Archive as Strategy: Conversations about Self-historicisation Across the East’; Curated by Lina Džuverović

‘Archive as Strategy: Conversations about Self-historicisation Across the East’ is an on-going research strand which forms a core part of the Calvert 22 Foundation programme. Envisaged as a two year-long series of events, presentations and meetings, Archive as Strategy is an open-ended and discursive platform which encourages participants to play an active role in the development of the series.
As its point of departure, this series addresses the growing phenomenon of self-historicisation – a social trend which has developed throughout Eastern Europe over the last three decades. Since the 1980s, communities of artists and intellectuals across the East have faced parallel states of precarity which profoundly affected the ability of ‘official’ art institutions to perform the traditional duties of supporting, archiving, historicising and providing a critical framework for local artistic outputs. As a result, artists have increasingly taken it upon themselves to perform the role of a historian, archivist and curator, in the hopes of historicising their own artistic production as well as that of their peers. The Archive as Strategy series aims to connect these histories across the region by identifying and examining several key self-archiving initiatives and by mapping these activities in relation to significant topics in Calvert 22’s current exhibition season.

This series takes place at regular intervals, where events are primarily held at the Calvert 22 Foundation. Each event focuses on one particular self-archiving project and is explored via screenings, curator/artist presentations, workshops, and/or discussions. Many past Archive as Strategy events have been documented (photography and video), and are available for view on www.archiveasstrategy.org. The materials, conversations and documents collected during the course of the Archive as Strategy series will eventually be developed into a reader published by Calvert 22.
The Archive as Strategy series is supported by a growing interest for the research and study of artistic practices in the East, and is produced in cooperation with the History of Art Department at University College London (UCL).

Check the list of different events to see the development of the project.
Bring from the very interesting Marginalia, a project of Aimar Arriola.