IASA-BAAC 2026 Conference

Name: Sound as Sanctuary: Cooperative Record Labels as Decentralized Archives for Queer Diasporic Memory
Start: 2026-10-22T14:00:00+0300
End: 2026-10-22T14:30:00+0300

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Sound as Sanctuary: Cooperative Record Labels as Decentralized Archives for Queer Diasporic Memory

Thursday October 22, 2026 2:00pm - 2:30pm EEST

Events hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania: Great Hall

In this session, I examine cooperative record labels as decentralized archival infrastructures that safeguard queer diasporic memory under conditions of precarity, censorship, and cultural erasure. Framing sound as sanctuary, I argue that this model of cultural production is not neutral, but is rather an active site of refusal—building necessarily fluid, community-governed systems of preservation, narrative sovereignty, and material redistribution outside institutional and corporate control.

I ground this work in APOCALIPSIS, the transnational record label I founded in 2017 to amplify artists “de aquí / de allá” (from here/from there), as a living archive where curatorial practice, diasporic memory through sound, and infrastructural design operate as political practice. This model emerges as an intervention against institutional exclusion and extractive music industry logics, asserting autonomous and sustainable modes of cultural production.
At its core, this framework centers shared stewardship as a collective obligation, grounded in consent-based, co-authored documentation, multilingual accessibility, and intergenerational cultural transmission. I trace how distributed hosting, licensing-based collaboration, and redundant circulation function as survival strategies in response to erasure, platform volatility, surveillance, and the politics of visibility. These practices are not merely technical; they are infrastructural acts of care and resistance shaped by the imperative to protect communities while sustaining memory across contested digital and physical spaces.

This presentation frames decentralized music ecosystems as insurgent archival practice and proposes cooperative networks as necessary infrastructures for audiovisual preservation under acute and sustained conditions of crisis.

Speakers

Sara Teresa Skolnick

Ph.D. Student, The University of Texas at Austin

Sara Teresa Skolnick is an Ecuadorian-Lithuanian DJ, death doula, and cultural activist. Skolnick's practice is grounded in ancestral veneration, bone-deep listening, and presence with seen and unseen worlds.Skolnick holds a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University, a M.A... Read More →

Thursday October 22, 2026 2:00pm - 2:30pm EEST
Events hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania: Great Hall

Short Presentation, In Person

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IASA-BAAC 2026 Conference

Sara Teresa Skolnick

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IASA-BAAC 2026 Conference

Sara Teresa Skolnick

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