Archival Thoughts

Hal Foster states that artists using the archive often seek to make historical information, which can either be considered lost or misplaced, physically present once again. (Foster, 2004)  Charles Merewether argues the archive functions as the means by which historical knowledge and forms of remembrance are accumulated, stored and recovered. (Merewether, 2006)  As time has elapsed over the past couple of centuries, significant events have not only occurred, but have been carefully evidenced through recordings.  These recordings can include a variety of different media, from handwritten diaries and daybooks, to the generic and ubiquitous family photographic album.  Whichever way we look at it, an artefact of some description has been created and some will inevitably progress better than others through the further passage of time.  The interpretation of these artefacts is dependent upon who views them and for what purpose they are being viewed.  Johnson argues a photograph is not an absolute direct copy of its subject, but rather the transmission of a reality that signifies different meanings to different people.  (Johnson, 1977-78)  For example, a family member will view images in their family album very differently to how a social historian will view them.  In that sense there is a distinct difference between ‘history’ that has been written or recorded about the past, than to the actual past itself. (Jenkins, 1991)

A variety of different histories are formulated about these artefacts over the passage of time through the different people involved with their categorisation.  These different histories can be recalled then both embellished and modified to suit the needs of the particular party interested.  In terms of photographs specifically, they can become the site for inscribing alternate histories onto the ones the images otherwise purport to depict, (Schlak, 2009)  These histories could be referred to as the ‘meme’ in terms of the classical explanation, which details an element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, especially by imitation. (Dawkins, 1976)  Some of these histories are forgotten or actually disappear altogether, as they compete against each other to be physically stored in our brains (Blackmore, 1999), but the physical artefact they relate to can often still remain in existence.  These remaining artefacts can then be lost or misplaced for many years until they are found again, some are archived and some remain locked in collections, unseen for a generation or more. It is only by unforeseen discovery that a researcher would happen to open these unlabelled or un-catalogued boxes (or Hardman's biscuit tins perhaps) holding these unseen artefacts (or negatives perhaps).  What is certain is that these storage places will hold forgotten secrets waiting to be rediscovered.

As further time elapses, the archive, or collection, or album is once again interrogated and the histories are once again recalled, recreated or reconnected by other areas of research.  The event once again becomes, or is made significant and thus life is breathed back into the artefact once more.