The Records Room, an Active Archive (after Personal Historical Society) | Lydia See
lydia see (Sylva, NC)
May 2018. Installation documentation. Instructions for archival process, cyanotypes, photographs, museum collection objects sourced from found room.
The Records Room is a functional installation that commemorates the tradition of collecting and organizing through Elsewhere's past, present, and future. This “archive” transformed a repository room to house tangible records and archival materials.
In the Room, the politics of memory are examined by engaging with the space— an act of arrangement or curation becomes a performance that influences the room’s narrative. This installation encapsulates a special collection of objects that will continue to be used and re-incorporated into new projects in perpetuity, being both an end product and a storage space for raw materials.
The "archive" is the heart of the project, but is complemented by new works produced in response by the artist: photographs, rubbings, prints, documents, and assemblages. In processing, (re)defining, and navigating the found, existing collection, a map and visual language emerged connecting the museum's living archive to more technical, archival terms and methods.
Read the Records Room Book.
