Most recently, I came across this project and have found both the list of missing data sets to be very compelling, as well as the question the creator raises of the “advantages to nonexistence.” From the archive: "Missing data sets" are my term for the blank spots that exist in spaces that are otherwise data-saturated. My interest in them stems from the observation that within many spaces where large amounts of data are collected, there are often empty spaces where no data live. Unsurprisingly, this lack of data typically correlates with issues affecting those who are most vulnerable in that context.” https://github.com/MimiOnuoha/missing-datasets/blob/master/README.md
Another one is the South Asian American DIgital Archive. The curation is really innovative - road trips project (South Asians traveling across the U.S.), first days project - and I find the infrastructure itself to be inspiring for my won archive. There’s the ability to browse the archive by topic, source, creator, time period, state, types, collection, language as well as state map, item map, visually, and random item. https://www.saada.org
The campaign for Kenneth Mejia, candidate for LA City Controller 2022, has created various resources for the public with the stated mission of: “We are already doing the work of the City Controller by providing financial transparency, holding city officials accountable, and providing resources for Angelenos to use to better their lives. Our tools are being used by Angelenos to look for affordable housing, understand the City of LA budget, and provide analysis on how the city is operating.” These include the Affordable Housing Map, Payroll Database, LAPD Traffic & Pedestrian Stops, Parking Tickets in LA, City of LA Payroll Map, 41.18 Anti-Homeless Zones Map, City of LA Budget Breakdown, and LAPD Vendors. https://mejiaforcontroller.com/resources
The Los Angeles Times’ map of California’s 70,000 active or 35,000 idle wells which shows many locations throughout Wilmington & Long Beach: https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-oil-well-drilling-idle-cleanup/map/
Refinery Maps, which includes 2438 categories to search, including oil storage tanks, oil refinery storage tanks, & gasoline pipeline oil spill: https://www.refinerymaps.com/Los-Angeles.html
A quick overview of some archiving and exhibition projects related to Formosa Plastics:
No More Nurdles is a WordPress website run by shrimp fisherwoman Diane Wilson. Over the last 30 years, Wilson has collected leaked documents, emails, oral histories, photographs about Formosa Plastics in Texas, some of which are made available on the website. "Nurdles" are small plastic pellets that Formosa and other plastic producers routinely discharge into waterways outside of their manufacturing plants. Together with bags of pellets collected outside the plant, the material have recently been used in a lawsuit against Formosa, resulting in a $50 million settlement and zero-discharge order.
NurdlePatrol is a citizen science project that maps the release of plastic pellets. The data is submitted by volunteers, including activists like Diane Wilson. The project also received $1 million in additional funding as part of the settlement with Formosa in Texas.
When The South Wind Blows was a 2013 museum exhibition held at the Natural History Museum in Tainan, Taiwan. The exhibit featured 102 black-and-white photographs that focus on the residents in Taixi, a small village impacted by pollution from a Formosa petrochemical complex in Yunlin County, Taiwan. According to the curators, the goal of the exhibit was to explore how role natural science museums can "engage in contemporary issues" but also to convey the "human stories" of a fenceline community (Huang & Chen 2018).
ToxicDocs is a digital repository of declassified industry documents, including over 1,300 entries linked to Formosa Plastics. The website is run by historians and public health scientists in New York (Rosner et al. 2018). Making large amounts of documents available and easily searchable is an explicit design goal.
The Industry Documents Library is a digital archive hosted at the University of San Francisco. While initially focused on disclosed documents from litigation against the tobacco industry, the project now includes material from different industries that "influence public health" (pharmaceuticals, fossil fuels, chemicals, food, and opioids). The repository lists around 30 entries that mention Formosa Plastics. For example, I found a scanned copy of an email written by what I presume to be representatives of the tobacco industry in 1996. The author cites a USA Today news article about how employers and workplaces accommodate the smoking habits of their employees, arguing that the article could be used favorably for public relations. An example in the article is the introduction of see-through "smoking booths" at the Formosa Plant in Texas, characterized as "one of the companies most accepting of smoking workers". Like ToxicDocs, the main goal of the repository seems to be providing access to the documents and associated meta-data, with the potential to find documents that cut across industry domains.
Oil and Gas Watch is a website run by the Environmental Integrity Project to track the expansion of the petrochemical industry in the United States. Currently, the sites features entries for three Formosa projects, including the plant in Point Comfort, Texas. Entries include brief updates about the plant operations, information about toxic emissions, and an overview of permits, often with links to primary documents.
In addition to archives focused on the petrochemical industry, I have found inspiration in projects like the Interference Archive in New York, a largely physical collection of documents related to social movements, which also regularly host community events and exhibitions.