The Materiality of the Archive: Creative Practice in Context

The Materiality of the Archive is the first volume to bring together a range of methodological approaches to the materiality of archives, focusing on the archives of creative practices. It connects a breadth of disciplinary interests in the archive with expanding discourses in materiality, addressing the potential of a material engagement to animate archival content and considering how stewardship practices can accommodate these changes. The book is essential reading for academics, researchers, and postgraduate students working in the fields of archive studies, museology, art history, and material culture.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 30 October 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

The Materiality of the Archive is a groundbreaking volume that offers a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to the study of archives' materiality. This first-of-its-kind publication brings together a diverse range of methodological approaches, providing a framework for engaging, analyzing, and interpreting archives. By focusing on the archives of creative practices, the book bridges and integrates knowledge from various fields such as material culture, art history, and literary studies, united by an interest in archives as tangible deposits and aggregations, both in analog and digital forms, as well as the material encounter.

Contributors to this volume address the potential of a material engagement to animate archival content, connecting a broad range of disciplinary interests in the archive with emerging discourses in materiality. Through detailed analysis of the systems, processes, and actions that shape the forms, structures, and configurations in which individual archival objects accumulate, the book explores how the inexorable move to digital affects traditional theories of the physical archival object. It also considers how stewardship practices such as description and metadata creation can adapt to these changes.

The Materiality of the Archive achieves a remarkable synthesis of theory and practice, bringing together professional and academic perspectives. This book is an essential resource for academics, researchers, and postgraduate students engaged in the fields of archive studies, museology, art history, and material culture. It offers insightful insights, practical methodologies, and a wealth of case studies that will enhance their understanding of the complex and multifaceted nature of archives and their role in shaping our collective memory and understanding of the past.

Weight: 548g
Dimension: 162 x 240 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367206017