What does it look like to create an ethical visual archive that’s truly accountable to the community it documents?

Ethical documentary work cannot begin with cameras or interview questions; it begins with listening, trust, and understanding a community's priorities. I learned this lesson while interning with Soomaal House of Art, a Minnesota-based Somali artists collective, when the direction of the project I worked on this summer changed because Kaamil Haider, co-director and co-founder of Soomaal House of Art, and I listened to the collective's needs, not only my initial expectations, to guide our work. 

It starts with trust.

As a result of that listening, we decided to start documentary filming with a legendary artist in Minnesota, Aziz Osman. Aziz is a Somali artist whose work reflects memory, identity, displacement, and the cultural history of Somalia and its diaspora. His artistic journey has been shaped by experiences across Somalia, Europe, and the United States, making his work an important bridge between personal memory and collective history. The deep relationships that Kaamil has cultivated as an archivist over many years with Aziz, his wife Fadumo, and the wider Somali community made this project possible. Without that trust, it would have been extremely difficult and perhaps inappropriate to document Aziz, while he was navigating health challenges. The camera became meaningful only because trust had already been established. The relationship between Kaamil and Aziz also made it easier for me to work as an external researcher with the Somali community, because it helped to build the trust needed for both sides to fully engage in the process. 

One of the most meaningful outcomes of my internship was realizing that community-engaged documentary work begins long before the camera is turned on. Initially, my internship was designed to focus primarily on administrative and archival work. However, after reviewing Soomaal House of Art's existing photographs, archival materials, and past projects, we recognized an important gap: the organization lacked visual material that could document living memory through the eyes of Somali artists in Minnesota. Rather than keeping to our original plan, we discussed what the organization needed and shaped the internship accordingly.

A “blueprint” for a digital visual archive.

This shift became important because documentary art can do more than preserve images or record testimony. It can create a community-centered space in which memories of migration, exile, artistic practice, homeland, and everyday life are documented while they are still being lived and carried across generations. 

For the Somali community, such a space carries particular significance. Archival materials have been fragmented through colonial rule, civil war, displacement, and exile, while individuals and families have often preserved photographs, VHS tapes, sound recordings, newspapers, and other materials privately and under uncertain conditions. At the same time, many professionally produced stories remain difficult for communities to access because they are held behind institutional or commercial barriers. Soomaal House of Art, therefore, envisioned the project as an opportunity not simply to collect materials but also to cultivate an accessible visual archive rooted in the community itself.

Together, we decided to bring my experience in documentary filmmaking into the project and establish what Kaamil described as a "blueprint" for Soomaal House of Art's first digital visual archive unit. The purpose of this unit is to produce documentary films centered on Somali artists’ memories of homeland, migration, artistic life, and journeys to Minnesota, while also creating opportunities for community members to contribute archival materials, such as VHS tapes, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, and other records. 

Archives are never neutral.

I learned that archives are never neutral. Every archive reflects choices about whose stories are preserved, who tells those stories, what language is used, who has access, who manages the materials, and what becomes of them after the researcher leaves. These questions became central as we developed Soomaal House of Art's first visual archival initiative. Rather than simply documenting Aziz as an individual artist, we intentionally expanded the project to include his wife, Fadumo, as a memory keeper. Her participation ensures that the archive does not become a one-man narrative but instead reflects the shared history, care, creativity, and nostalgia that exist within the family. In doing so, we began to think of the archive not as a repository of files but as a living space where collective memory is preserved with the participation of those who created it. 

When we first talked to Aziz and his family, they mentioned that there was already a documentary about him produced by a media outlet. However, they were not aware that the film was behind a paywall, making it inaccessible to many Somalis — the very community whose history and artistic legacy it documented. This raised an important question for me: Who is an archive really for if the community it represents cannot access it?

As I watched parts of the documentary, I became increasingly aware of how visual choices shape the way audiences understand a person. One scene lingered on Aziz quietly drinking tea from a British-style teacup and saucer, filmed from multiple angles. Another showed him repainting works he had already completed. These moments made me pause. I was less interested in whether the scenes were aesthetically beautiful than in asking why they were considered necessary. Why do documentary makers so often feel compelled to translate people from the Global South through familiar visual codes that make them legible to Western audiences? Why ask an artist to reproduce work he has already created simply for the camera? Who benefits from these representations, and who is left out?

These are not merely stylistic decisions. They are ethical ones. Documentary filmmaking can unintentionally reproduce extractive practices by asking people to perform versions of themselves that satisfy outside expectations rather than reflect their own ways of remembering and living. As someone from the Global South, I wanted our project to move away from this logic of representation. 

Together with my partners at Soomaal House of Art, we decided not to recreate what had already been filmed or ask Aziz to perform his identity for the camera. Instead, we focused on preserving memories that had never been documented before. We wanted to create a space where Aziz and his wife, Fadumo, could pass their stories to future generations in their own voices, particularly at a time when his illness made those memories increasingly fragile. Rather than staging scenes, we sought to accompany him as he retraced the landscapes, experiences, and memories that shaped his life and artistic journey across the Horn of Africa. Our goal was not simply to produce another documentary but rather to create an archive grounded in trust, accessibility, and community ownership – one that speaks first to the people whose history it preserves.

Knowledge production should be reciprocal.

Perhaps my most important lesson was that knowledge production should be reciprocal. Community partnerships should not extract stories, photographs, or memories only to transform them into academic papers, degrees, or professional advancement. Instead, the people who share their histories should retain meaningful authority over how those histories are represented and should benefit from the work itself. 

This commitment shaped several aspects of the project. Aziz's family welcomed our suggestion of creating an accessible platform where his artwork could be displayed and potentially sold, allowing the documentary to contribute not only to preserving his artistic legacy but also to supporting the family in tangible ways. This reinforced for me that ethical collaboration means creating relationships that continue after filming ends. The goal was never simply to record Somali history; it was to help build an infrastructure that Soomaal House of Art and the community could continue to shape, use, and own long after my internship concludes.