COLLABORATING WITH THE ARCHIVE
Juror, Filter Photo Space, Chicago, IL
September 24 - October 30, 2021
Archives containing photographs, documents, and other historical artifacts left behind by previous generations are powerful and essential tools for artists. I have identified three ways in which the artists in this exhibition have engaged with them. The first is as a conceptual point of departure where archival research provides information and inspiration as well as a source of appropriated imagery. The second is as a means of tapping personal histories. Using their own family’s photographs or found collections of private snapshots, many artists in this exhibition alter and add to vernacular images to tell meaningful stories or critique the broader culture. Finally, the photographer’s own work, amassed over time, can also be a productive starting point.
Questions about what constitutes an archive interest me but proved less relevant during the selection process for this exhibition. What I found important and exciting is the consistently compelling visual expressions found in this group of archive-based works and the range of significant subjects addressed, including Blackness, queerness, institutional racism, environmental histories, diasporic erasure, an invented history of illness, and the physical accumulation of photographic materials.
