The Arts, Technology, and Democracy Spring 2026 Forum: Neta Bomani

Public Domain, Archives, and the Politics of Access

This talk examines archives, public domain materials, and libraries not as neutral repositories, but as contested infrastructures shaped by power, access, and historical violence—particularly in relation to Black life—while proposing transformation, rather than extraction, as an ethical mode of engagement. Through a series of case studies spanning abolitionist publishing, radical print culture, and contemporary zine practices, it traces how independent publishing and archival work function as strategies of self-determination, counter-record, and collective memory-making across generations. In a moment marked by censorship, disinvestment, and rising authoritarianism, the talk argues that working with and circulating archival materials is a political act—one that positions us not only as users of archives, but as active participants in producing, shaping, and defending them.

Neta Bomani is a community organizer, educator, and zine maker. She is the co-director of programs at the School for Poetic Computation and co-director of Sojourners for Justice Press—an imprint of Haymarket Books. Neta is also the co-founder of the Black Zine Fair. Their work has been exhibited or collected by the Brooklyn Museum, the Barnard Zine Library, The Kitchen, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Library. Neta received a graduate degree in Interactive Telecommunications from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.