The Collective Description project began with a two day colloquium that invited printmakers, archivists, librarians, curators, and art historians to participate in a knowledge exchange.

The knowledge shared at the colloquium addressed decolonial approaches to collection care by centering connections, relationships and collaboration in the process of describing and providing access to cultural materials.

The Collection Description team hoped to discover if and how in-person cross-disciplinary discussion could improve access to Emily Carr University’s print collection and serve as a template for other collection access projects.

Participants in the colloquium engaged in collections and archives talks, a print studio tour, and hands-on workshops with items in the Wosk Masterworks Print Collection, a teaching collection intended for object-based learning. They worked collaboratively to enhance descriptions of the prints in order to contextualize the holdings and improve access and discovery and chose works from the collection for a follow-up exhibition at Emily Carr University.