AAH 40th Anniversary Annual Conference & Bookfair
10 – 12 April 2014
Royal College of Art, London

Archival Interventions in Sculpture

Rowan Bailey, University of Huddersfield r.baileyhud.ac.uk

Rob Ward University of Huddersfield

There are many diverse sculptural practices which use the ‘archive’ as both a concept and a methodology: Marcel Duchamp’s boites-en-valise plays with the ‘storage form’ as container for autobiographical assemblages, whilst Mark Dion appropriates existing archaeological methods to archive the remnants and remains of the Thames. Ilya Kabakov and Thomas Hirschhorn produce archival installations, juxtaposing the fictional with the historical, the temporal with the spatial, whereas Sarah Lucas and Susan Hiller are known to elicit new modes of encounter with historical objects and discourses through existing collections. The recent works of Marysia Ledanovksa and Christian Boltanski re-think the archive in a virtual digitised world.

Bringing together art historians, critics, archivists, librarians, curators and artists, this session seeks to explore experimental uses of the archive in the expanded field of sculpture, with a view to responding to some of the following questions:

What strategies and methodologies of archival intervention does sculpture disclose? How do sculptors work with archival concepts in their practice? Does sculpture’s use of existing collections (historical documents, materials, artefacts) reveal something new about the archive? What alternative narratives of sculptural making take place through the archive? How might archival spaces within the studio provide new insights into the histories and practices of sculpture? What different interventions can digital technologies offer to the sculpture archive?

If you would like to offer a paper, please email r.baileyhud.ac.uk providing an abstract of a proposed paper of 30 minutes.

Deadline: 11 November 2013

Call for Papers to be no more than 250 words. Include your name and institution affiliation (if any). You will receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks.