Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past. – George Orwell
Hello! My name is Bronwyn Graham, and I am a fourth year undergraduate student in the midst of completing an Honours degree in English literature at the University of British Columbia.
My interest in archival materials begins as far back as I can remember. As a young child strolling through museum galleries, rummaging through familial archives, and encountering artifacts of generations past has incited fascination, imagination, and of course, an incessant amount of questions to my poor parents’ annoyance, I am sure. To whom did these artifacts originally belong? Why has this particular “relic” been deemed important, valuable or “archivable”? What does it signify? Why has it been enshrined in a glass box? The action of archiving and ascribing an artifact some arbitrary significance is something my younger self was far too easily conditioned to blindly accept and even be in awe of. As a child, I saw these archives as sacred, venerated, fragile, and of some significant value without ever really challenging that idea or noticing what hasn’t been included. The fascinating aura of mystery these archives seemed to exude, along with the power they wield in culture, captured my childhood intrigue. As an “adult”, part of me still finds the prospect of handling century old archives exciting and only slightly sacrilegious.
This childhood interest has only grown over the years, but in a much more critical way. A few summers ago, I had the pleasure of gaining real world experience working with the Vancouver Biennale as an archives and research assistant. Part of my responsibilities were to organize and digitize physical archives, as well as research and compile digital archives of the Vancouver Biennale’s outdoor installations and happenings. In a sense, I was creating an archive of the present. This was something, as a child who was clouded by the allure of historical archives, I had never consider to be of much value. The work I was doing for the contemporary artists at the Biennale could be seen as enshrining them – procuring and compiling artifacts and information for future archives, as deemed worthy. Given the artists’ success and popularity, some of the work I did may prove to be useful and go on to be included in other institutional archives. However, some (probably most) of the work I did will have been in vain; these archives will remain in a file online or in a file holder for the rest of time, never to reach the public or opened again. Forgotten.
My experience with the Vancouver Biennale and the resulting questions surrounding the selection, preservation, and access of archives, has served as motive for my registration in this seminar. Throughout this course I hope to engage with the issues that arise when exploring the voids and gaps within canonical archives: these “forgotten” or marginal memories of those who have no objective account of their existence. I am also interested in discussing how archives may figure into identity formation. Lastly, I hope to further discuss the ways in which archives function as a commemorative practice, especially in relation to dealing with trauma.
It was a pleasure to meet you all and I look forward to diving deeper into these issues and more over the course of the term!
Cheers,
Bronwyn
One response to “A Little Introduction…”