“A PLACE WHERE RECORDS ARE KEPT”
Is this the truth behind the purpose of the Archive? Is this the sole purpose and reason for it to exist?
And what of these “records”? These materials. These collections? These things? Collected, categorised, catalogued, curated.
Are these merely things? At the heart of this collection we find people, the people whose endeavours have made the “things” themselves and those who act as custodians to care for it and pass on its stories to the likes of us.
Engaging with the Archive accesses a lifetime’s worth of ideas and inspirations offering the potential to expose a space that invites us in, unites us and reveals a wealth of human achievement. It is personal, it touches you through its materiality and through the simple ability to interact with it, you are changed. The physical touch is of importance here. These “things” are not locked away behind glass cases, they are available and open to be leafed through, to be examined and poured over. Open to a personal human experience.
If “things” have the ability to hold on to the memory of those who made them, then, here we are able to access this memory of touch, allowing it in, to permeate our thoughts and help mould our ideas.
On entrance to the collections you enter a different world, an alternate reality, a theatre. And through this space you are transported. Looking at the materials, you cannot help but refer to the cinematic. The archivist “produces” the item. This experience of looking is simultaneously close and distant as if looking through a lens or prism across time. It is a site of duality, public and private, truth and fiction, interior and exterior.
This exhibition is the story of how we as a collective have engaged with the archive and how this archive has moved and ultimately inspired us.
“The stories we tell are not merely about things that have happened, but are about significant events that have changed us.They are not general but specific; what happened and to whom. Through our stories we demonstrate that we not only have had experiences but that those experiences have become part of our knowledge.”
(O’Neill, 2012)
The dialogue that takes place between you and the materials creates an illusion, the illusion that you are the first to have discovered this magic. An explorer who has happened upon something for the first time outside of any other’s experience. It is this that somehow brings you close and allows you to respond with a personal voice.
The exhibition has been curated in two stages allowing us to reflect the journeys we have taken. By distributing the research and artworks across two physical spaces, the library foyer and the Benzie Arts Building, we have sought to connect the two environments and make visible the flow of ideas from Archive to creative output. By doing so we hope to minimise the distance between researchers and practitioners.
Artists:
Cherie Jerrard MA Illustration
Shivangi Gupta MA Textiles
Kristin Marshall MA Animation
Sean McCrossan MA Photography
Amy Thomas MA Visual Culture
A Place Where Records Are Kept 