The Archive as Model and Source.

Archivo's Open Sessions are free online events featuring critical approaches and methodologies centering the archive in photography and visual culture. This year’s programme is shaped by researchers and artists in line with the theme of "The Archive as Model and Source."

May 15, 6.30 pm (UK), Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma

This event draws on artist, activist and researcher Özge Çelikaslan’s eponymous book, published by dpr-barcelona in June 2024, which situates bak.ma, a growing decentralised media archive of contemporary social movements based on the open-source software platform pan.do/ra, in relation to counter-archiving and activist archiving practices. Bak.ma (meaning do not look in Turkish) is the result of a collaborative effort that began with Videoccupy during the Gezi Protests in 2013 to recuperate, record, edit, and share audiovisual traces of politically significant events. The archive’s openness to collaboration and user engagement has also made bak.ma a radical space and resource in its own right, where civil organisations, community and activist groups can use the interface for their own archival collections and exhibition projects. This talk is supported by the Association for Art History's 2025 Research Grants.

Registration: https://www.archivoplatform.com/event-details/open-session-may12/form

October 16, 6.30 pm (UK), Archival Photography of East and South East Asia Communities in Liverpool as Model and Source

This talk centres on Emily Beswick’s research in which she engages with family photograph archives of East and Southeast Asian communities in Liverpool, UK, to reveal submerged narratives and memories. A PhD researcher at the University of Liverpool and Tate Liverpool, Emily Beswick will discuss her method of participatory workshops, where participants use creative methods – including mapping, tracing and weaving – to materialise new interpretations of photographs from newspaper, documentary and family photograph archives. Intrinsic to Emily’s research is the concept of ‘diasporic vision,’ drawing on Grace Cho (2008), Donna Haraway (1988), and Stuart Hall (1990). ‘Diasporic vision’ is a methodology of situated, embodied, affective and sensory engagements with photographs by diasporic individuals and communities. Her research asks the important questions: What photographic archives of the Chinese diaspora exist outside of the institutional collections? Do family photographs resist or challenge the dominant visual narratives of the diasporic Chinese community in Liverpool?

Registration: https://www.archivoplatform.com/event-details/open-session-oct16/form

November 27, 6.30 pm (UK), Contesting Narratives: Using Archival Images to Expand the Imaginary

This Open Session explores the idea of the archive and its material as a productive space. We will discuss the work of contemporary artist, Nieves Mingueza, who utilises archival images to create a visuality around aspects of women’s lives that usually go unnoticed. This session will feature a conversation with Mingueza about her work, One in Three Women (2021-ongoing), where the artist addresses gender-based violence using found vernacular photographs, archival material and her own writing. In that sense, Mingueza ‘reactivates’ these usually-forgotten photographs to visualise the predominance of gender-based violence: a topic often silenced, that Mingueza’s practice brings to the surface to prevent these stories falling into oblivion. Throughout the conversation, we will address the roles of archival and ‘found’ materials in configuring alternative futures, considering how images shape new imaginations.

Registration: https://www.archivoplatform.com/event-details/open-session-nov27/form

To get more information about individual sessions and RSVP, please visit: https://www.archivoplatform.com/events