Recollecting the moon, archiving as ritual
Months ago, I called some friends to tell me something about the moon. I recorded our conversations, starting from their first memory of the moon. Some talked about gazing at the moon while riding in a car with their parents, some talked about psychedelia under the moon. My favorite question: What do you think the moon tastes like? Or what do you want its flavor to be? If there’s a chance, I like to tickle someone’s imagination.
While the intention is still a radio montage, I wanted to have a new zine in time for Off Register: Art Book and Print Fair. I summarized each story into their own square tri-fold and placed them into a box of tiny oral histories about the moon.
Tending to our memories, personal archiving as ritual
For a while now, I’ve had this urge to gather people around a table and make memory books together. The kind where you don’t worry about perfect layouts or the right glue. You just print out the photos living in your phone, swipe through old screenshots and notes, and suddenly there you are, seeing yourself in all these tiny fragments you forgot.
Time feels strange to me. We track it, celebrate it, complain about it. Some weeks feel like slow motion or they vanish overnight. And when time gets weird, so does memory.
Putting together a creative memory book helps me make sense of all that. It becomes a little record of what this chapter has been, even if the chapter feels messy or ordinary. And because so much of our lives lives inside our phones now, our personal archives just keep piling up. Photos. Voice memos. Entries on notes apps. Screenshots of news and jokes. Text threads we swore we’d never forget. But how often do we actually look back? Do we scroll all the way to 2018? Do we sit with the things we saved for “later”? Or does it all just sink deeper into the digital basement?
Somewhere along the way, we stopped being intentional about what we keep. Everything gets stored, but nothing gets held. We’re always rushing toward the next thing, hoping it’ll be worth remembering.
Starting November, I’m facilitating Archiving as Ritual: Crafting Your Soft Yearbook, a virtual course via Index Space.
Archiving as Ritual: Crafting Your Soft Yearbook
A 4-week online course developing a creative ritual for archiving fragmented memories of delight, grief, and everything beyond and in between.
Four Saturdays, Nov. 15 – Dec. 13 (no class Nov. 29)
10am–12pm PT (1–3pm ET)
Sliding Scale: $200 - $325 (Index Scholarships available)
This course is both a creative exploration and a gentle ritual for processing and reflecting on the past year. In this course, you’ll have dedicated time to transform fragments of memory, joy, grief, and gratitude into an experimental personal yearbook prototype. You’ll browse through your digital albums, journal entries, and other documentations. No design experience is required—just a willingness to notice, reflect, and shape moments from your past into something soft, thoughtful, and whole.
Hope to see you there! Register today!
Note: This version will be its first and most likely its last, as I’m considering to slice it into something either quarterly or biannually and gathering in closing-out ceremony at the end of next year. If you’re interested in this kind of long-term practice, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Stepfanie