March 1, 2019
"Destroying a Visual Archive: Sex, Racism and Image"
Doug Bailey
Professor of Archaeology at San Francisco State University
Doug Bailey, professor of archaeology at San Francisco State University, will speak on "Art/Archaeology: Beyond an Archaeology of Art" at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, in FA-258.
What happens when people attempt to discard and destroy a museum archive that contains many thousands of visual and material objects? In this workshop, we discuss the politics, potential, and violence of archive objects (specifically a cache of over 1200, 35-mm transparencies from the mid-late 20th century) formally under the control of a large public university. What lives do these images/objects live? Are they passive and neutral pictures resting peacefully in an institution's collection? Are they active material things? If the latter, then what affect do they have, what energies and essences do they constitute, what is their present and their future, where should they go, and what should they do? One solution pursued here: their destruction.
