I. Presentation: From art to Archive and from Archive to Art

Last April, on the 28th and 29th, 2022, the First Encounter of Art Archives was organized by the School of Arts of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), with the support of the Comisión del Programa de Archivos de Literatura y Artes del Consejo Internacional de Archivos (Programme Commission Section on Archives of Literature and Art from the International Council on Archives, ICA)

With the aim of creating a Latinamerican artistic archive network, open for the sake of sharing experiences and to pose a discussion on the practices that surround the Archive, there was an open call for institutions and researches that preserve heritages, holdings and national and international collections.

The Encounter included the participation of the Zalce Archives, in charge of the National School of Higher Studies Morelia Unit (Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores de Morelia), The House of Peruvian Literature (La Casa de la Literatura Peruana), the Arkheia Documentation Center from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Centro de Documentación Arkheia, UNAM), the Documentation Center for the Investigation of the Leftists Culture (Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas, CeDinCi, Argentina), and the Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum (Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, MSSA) and the Documentation Center for the Visual Arts that form part of the Cerrillos National Center of Contemporary Art (Centro de Documentación de las Artes Visuales del Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cerrillos, CNACC). From the hosting institution, the Architecture and Design School Archives along with the Archives of the School of Art participated.

The encounter started with an Introduction by Heather Dean and David Sutton, President and Vice-president of the Literary and Artistic Archives Section from the International Archives Council (Sección de Archivos Literarios y Artísticos del Consejo Internacional de Archivos). Through the presentation, the attendees of the gathering were able to access policies and missions that compose the subscribed community, as well as the challenges and difficulties that they must face when sheltering the cultural and artistic heritage. With the urgency that present times demands, it has become imperative to question the languages, cultures and practices that represent us, the records and the ways in which we compose the representation of the past, and based on this, we contribute in the reflection of current mechanisms from where we build our identities. Political, social and environmental crises have a direct impact in the priorities and administrative management of the records and the way in which these are activated and transmitted. In the digital era, the oralities, performances and first knowledge become spaces where representation is put under the lens. What do we guard and how do we keep them safe? Who selects and from where it is placed in the practice? These are some of the questions that matter. Intellectual property, guard and classification data systems that are continuously growing in the networks of digital devices with open accesses, as well as the sources, constitute part of the great challenge imposed when it comes to art records.

With the goal of thinking of the connections between art and archive, the artists Voluspa Jarpa and Camila Donoso, presented the relationship between their artwork on necropolitics in the archive, that is to say, the relation with the practice of the ‘oblivion’. Art, in each case, is in charge of activating and reflecting on the archivist’s doing. In the presentation titled “The Document as a vestige of the non-history-symbolization of the void” (El Documento como vestigio de la no historia-simbolización del vacío), Voluspa Jarpa points out to the importance of research and artistic production in the historical construction. From what she coins as ‘testimonial drive’, she elaborates the conceptual aesthetic scaffolding of her work. The relationship between testimony and register becomes the main piece of her showcases, shedding light on her own oblivion, censorship and secret device.

On her behalf, Camila Donoso, filmmaker and screenwriter, shared her own questions on the documentary genre. Titled “Transfictional Archives” (Archivos Transficticios), her exhibit deepens in the silent treatments that migrants are submitted to, as well as dissidence and non-hegemonic corporalities. This lack of archive is subverted in these trans-narratives that act as obverses and resistances by giving a place to the memories inscribed in the bodies.

The calling attempted to show the importance of Archives and Art, as a field where representation is put under the scope. Archives and Arts play a key role in the construction of a collective imaginary, the memory and the identity of the communities that are part of the artistic field. What defines art documents? From where and under which critical perspective do we place our commitment with the institutionality of the artistic heritage? What should we do in times of representational crisis? How can we activate the access and participate in the archive research in a digital, pandemic and post-pandemic era? What policies pierce archives and art? These and other questions built the framework that triggered this encounter/meeting.

This book is the promise and commitment to share these conversations, to open to the questions and its possible answers. In this issue, we gather the presentations of those who participated in the dialogue with the aim of strengthening, broadening and collectivizing the collaborative work that archives and arts promote as a right.

We thank those who made this possible and all those who generously contributed with their own experiences and supported our doing.

Index

Presentation

1. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Meetings: Who and how do they participate in the record and activations of the art documentation sources process.

2. Memory and Oblivion in the documentation policies: What and how do we select, preserve, systematize and disseminate artistic heritage.

3. From the artwork to the archive and from the archive to the artwork: Connections between Art and Archive. What and how the arts archive problematizes.