An
archive is a “storage area” holding a “collection” of “records”, “documents”
and materials. They are all around us and we use and produce them without a
second thought. They can include libraries, museums, photo albums but extend to
Facebook profiles and blogs.
Archives
can hold memories. Each object or document holds a story as to why it has been
saved and by whom. These personified narratives can act as great inspiration
for artists and designers. Collections can serve as thinking and research
methods as personal interpretations and analysis of the multiple items can aid
the creation of project concepts and themes.
It
is not always the items that the archives hold that can encourage creativity;
it can be their arrangement and placement within the space. An archive is a
still life waiting for someone to draw out their response. Connections between
shapes, textures, colours of objects an in themselves be a project’s starting
point. Artists such as Boltanski have done just this. Some of his photography
archival work displays images of individuals who experienced the holocaust.
These pictures are connected by electrical wires and therefore suggest a
ancestral tree. The obvious joining of portrays stems from the historical even
that they witnessed. The quantity of photographs creates a compelling
expression of the number of lives lost. The link of death can be highlighted
through the use of bulbs, which suggest “candles “of remembrance. The work
portrays the power that an archive can hold and translate.
Through
projects we create archives; technical files, concept folders, journals and
sketchbooks all hold an assembly of recorded material. They possess a personal
journey of development and therefore a memory. A chronological order in such
files displays a growth, an explanation of events, of increased knowledge and
understanding and of an individual investigation.
Archives
preserve the past, whether they hold information from 50 years ago or from 5
seconds ago; they hold what may otherwise be forgotten. It is the past that we
learn from, that we improve from and what aids developments in the future.
Boltanski (n.d.). Monument. Retrieved from
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/site/pages/exhibitions_detail.php?id=908
