WASHINGTON — In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (AFC) launched a year-long campaign asking Americans to share photos of their folk traditions. The campaign kicks off a year of events that will commemorate AFC’s four decades as the institution of record for American folk traditions and ensure that it remains the country’s most vibrant folklife archive and research center well into the future.
Photos
The photo campaign asks people all over the United States and beyond to submit photos of a folk tradition in which they themselves participate, creating a collective snapshot of folklife in 2016. Photo subjects can include performances; artworks; cuisine; handmade objects such as baskets, textiles or furniture making; or customs observed, such as anniversaries, holidays or other traditions.
The campaign asks participants to share the photos to Flickr with the tag “MyTradition” and a Creative Commons license. The campaign will last throughout 2016, and at the end of the year the Library of Congress will harvest photos that have both the tag and a license and add them to the AFC’s collections.
AFC will issue a 2016 edition of its classic fieldwork manual “Folklife and Fieldwork,” as well as other print and online publications. The center’s blog, Folklife Today, will make regular postings throughout the year highlighting AFC’s contributions and collections, and noting AFC’s events. To learn how to submit a photo, visit http://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/.
