21-11-2022 | Ecologies of The Archive: A Dissertation
Sam Williams and Roly Porter’s ongoing work, Salvage Rhythms, explores ideas of symbiosis and interdependence via live performance, video, sound and collage. Williams is concerned with “multi species entanglements, ecological systems and folk mythologies to produce ideas for future ways of living”. The work is an evocative vessel for transmitting emerging ideas of cooperation towards successful coexistence.
Working with these ideas in a practice of extended writing towards a final dissertation, I am broadening the scope of my work, spreading across practical fine art techniques as well as theoretical research and writing strategies. This facet of my work aims to explore and answer the following:
To what extent can forest ecologies act as a framework for the interdependencies of elements within the archive and archival practice?
What is the relationship between the materials and oral histories held in the archive? What is the impact of collecting, organising and presenting these?
What is the narrative potency of the forest and therefore why is it a powerful device from which to view a family archive? How can metaphors and mythologies of the forest aid our understanding of the mechanisms within the family archive?
This dissertation aims to answer these questions by interrogating the following frameworks from which to explore the significance of the archive:
Ecology and the anthropocene - utilising emerging concepts in western society which look towards indigenous populations in order to harness the interrelatedness and dependencies between humans and nature. Ecology is of particular pertinence in the contemporary world as society faces how to deal with its urgent environmental concerns.
Metaphor, allegory and mythology - examining academic presentations of forest symbolism throughout history as a device in literature and storytelling, including nature’s relationship to ideas of metamorphosis.
Artists working with archives - in particular those of mixed ethnicity and/or arab descent, and how their work reflects an ongoing discussion about narratives, identity, heritage, diaspora and belonging.
There is significant resource in terms of academic writing and visual art concerned with the archive, and countless examples of artists with archival practices. There is also an abundance of research on both the ecologies and narrative mythologies of the forest. However, I have not yet encountered existing research options which specifically address linking the archive and the forest. I hope to demonstrate a legitimate connection between the two, which at surface level could be considered abstract or irrelevant. This will be challenging to achieve successfully, though I feel strongly that the rich research base outlined above will enable a strong foundation for my ideas and arguments towards answering the question:
How can an understanding of the family archive’s ecology benefit the individual and its role in the wider context of society?
1. Salvage Rhythms, Sam Williams and Roly Porter, 2019
2. Sotiris Gonis, Salvage Rhythms, 2019, Photograph of live performance <https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/sites/default/files/_N5A3394_lo_res_0.jpg> [accessed 4 November 2022])
