Building a ‘citizen’s archive’ of the RNC

Nigel Parry wasn’t arrested, harassed or gassed during the RNC. But he was affected.

At the Tilsner Artists’ Cooperative, where he’s lived on and off over the years, he shared a room a friend was renting out to people working for Indy Media and the Glass Bead Collective. “I spent the week with extremely freaked out and justifiably paranoid independent media people.”

He was getting “fog of war” reports all week. It was difficult to get the big picture — it still is.

So Parry — a songwriter, photojournalist, and web designer — started a paper archive of everything that happened outside the Xcel. “I printed everything from Star Tribune reports to St. Paul City Council minutes.”