WELCOME TO SOMA ARCHIVES

This archive is a place of slow fluidity.
It is an unsorted place of pain and pleasure, of possible and yet unknown realities .
It has its own life and decision makings.
This archive holds many realities that follow different logics at the same time.
They constantly leak and drip into it.
One movement creates space for the next necessity to emerge.
My body is my archive.
This archive is our body.

May this archive offer a place for the gestures, emotions and personal and collective narratives inscribed in our bodies.
May this archive embody and weave trauma, grief, affect and fragility into care structures. May this archive tell stories of our experiences of illness, disability or chronic health conditions.
May this archive denounce the intersectional discrimination we have experienced within the medical-industrial system , the arts and culture sector and academia.
May this archive provide solace, illustrate our crip time and everyday rituals , and give voice to our traumas with or without naming them.
May this archive subvert and rewrite hierarchies and power relations in archives from a crip perspective.
May this archive also celebrate our mutual support, our emancipatory moments and our community life.
May this archive invite you to stay a little.
May this archive let you imagine that “we” are many . And we’re not the same.

We have created our own narratives as spaces of resistance and perceptivity.
We have built community, celebrating and acknowledging our differences, our limits, our wisdom and our learning paths.
We have told each other we want to hear when we need to take a break, or need another direction.
We have developed the approach of “Messy Access” , where at least two senses are represented for each contribution and we invite you to contribute more access features.
We have leaned into the grief of this moment of societal breakdown and genocide, infusing into our archival process.

Soma Archives aims to collectively create counter archives from a non-ableist and somatic perspective. It has been created through participatory and community-based archival practices as a counterpoint of canonical and institutional archiving processes.

Soma Archives is a project of Sickness Affinity Group, initiated by Maria Morata with Noah Gokul, Lo Moran, Lisa Ness and Lucie Schroeder.

Workshop concepts: Noah Gokul, Yon Natalie Mik, Lo Moran, Maria Morata, Lisa Ness

Concept and coordination of asynchronous online workshops: Lucie Schroeder

Installation: RC Taube, Almitra Pyritidis and Lo Moran

Website: Iz Paehr and RC Taube

Graphic Design: Iz Paehr

Accessibility concept: Lisa Ness, Noah Gokul, Lo Moran, RC and Almitra Pyritidis

Translation: Lucie Schroeder (coordination, German), Yara Abbas (Arabic), Dana Cermane (DGS), Gris García (Spanish), Marieke Helmke (German), Maria Morata (Spanish), Lisa Ness (German), Merve Asya Özgür (Turkish), Almitra Pyritidis (German), nat skoczylas (Polish) and Maarja Veisson (Estonian), Kani Lent (German)

Proofreading: Lo Moran (coordination), Noah Gokul, Lisa Ness, Almitra Pyritidis, Lucie Schroeder

Archivist/Activists: with Jùlia Ayerbe, Fran Breden, Noah Gokul, Yon Natalie Mik, Lo Moran, Maria Morata, Lisa Ness, Iz Paehr, RC Taube, Nir Salom, Lucie Schroeder, Christina Zück, Almitra Pyritidis and Weaving Contributors Kae Ilo Maris Eichel, ioana ferariu, noël, Nara Rosetto, Sina, Hannah Tatjes and Milena (Miles) Wendt, Arci, Carlo, Ida und Kit

SOMA ARCHIVES with Sickness Affinity Group has been funded by IMPACT-funding from the Senate Department for Culture And Social Cohesion.