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Art Archive Access: Preserving traces and creating possibilities in the archivalisation of public art

The paper provides a critical examination of the archivalisation of public art practice. It demonstrates that we have to acknowledge the politics and presumptions inherent not only in commissioning and artistic practice in the public realm but also in the archivalisation of public art, the information and meaning that current and future publics are given access to. It analyses the existing forms of archivalisation of public art in catalogue publications, in physical archives, as digital archives and online databases and, in and as, contemporary art practice. It reveals that the archivalisation of public art must embrace numerous problematical conceptual frameworks – in deciding by whom and for whom, of what and how, but also when and for how long.

The paper is the result of a sustained period of critical engagement with two fields of research in which I have previously published - public art and the archival. It is the result of my thinking spilling across the boundaries of these two fields to consider their interrelationship. It has entailed primary research through archival research, examination of websites as well as secondary research in critical and contextual literature in the fields of archival theory, public art, art history, urbanism, architecture, arts and project management and social geography. Rigour was ensured through the use of established ethical research practices and through discussions with practitioners and academics during participation and attendance at numerous public art conferences and training events over a number of years. This included the refinement of ideas following test presentations of the research findings as part of the papers at Public Space, Art and Collective Memory, Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) Third Annual Conference (Birmingham City University 2009) and Intersections Duration conference, (University of Newcastle, March 2012).