Output details

The Dresden Archive Project. A project combining archival and creative work which places transitional, provisional and ephemeral images at the heart of political authenticity and historical debate. The work has three core components: (1) an artist-collated archive consisting of over 500 items (postcards, letters, photographs and ephemera connected to the city of Dresden from the 1870s to 1950s); (2) documentary pieces comprising digital photographs (magnified) and original commentary; and (3) a series of imaginative responses to the archive incorporating an extended series of paintings, prints, digital prints and texts, some integrating original archive material.

This work was generated in response to research questions regarding the role of the artist-archivist, in particular the artist’s response to his substantial archive of ephemeral pre-second world war artefacts collected over a fifteen-year period, and the transience and trauma evoked within them.

Of the several creative strategies used, the following were central. (1) Bringing to the fore, the apparently insignificant faces of people hidden within the post-cards of streets and significant civic landmarks of pre war Dresden, enlarging and juxtaposing them against the full image. Thus the human is brought back to our attention, against the backdrop of stability, power and authority evoked by postcards’ subject matter. (2) Juxtaposing the imagery within postcards - places chosen to invoke civic and national pride, against factual text descriptions of the later use, and of the (chilling) events that would subsequently enfold at the particular place. Through a process of critical assimilation and collage, the work throws into relief the potency of the photographic image, and of the archive itself. In so doing the research also demonstrates how the archive becomes a space for critical, creative intervention, which invites the viewer to relate to history, the archive and the use of images and text in a new way. The research developed iteratively and this is reflected in sequential exhibitions, first at The German Historical Institute and subsequently, supplemented with new work, at Trinity College, Dublin and University of Cork. Targeting interdisciplinary audiences, with a strong academic underpinning, the relevance and originality of the work is signalled by its reviews (Times Higher Educational Supplement; Max Weber Foundation; The German Link) and conferences (Art and War, Cork; key-note speaker. Translating Holocaust Literature, Trinity College, Dublin). Within the field of artists responding to and using archives, the approach and outcomes here are original and distinct.