Rethinking Art Collections and Archives

Duration: Nov 14 – Dec 12, 2022
Fee: 174€
Max seats: 28
Enroll before: Nov 10, 2022
Live sessions: 2 hrs/week

Online course by Node Center for Curatorial Studies with Tšhegofatšo Mabaso

Can we find new ways of working with archives and collections? How to deal with problematic legacies that underpin many collections? How to creatively reshape historic archives through curatorial practices?

Through this course, participants will learn methods to research and curate exhibitions using art collections and archives, opening up new potentials for the field.

Starting with the history of archives and collections, participants will learn tools to critically engage with the politics of collecting and how to create enriching discussions with collected materials. In the following sessions, we will discover different methods that curators and artists have developed to work with archives and collections, including reparative research and community collaborations. In addition, participants will also learn about the role curators play in developing, and overseeing collections in institutional contexts.

To complement the inspiring case studies and discussions that take place in the online meetings, participants will receive readings and weekly reflection tasks. Over the duration of the course, participants will work on an overarching assignment that critically reflects on each week’s session.

By the end of the course, participants will have gained new skills and interpretive tools for working with collections and archives. The course will provide participants with confidence to critically engage with contemporary discourses around collected materials and their interpretation.

The course is aimed at art and culture practitioners in various contexts who have an interest in collections and archives. It would also be enriching for researchers, art historians and academics interested in the politics of collections and archives.

Program

Session 1. Introduction

An introductory session where we get to know one another, outline the community agreement for the duration of the course and discuss an overview of the material we will cover over the duration of the course.

– Participants will also receive an introductory reading in preparation for session 2.

Session 2. Histories of collecting

The practice of collecting is burdened by histories of accumulation, discovery and pillaging, which continue to influence contemporary collecting practices and present critical questions for researchers, curators, collections managers and many other cultural practitioners working with collections. In this session, we look at how an awareness of historic legacies allows us to build practices that centre on criticality and care.

– Develop tools for how to approach contentious collections or archives.

– Discuss assigned reading

Session 3. There must be other ways

Quite often collecting and archive practices, and how we engage with them are so reliant on institutionalised ways of working. This session is an invitation to imagine new ways of working with collections. We’ll also look at interesting projects that propose alternate methodologies for reading archives and working with collections.

– How to collaborate with communities connected to particular works/collections/archives

– Explore reparative research methodologies

– Look at examples of exhibitions that have repositioned certain readings of particular collections

Session 4. Artistic interventions

Artists have and continue to work with archives and collections to instigate projects and ideas. Curators and institutions have come to learn that collaborative partnerships with artists offer a valuable perspective on collections and agitate rigid structural blockers to knowledge production and sharing.

– We will look at collections-based artistic interventions

Session 5. Reflections

In this session participants will share their reflections and interpretive text on a collected work/archival material. The session will be about sharing the kinds of methodologies they would use and mapping out how it engages with a contemporary audience.