The project Anonymity and Absence: Archival Sites of Speculation is an experimental space within which methodologies of proximity and engagement with archives can be tested and divulged. The test sites are the Archives of the Austrian Association of Women Artists (VBKÖ) and the Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Angewandte Archive). This project seeks to contribute to critical discussions on the archive as a space of artistic research and the experimental methods deployed in examining the convergent and divergent histories of the Angewandte Archive and the VBKÖ Archive in order to substantiate the following research questions:
- How does one confront archival blind spots? If one surmises that the current mode of systematization in archival science instigates epistemic violence, how can one confront the archives’ anonymous authorship and witness-ship and grant what is missing legibility?
- How does one perform the missing parts of an archive? And how can we weave alternative and unwritten histories into what is present within the collection?
Anonymity within this proposal refers mainly to the ambiguous authorship of archives wherein one does not attribute the archive to a single known ‘creator’, instead inadvertently acknowledges the often invisible and (more often than not) collaborative mechanisms of collecting and systematizing, whereas invisibility speaks to that which is completely absent from documentation.
Anonymity and Absence: Archival Sites of Speculation aims to productively challenge the archives of two historical institutions allowing relationships to emerge within a collective history whilst fostering research with diversifying perspectives. It is inspiring to note that these two institutions, wherein the archives are situated, have strongly supported the emancipation of women since their inception in 1867 (Angewandte) and 1912 (VBKÖ). Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to the critical discussion of the archive as a site of artistic research. It is the initial step into a broader and more extensive examination of critical perspectives on the re-positioning of the archive as an object of inquiry rather than merely a site of research; bringing forward the archive as a multidisciplinary field in which tensions and encounters between theory and practice, research and art, academic study and activism can be tested, challenged, and explored.
Anonymity and Absence: Archival Sites of Speculation is headed by curator and art historian Georgia Holz, currently a University Assistant with the Site-Specific Art Department in partnership with the Mai Ling, an anonymous feminist art collective with members from the Asian diaspora.
Contact: Sen.Sc. Mag.a Georgia Holz, georgia.holz@uni-ak.ac.at