The curation of archives as tools for regional art regeneration in North West Ireland

Abstract

This thesis examines to what extent can art archives be ‘curated’ to be living organisms rather than repositories for dead documents? How can archivists be artists/curators aiming for archival/artistic intervention rather than solely completeness? How can this strategy be used to assist regional art regeneration in a non metropolitan area? The journey made by twentieth century archiving from the authoritarian and official to the contextual and explicitly societal shall be examined and it will be shown how the archival concept has become openly subjective and indeed deliberately domestic. It will be indicated how even the key archival concepts of originality and authenticity are no longer static but change in response to technological change in particular.

Curation as a concept will be shown to be fluid rather than static and it shall be shown that there are regenerative aspects implicit in the curatorial concept. Historical and contemporary examples shall be explored to emphasise how curation has been used in attempts to shape morals, justify existing power structures and change aesthetic landscapes. Thus curation like archives is shown to be firmly rooted in a social context. Imaginative archival engagement with the locale shall be suggested using methodologies that visual artists originally appropriated from the archival world. It shall be suggested, using examples that these may potentially be ‘reclaimed’.

It will be examined if and how archivists and those who administer art archives can determine an energetic artistic and social role, not solely concentrating on the documentation of past events, but reacting to the immediate requirements of today. It will be suggested that the knowledge contained on their shelves can potentially be used as a catalyst for regional cultural connectivity and that archives can be at the heart of culturally led regenerative projects. Therefore archives can assist in ensuring a protection of the visual arts heritage and future as well as being fully entwined within a local social context therefore positively engaging with a locale, in this instance Derry and the North West of Ireland.


Access to Volume 2 is restricted due to copyright. It is comprised of an exhibition catalogue: "Abandoned Donegal: Denzil Browne", published to coincide with an exhibition in the Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, 2010.

Date of Award	Sept 2010
Original language	English
Supervisor	Cherie Driver (Supervisor), Máiréad NicCraith (Supervisor) & Grainne Loughran (Supervisor)