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:
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“Are tweets performance or policy?”
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“If Trump is the artist, is America the canvas or the crime scene?”
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:
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“January 6: A Site-Specific Insurrection”
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“The Indictment Suite, Vol. 91”
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“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.