Reflections on the Archive
Archives are sexy. The old is new again. In this issue, Rungh has compiled six different pieces to canvas different perspectives on the archive.
Archivist Melanie Hardbattle and scholars Kamal Arora and Anne Murphy provide their own views on the archive based in theory and practice.
Filmmaker Ali Kazimi, questions constructions of the national archive and reflects on how the archive has been intertwined with his documentary making process.
Artist Jagdeep Singh Raina is featured in the Artist Run Centre (and the banners in this issue) and in the text accompanying his art work, links back to how Gurinder Chadha's I'm British But… (in our Screens section) inspired his recent series of art.
This focus on the archive is a part of Rungh's #NewRunghArchive project (follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram).
Sponsorship
Archival Truth and Memory
Reflections on the ArchiveWe live within a world that is both obsessed with the past, but also in some sense numbed to it, a strange combination of presentism and past-centrism that does seem quite distinct both from the forward-looking period of high-modernism and the concern for "tradition" that appeared in its wake
Dr. Anne Murphy
Trust, Access, Engagement and Balance
Reflections on the ArchiveI have come to realize the extent to which many groups were excluded over the years and archivists really need to focus their attention on correcting this imbalance, either by proactively acquiring the records of groups that have been traditionally under-represented or assisting these groups to maintain their own historical record.
Melanie Hardbattle
Making visible, invisible communities
Reflections on the ArchiveI find that one of the challenges with South Asian communities is that we are not aware of our own historical importance. As minority groups we have been marginalized and told that our stories are not important. Yet they are critical.
Dr. Kamal Arora
Transformative and Radicalizing
Reflections on the ArchiveWhat is remembered matters. As a filmmaker and, later as a writer, I have been exploring how we remember, through the preservation of material objects for the past couple of decades.The power to define our understanding of the past, to frame our present and envision a future, stem from the archive.
Ali Kazimi
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