The archive—whether as institution, practice, source, concept, subject or object—has increasingly become a stimulus for and site of artistic inquiry, intervention, and production over the last 20 years, and contemporary art practice a realm for critically exploring the functions and nature of the archive; for contemplating time, memory, history, and identity; and, for reclaiming and reinterpreting, reconstructing and re-presenting the past to imagine and realize new ways of being in the present and future. Drawing upon the rich interdisciplinary archival art discourse generated by visual and performing artists, critics, curators, and theorists as well as scholars in the archival and recordkeeping field, this talk surveys and contemplates key artistic approaches and responses to the archive by a range of artists working across a variety of disciplines. The talk further reflects upon the ways in which artists foreground the materiality and relationality, affective and performative aspects of the archive, and how considering the archive as art and art as archive opens new relations and conversations as well as possibilities between diverse people and communities.
Free and open to the public. Does not require registration.