2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageThe Authority of Legacy
Shelby Welte
Friday, October 10 - 9:40AM to 9:55AM
College for Creative Studies
The Authority of Legacy examines the family archive as both inheritance and responsibility. I received a growing collection of photographs, documents, and objects—evidence of lives I knew and others I never encountered. Not the creator nor subject of these materials, I emphasize this distance through veils, handmade paper, layering, and non-archival elements. These strategies underscore both the impulse to preserve and the inevitability of loss. As the only family member entrusted with these materials, I carry the responsibility of determining what endures and what is forgotten. In a time when memory increasingly resides on servers rather than in albums or shoeboxes, I question what forms of remembrance will persist, and whether forgetting is as necessary as preservation.
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Shelby Welte
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