Our Archive
We've done a whole lot of things over the years, but as we get older we've started to see how our work fits roughly into three different categories: Performance, Know How, and Public Address Systems. We've explored these three areas jointly as Split Britches, individually as Peggy or Lois or Tammy WhyNot, and we've tried to make all of it open source so that you can help us explore. You may find these pieces in other places on this site, but we wanted to wrangle them all up here for easy finding. We hope this helps explain to you some of what we've been working on over our lifetimes, whether it be performative, personal, or political.
Most of all we hope this archive will empower you to share your knowledge, engage in difficult conversations, and maybe even have a little fun. Our work has always been a bit DIY - and that's intentional! We don't claim to have the answer to everything, and we hope you treat this archive like a DIY guide to help you do whatever it is you're trying to do.
Performance has been our entry point to the way we live our lives now. Throughout the years we've used performance to explore a whole lot of things including queerness, gender, class, age, sex, politics, and our own lives.
Know How is the way we've come to describe our commitment to providing people with frameworks of knowledge. We've done this in a lot of ways, including working with young people in universities, working with elders, teaching, curating events and exhibits, doing lots of workshops, and having lots of conversations.
Public Address Systems is a series of projects that explore engagement with the public, created by Lois. It creates spaces that are hospitable and open so that alternatives can be modelled and critical questions staged.
This comic is about the lesbian movie Lois starred in called: She must be seeing things (1987). Peggy also performed in the movie.
our ARCHIVE at the hemispheric institute and fales library
The Split Britches Archives are housed at New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and Fales Library and Special Collections.
The Split Britches virtual archives can be accessed through the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (which provides a digital venue for documenting the expression of social and political life through performance in the many cultures and political landscapes of the Americas). To view the digital materials online, please view the Split Britches Artist Profile.
The Split Britches physical archives can be viewed at Fales Library as part of the Downtown Collection (which documents the downtown New York art, performance, and literary scenes from 1975 to the present). To view the primary materials, please make an appointment with Fales Library directly.
Contacting Fales Library
Hours: Monday – Thursday, 10:00am – 5:45pm, and Friday 9:00am – 4:45pm
Phone: 212-998-2596
Email: fales.library@nyu.edu