I was delighted to be selected to take part in the workshop Archiving Care, a COST funded two-day symposium hosted by NeMe, Cyprus and co-organised by NeMe and Alessandro Ludovico, Neural.
It was a thoroughly enriching opportunity to be able to revisit, examine and present the material from the Stasi Records Agency as part of doctoral study (2023). This portfolio of work was exhibited at Decad, Berlin, curated by Mareike Spendel (Jan 2020) and the HPO Gallery, Sheffield (July 2022). Funded by Arts Council England and ADRMC, Sheffield Hallam University. More information here. Published thesis can be found here.
Traditionally archives perform abstractions, suggest connections and compatibilities, and offer a perspective. Although our call for speakers asked for a critical re-interpretation of archives as historically infected collections with “‘politically dubious biases, patriarchal, colonial agendas, and represent ideological modes of control,” and discuss their new challenges n the age of AI, no submission touched these themes. The call though posed more questions, some of which were addressed.
