Creative Archiving: A Case Study from the John Latham Archive

Abstract

This paper looks at the history of the archive profession and emphasises the perceived role of the archivist as the keeper of truth. It focuses on the recent developments in archival practice with the adoption of post-modern thinking and its implementation with open-access archives online. Following a discussion of that approach, it introduces the concept of creative archiving as an alternative approach to archival practice and continues with the presentation of a case study from the John Latham Archive. It concludes with a discussion of the main pros and cons of creative archiving.

Toward More Honest Description1

“…In an article about the archives of visual artist John Latham, Athanasios Velios suggested that the effect of descriptive standards on the representation of archives is to make "the individuality of archives disappear in the unified approach to archiving." 62 Duff and Harris made a similar assertion, arguing that standards tend to force complex and "wild realities" into uniform and sterilizing "boxes"; 63 the sterilizing effect of descriptive standards contributes to the sense that both the finding aids and the archives they represent are pure and impartial, and works to hide the fact that "in every case" and at every stage, "the aggregation is determined by decision-making on the part of human beings." 64 Standardization also affects file titling, an issue Hobbs identified in both her interview with me and in an essay about the personal ethics involved in being an archivist of writers' archives.…”

Social Aspects Of Digitalization: Archive And Memory In The Digital Era

“…will be carried out using an interdisciplinary approach, involving methods of interpretation, historical reconstruction, design, modeling, etc. This trend was reflected in concepts of "creative archiving" (Velios, 2011). Agreeing with the point of view of Ketelaar (2011) that the archivist always balances on the border between art and science, the followers of "creative archiving" pay attention to the fact that archivist funds and describes the archive in accordance with his own professional settings, but not according to the views of the author of the archive, who could criticize such treatment to his heritage.…”

Futurescaping the Archive (Part 1. Artistic Intelligence and Creative Archiving of Artist Residency Experience)

“…How might this ambience of the archive be exercised in more productive, deliberate and self‐aware fashions? Developed in response to the particularities – even, peculiarities – of artists’ archives and personal papers, the concept of creative archiving embraces the multiplicity of interpretations contained within an archive; and does so by hinging upon the process of selection, which Athanasios Velios has described as the “single point of power of the archivist” (Velios, 2011, 259). In his work focusing on the unique challenges presented by the personal archive of artist John Latham, Velios makes a case for the ‘interpreted archive’.…”