Located in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, at 314 7th Street, with in the zip code 11215, its mission is "to explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements.

"[1] Interference Archive began as the personal collection of Josh MacPhee and Dara Greenwald, activists who told the New York Times that they had filled their home with so much "social movement memorabilia ... Ph.D. students would visit to conduct research.

"[5][8][9] It opened its doors to the public in December 2011 with a punk and feminism themed exhibition in tribute to Greenwald, who had been struggling with endometrial cancer and died the following month.

[10][11] Interference Archive has broadened its activities significantly since opening, operating as a library and community space and hosting regular talks, art exhibitions, performances, workshops, and other events.

[2] The collection includes a number of different kinds of media artifacts which provide information and illustration about the histories of radical political movements around the world, with 40% of the archive coming from outside the United States.

[8] Among the materials are posters, fliers, pamphlets, zines, stickers, T-shirts, books, graphic novels, newspapers, games, videos, leaflets, buttons, audio recordings, and other ephemera.

[2][5][7] The topics it covers includes ACT-UP, Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring, Code Pink, Pink Bloque, Rock for Choice, Latin American art, nature, ecology, feminism, punk rock, criminal justice, prison reform, apartheid, anti-nuclear movement, squatting, anarchist bookfairs, May 1968 events in France, and Dutch anti-fur activism.

[21] The shields on display as well as others made during a workshop earlier in the month were confiscated as weapons by the New York Police Department the day before they were due to be used at Cooper Union in a protest against the school's decision to begin charging tuition.