’S CHANT AND OTHER HISTORIES IS A MULTIMEDIA ARCHIVE PROJECT CONSISTING OF AN AWARD NOMINATED AUDIO SERIES, EXHIBITIONS AND WORKSHOPS.
This project fuses visual art, interviews, readings, immersive storytelling, music and sound design to tell an anthology of histories from the Black liberation movement with particular focus on Assata Shakur but including the likes of Altheia Jones Lecointe, Fred Hampton, Mutulu Shakur and Sundiata Acoli and more
We presented the history gathered for this project in an anthology format, as we believe it will best serve the history and the audience. We presented this anthology through exhibitions and a podcast series.
This is not OUR version of these events. As often as possible, we “return to the source,” be that our own interviews, speeches, essays, and other writings of those central to the histories.
In doing so, we activated preexisting archival collections and contributed to the creation of new interviews, artwork and photography that record some of these “other histories”.
In 2022, we brought Assata’s Chant and Other Histories audiovisual experience to the Roundhouse for a month-long display, which included multiple events and a partnership with New Beacon Books, which saw London’s first black publishers and bookstore setting up a stall at our opening event.
In August 2023, in collaboration with FAM Oakland, we brought the Audiovisual experience to Oakland, California.
On the 28th of June 2024, we presented the collection for the 3rd time in an audiovisual exhibition at Black Eats Festival.
