Announced by the OHA at their annual meeting in Atlanta, the Mason Multi-Media awards recognize “outstanding oral history projects, collections, exhibits, and multimedia presentations for the public.”
According to Yolanda Hester, who chaired the committee that selected the winners and whose members included Max Peterson, Mark Caltrain and Simona Tobia, “As in previous years, we were enthusiastic with the many exceptional projects that were nominated. They reflect the use of oral history across a variety of media platforms and applications, from art and film projects to digital exhibitions and collections. The nominations demonstrate the broad spectrum of scholarly and creative interests in oral history practice. And although the quality of the submissions made our job hard, we are thrilled to share that the Mason Award was given to three standout projects.”
Here are the projects:
Christopher Pandza and Madeline Alexander, “I See My Light Shining: The Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project”
From Madeline Alexander and Chris Pandza:
Established by award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson, the Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project captures and celebrates untold and underrepresented stories of activists, storytellers, and community builders who have witnessed and shaped great change in American public life. Bringing together over 230 oral history interviews and 1,000 personal mementos from ten distinct communities across the United States, the Elders Project was produced by Incite Institute at Columbia University—home to the Columbia Center for Oral History Research—in partnership with Woodson’s nonprofit, Baldwin for the Arts, between 2022 and 2024. At a time when minoritized experiences are facing erasure in libraries and schools, the Elders Project offers a way of preserving and sharing the memories of Black, Brown, Asian, Latine, Indigenous, and queer elders before they are lost to time.
When fieldwork concluded, Chris Pandza deployed a set of computational techniques that combined close reading and natural language processing to reveal connections in our 420 hours of interviews. The output of this work was a database of over 20,000 clips, interconnected by common topics, themes, and place codes induced entirely from the interviews, rather than centralized research objectives. Madeline Alexander and Chris then used this database to power research, web development, community activity, and artistic interpretations.
The urgency of this moment compelled Madeline to reimagine how large-scale oral histories are produced, mediated, and shared—developing a multimedia strategy that would ensure these narratives are not only heard but inherited and interpreted for and by future generations. Since launching in May 2024, the Elders Project has reached audiences nationwide through community-driven events, gallery exhibitions, dj sets, and theatrical and literary productions, each backed by a Webby and Anthem Award-winning digital archive to facilitate the ongoing transmission and interpretation of these critical narratives.
Elders Project Gallery exhibition at The Bishop Gallery, August 2024. Artist Jillian M. Rock in conversation with attendees about her artwork based on the Elders Project archive.
Learn more at Incite Institute’s website or by exploring the Project’s digital archive.
Laura Montanari, “Songwriting Oral History Interviews: Archival Songs as Critical-Creative Pedagogy in Dialogue”
From Laura Montinari:
Songwriting Oral History Interviews: Archival Songs As Critical-Creative Pedagogy in Dialogue With Women of the Italian Resistance explores the intersection of oral history, songwriting, and critical-creative pedagogy. Drawing on archived interviews with women who participated in the Italian Resistance during World War II, I reimagined these narratives not just as historical documents but as living sources for creative memory-making and educational practice. By transforming these narratives into original songs (archival songs), I aimed to bridge archival research and contemporary songwriting as a method of critical engagement and remembrance. This approach elevates music as a tool to amplify marginalized voices, offering a dialogical and artistic approach to history that challenges traditional academic frameworks. The dissertation situates songwriting as a form of embodied scholarship, emphasizing how creative methodologies can foster deeper connections to historical memory while co-constructing and re-constructing historical memory. It serves both as a means of historical preservation and as an innovative pedagogical model.
Link to my dissertation
Link to the first single taken from the research songs album
MEM – Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises, “The Making of a Community-Based Museum Rich in Oral History”
From their website:
Telling the story through the eyes of Montrealers
The MEM – Centre for Montreal Memories mobilizes the Montreal population to contribute to highlighting Montreal identities. It gathers and promotes the testimonies of diverse communities to tell the city’s story.
To fulfill its mission, the MEM gives pride of place to the voices of citizens, both past and present. It reveals “Montrealness,” the diverse facets of Montreal in all their richness. Whether you were born in Montreal or have made the city your home, you are part of its history. The MEM wants to hear from you and share your memories. It celebrates with you, and thanks to you, the pride of being a Montrealer!
Découvrez le MEM, votre musée 100 % montréalais
The portal for submissions for next year’s Mason awards will open early in 2026. The deadline for entry is July 1, 2026.