What happens when people attempt to discard and destroy a museum archive that contains many thousands of visual and material objects?

In this workshop, we discuss the politics, potential, and violence of archive objects (specifically a cache of over 3000, 35-mm transparencies from the mid-late 20th century).

What lives do they live? Are they passive and neutral objects resting peacefully in an institution's collection?

Are they active material things? If the latter, then what affect do they have, what energies and essences do they constitute, what is their present and their future, where should they go, and what should they do?

Professor Doug Bailey is part of the CAS research project After Discourse: Things, Archaeology, and Heritage in the 21st Century. Friday 27 January, he will lead the workshop "Destroying a museum archive: sex, racism, image and contemporary archaeology".

About Doug Bailey

Doug Bailey is Professor of Visual Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at San Francisco State University.

Doug's research has focused on European prehistory and the archaeology of art and visual culture. He has led field projects in Romania and Bulgaria and published widely on the Neolithic of that region.

In addition to his seminal work on prehistoric figurines (Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality, Routledge, 2005), his more recent work challenges the ways that archaeologists present their arguments and their material, either through exhibition (Unearthed, Sainsbury Centre, 2010) or through visual media, where his recent “publications” replace textual argument with visual montage. Central to these efforts is art/archaeology, a new space beyond the boundaries of the disciplines of art history, of archaeology, and of art practice.

His current book project (Breaking the Surface, for Oxford) explores this emerging extra-discipline and juxtaposes prehistoric archaeology with contemporary and modern art, philosophy, visual psychology, and linguistic anthropology.

Open to all interested

The workshop takes place in the Turret room (top floor) at CAS, at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (Drammensveien 78) and starts at 14:15.

If you want to attend this event please send an email to k.k.isaksen@cas.oslo.no