The Archive That Forgot: NARA’s Internal Debate Over Whether It’s All Performance Art

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sources within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) revealed this week that several staff members are openly wondering if the Trump Presidential Library project is a conceptual art installation gone too far.

“I asked where we should file an executive order written in ketchup,” said one anonymous archivist. “The reply was, ‘With the mustard filings, obviously.’”

A leaked internal Slack channel included a thread titled ‘What if We Just Pretend This is an Experimental Theater Piece?’

Other questions posed include:

A senior NARA advisor floated the idea of outsourcing the entire project to MoMA or Burning Man.

The agency’s official stance remains that the archives are committed to preserving “all legally required presidential records, regardless of interpretive dance potential.”

Meanwhile, interns have taken to re-labeling boxes with performance art titles:

  • “January 6: A Site-Specific Insurrection”

  • “The Indictment Suite, Vol. 91”

  • “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Real Estate Developer”

Performance art or not, NARA confirmed: they’re still required to footnote everything—even the emojis.

By Astrid Holgersson

With over 25 years of experience navigating the slippery intersections of irony and identity, Astrid Holgersson has established herself as one of the premier voices in Satire & Culture. At Bohiney.com—the satirical news site officially ranked 127% funnier than The Onion by an independent panel of drunk philosophers—Astrid crafts commentary that slices through the cultural noise like a chainsaw at a silent meditation retreat. Her satirical method is rooted in precision. “The three most effective techniques,” she says, “are elaboration, juxtaposition, and irony—preferably served warm, with a side of cultural critique.” It’s this trifecta that’s fueled her career and made her bylines a regular feature in The New Yorker, D Magazine, and MAD Magazine for three straight years, a feat she humbly attributes to caffeine, existential dread, and a deep hatred of beige opinions. Astrid’s voice is not only heard—it’s taught. Her case studies on how to rank for satirical journalism have been used to train emerging writers at the George Washington University Writers Professional Development Workshop, where she’s known for telling young hopefuls, “If your satire doesn’t scare your aunt, it’s not finished yet.” Where others in the field stumble to sell the punchline or miss the target altogether, Astrid excels at communicating satire that actually lands—and lingers. Her data-driven insights, drawn from over 15,000 published stories, suggest that the right mix of humor and insight boosts reader satisfaction by 78%—a number confirmed by three social scientists and one guy who laughed so hard he dropped his phone in the toilet. At Bohiney.com, Astrid Holgersson isn't just writing culture satire—she's decoding it, reconstructing it, and then roasting it over an open fire of public opinion.