This toolkit is an extension to my PhD research; an investigation of the archival landscape of socially engaged art, via a critical and community archival lens. In drawing on the similarities between the two practices—including participatory and community-centred modes of practice—the research explores how socially engaged art archives might better centre the participants and community collaborators in those histories.

Socially engaged art usually happens in the community, where the effects of and learning from these projects remain afterwards. Perceived as a less ‘visible’ and under-documented practice, when it is written about, it is mostly by outsiders—art historians and critics—from a singular, art historical perspective. There is a distinct lack of participant and community voices. Not only does this go against the principles of social practices, but these stories are also too important to be told by others. Community archiving is focused on people documenting and telling their own histories. It usually happens outside of formal institutions, and when institutions or professional archivists are involved, it is in an equitable partnership and as a means to provide guidance and resources. It is a people-first, archive-second approach.

The toolkit exists as a small component of the research that responds to the archival turn in wider social art practices. It investigates how to better utilise archives and archiving in ways that align with the participatory and collaborative principles of socially engaged art. As part of the PhD research, I spent three years visiting archives and talking with artists, communities and participants, and commissioners of socially engaged projects to understand what traces are produced and take on value during these exchanges. And how they serve each of these stakeholders before, during and after a project. A common thread through these conversations included how to effectively maintain the bonds between the material when projects end, artists leave or communities eventually disband. Another was about how to return to and potentially reactivate projects. In line with the activist and consciousness-raising elements of social practice, employing a community archive methodology to collect, contextualise and share these traces works in a non-extractive, post-custodial way to place participant perspectives, narratives and needs front and centre.

Therefore, the toolkit serves as an aid for artists and communities who find archiving their projects helpful. It outlines what an archive can be and how it can support the project's aims.​ In practice, the toolkit focuses on how to decide what should be collected, how to produce layered, multi-perspective contextualisation, how to conduct oral history interviews and how to share and sustain an archive after the fact. It is focused on quick, actionable archiving that does not require prior knowledge or costly resources.