A

This website uses cookies as well as similar tools and technologies to understand visitors' experiences. By continuing to use this website, you consent to Columbia University's usage of cookies and similar technologies, in accordance with the Columbia University Website Cookie Notice

summer workshops

Archiving as Exercise

Aug 2 – Aug 8, 2025

Portland, Oregon

Sky Gellatly

and

Karen Wong

Research Question

This summer session will interrogate new forms for archiving online and IRL and explore those possibilities for the legacy brand Nike.

The practice of archiving has typically been situated and maintained in major cultural and academic institutions with many rules, and the rigor is intense. As technology advances, digital archives have replaced or buoyed the ubiquitous physical cataloging of historical documents and objects. With more than 1.5m objects in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, almost 500,000 artworks have been digitized in their Open Access Initiative for public domain use.

Faster and easier, digitizing documents, blueprints, images, and objects has allowed communities outside of the status quo to design and engineer their own archives — expanding the forms of engagement. Some are informal, like architect Andrew Bruno’s One House Per Day on IG or multi-hyphenate Virgil Abloh’s website Canary—yellow.com, documenting all his projects. Others are reinventing how an archive can behave. Kinfolk aims to retell the underrepresented histories through AR monuments of impactful black and brown trailblazers. As we all become content makers — soot.com is a new internet platform in beta, providing a digital space to reorganize your own content into an immersive experience.

While many legacy fashion houses hold archives, it’s rare if they are made public. Nike can change that. It is both an obligation and a privilege to create an archive for the annals of history, inspiration for future generations, and contextualization. At 60, Nike’s rich, robust, and singular vision has impacted sports and culture. It can lead and invent a hybrid archive — physical & digital, private & public, demonstrating a best-in-class approach.

Methodology and Process

Students will be asked to prepare for the summer workshop by studying the exhibition Nike: Form Follow Motion currently on view at the Vitra Design Museum. In August, students travel to Portland, Oregon to meet with thought leaders from Nike’s legendary brand team. Students will have an opportunity to visit portions of Nike’s world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon—where they will share time with key staff to review how Nike currently archives their projects and 200,000+ artifacts. In addition, students will have the opportunity to be in conversation with members of Nike’s marketing and communications teams, as well as leaders at Portland-based marketing and design agencies; the class will gather key information in this workshop to inform proposals for what a future-state brand archive could and should be.

Outputs and Findings

The students, in 4 teams of 3 will tackle a different aspect of an archive museum so that we aggregate a holistic presentation that will be shared with Nike at a later date.

Other 2025 workshops

MONSOON COMMONS in BENGALURU	Sonal Beri, Sandro Marpillero	Bengaluru	Jul 21 – Aug 8, 2025
Flashing Arcs and Crater-Clouds: Revisiting Volcanology in Southern Italy	Mark Wasiuta	Southern Italy	Jul 1 – Jul 10, 2025
Muddy Makings – Natural Materials in Digital Commons	Lola Ben-Alon, Olga Carcassi	Across New York City	Jun 15 – Jun 30, 2025
ROMA 2025: Infrastructures and Interruptions in the Year of the Jubilee	James Piacentini	Rome	Jun 20 – Jun 28, 2025
Exploring Metal Casting and Collaborative Experimental Preservation	Mika Tal, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Kate Allen	Birmingham, AL	Jun 2 – Jun 13, 2025