After reading French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s seminal work, Archive Fever, I resolved to be cautious in seeking “origin”, “essence”, or inject meaning in the organization of the fonds in this week’s encounter with the archives. In other words, I planned on resisting “the irrepressible desire to return to the origin” (Derrida 57). Because, as Derrida posits, will we ever really know if the origin resides in the archival documents, or if the archive is merely an external trace of the original inscription, which essentially remains hidden in the archive’s subconscious? Coupled with the insight provided by Douglas and MacNeil that I referred to in my last post, reading the archival fonds in order to gain a deeper understanding of the creator and their archival intent is perhaps a futile and ultimately impenetrable endeavour (Derrida 35). Furthermore, it cannot be refuted (especially for those archives which are closed and their creators long gone): our encounters in the archive are “monologues”, so to speak. So, in approaching my encounter with Anne Blades’ archives at UBC’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library this week, I came prepared with a different set of questions.
To be honest, I had never heard of Anne Blades before. However, after doing some research into her work as an author and illustrator of children’s books set in British Columbia, I was interested in uncovering how Anne managed to capture and illustrate those secondary, canonically marginalized voices that emerge from her collaboration with an author who wrote a fictional tale about the experience of indigenous children in the earlier half of the 20th century.
Interpreting Box 7 of the Anne Blade Fonds was like reading a novel whose plot develops in a non-sequential manner. The box includes a series of sketches, drawings, and watercolour paintings, royalty documents, correspondences, and manuscripts relating to her work illustrating Jean Speare’s A Candle for Christmas (1986). It includes evidence of many (at times indiscernible) voices: publishers, authors, illustrators, editors, managers, and printers. Often times there were no markings to indicate whose revisions were scribbled in the margins of manuscripts, or whose notes were attached to documents and sketches.
The way in which the contents of box 7 were revealed was in no way chronological, but nevertheless exciting. For every file I read, my understanding of the collection of archives and its contents shifted. Just as Derrida argues that archival meaning occurs in the retrospective, it was only overtime that a comprehensive understanding of Anne Blades’ materials was established (Derrida 30).
Reflecting on each new “revelation”, and the excitement of finally assimilating the contents of the box, I caught myself…Derrida was right. I was succumbing to the archive fever I had initially vowed to avoid in my archival encounters this week. So much for trying…there really is something ‘feverish’ about digging into the unknown.
While the contents of Box 7 were rather intriguing, I would like to connect Derrida’s Archive Fever to my archival encounters on a more macro level. While I could provide for you a ‘reading’ of the Anne Blades fonds that would hopefully give you a profound understanding of her work as an artist, my encounter with the archive is simply an act of interpretation. A psychoanalytic reading of Anne’s archive represses the possible meaning in the archival objects themselves. It places precedence on the “matriarchal” figure, ignoring the numerous and equally (if not more) important voices within the texts that document the production of Speare’s book A Candle for Christmas. This is a book where many individuals had a hand in its fruition. Anne Blades was only the illustrator. The box contained much more than merely evidence of her contributions and artistic process. Three revised drafts of Speare’s story were included, where over revisions, key figures are altered due to editorial suggestion (i.e. the nurse in the final draft was initially a nun). The documents of Box 7 demonstrate and document a truly egalitarian collaboration. Stressing psychoanalytical importance on the “creator’s” fonds, in this case, doesn’t seem right.
In thinking ahead to this weeks article by Kimberly Christen, those indigenous voices that murmur in the background of this collection are called to attention. What do we make of those voices which have not been offered a chance to speak, or are being spoken for without documented consent?
Works Cited
Derrida, Jacques, and Eric Prenowitz. “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.” Diacritics 25.2 (1995): 9-63. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.