DesignAn
investigation into developing a photographic acquisition strategy for archives.
...the direct, uninterpreted
and authentic voice of the past: the primary evidence of what people did and
what they thought; the look of places and events recorded through images-both
still and moving; life’s beginnings and life’s endings; the growth and decline
of industries and the ebbs and flows of communities and cultures. The archive
record is the foundation on which are built all our histories, with their many
and varied voices...[1]
The
recently refurbished Sheffield Archives on Shoreham Street house and make
available, for a variety of reasons, items and artifacts dating from the 12th
century. Amongst them are business records, ecclesiastical records,
family and estate records, local government records, local public records and
records from individuals. The archive is however aware that their profession is
currently undergoing unparalled changes in the wake of technological
developments. This not only brings with it new social and cultural dimensions,
but also a shift in the accepted role of an archive. Nationally this has been
recognised too and in May 2006 the National Archive launched a 4 stage program
called Access to Archives or A2A. Its main function seems to have been
distributing National Lottery funds for regional archives to digitise their
collections. This program is now over and by their own evaluation have gathered
and made available 30% of what are in our regional collections. This was
clearly an ambitious project and brought into stark contrast a few of the
challenges facing contemporary archiving.
Off the back of A2A came “Archives for the 21st Century”, a
government white paper from November 2009 seeking to summerise and outline the
importance of this sector. It is, as one would expect, riddled with references
to new technology and whilst this is a very thorough document exposing
expectations from the public about everything from 24 hour access to equiping
archivists with the new skillsets they will require, there is precious little
about those who are the collectors. It’s as if the expectation is that this
will happen automatically without regard to planning or method. Added to this
comes the historic value of archives, that is, not recognised as the equal of
museums and libraries in terms of budget priorities.[2]
The motivation for this research is derived from a few key
areas. The cities archive recognises that their collection policy is
effectively a passive document. There is an acceptance that they need to be
more aggressive in their collecting, aquiring archives that are representitive
of the community they serve. Current policy nationally is only geared to
digitising what has already been collected it does not address ways of
collecting for the digital age. Finally, clear gaps in the cities collection
can be identified. This research aims to test a documentation programme to
rectify this.
Program
of research.
Aim
This
research aims to investigate methods that will ensure the photographic records
of the city are as accurate and representitive as possible.
Objectives
To
understand the value of our photographic records.
To
investigate ways of making new work that addresses the contemporary requirements
of The Sheffield Archives and to research the most effective means of
responding to these requirements.
To
experiment with and assess a range of methodologies relevant to the above aim
and in order to ensure that the records of the city are as accurate and
representative as possible.
To
collect material relating to Sheffield's communities and organisations in order
to ensure the city's diversity is represented in the collection.
To
explore and evaluate the most effective ways to maximise access to archival
material.
The research
question
What is
the role of a photographer within the context of contemporary archive
practices?
Subsidiary
questions that will inform the approach to the investigation of the central
question are:
What
methodology will ensure the aim of the program is met and what are the ethical
implications?
What new
challenges does any archive face in the transition from the analogue to the
digital and how does this affect the decisions a photographer might need to
take?
Rationale
Sheffield
archives currently have 55,000 photographs in boxes waiting to be categorised.
This has come about for a number of reasons and one could look at the current
collecting and acquisition policy to address this, however that is not within
the scope of this research.
The
research proposes methods of collecting data not readily available to the
city's archive. The archives practice can be broken down into four categories:
transfer, donation, revocable deposit and purchase. In essence, there is no
policy of commissioning or making new work with the distinct ideal of future
preservation.
I want to
find out if, in by making new work using a variety of methods, the city can
start to think in terms of a “living archive”. I conceive of the “living archive” as constructed on an
understanding that by critically examining decisions in the present
about what we wish to preserve for future generations, a broader and richer
collection can be made.
Dialogue
with the archive also exposes gaps within the collection. We could link
these gaps to groups of people who have been marginalised for a variety of
reasons: examples might include asylum seekers, the gay community, and older
people.
What I
wish to study is the viability of different methods of collecting data for
archive purposes using photography, testimonies and moving image.
Towards a
new Archive
The research methodology I propose to use is action research
combining both ethnographic, case study and action research approaches.[3]
Action research means integrating research into the development of the
intervention. Flexible by nature this kind of research is responsive to the
needs of the intervention and the particular socio-cultural context. Case
studies are a qualitive research method characterised by the in-depth study of
a particular example. Ethnography is the study of a culture in all its rich
detail. The methods or “tool box” will include; photography, moving
image,residencies, workshops and interviews.
I
envisage three phases for the research.
Collection
Over the
duration of the research I will look at three main areas: work, leisure and
health.
Archives
as institutions, and the collections within them, are generally acknowledged by
both academics and society at large as a passive source of information to be
exploited for a variety of reasons. What has not been acknowledged is the
relationship between the archive and power, or access to social capital.
I
envisage the research highlighting this in terms of what kind of data can be
collected. For a photographer access is everything: does this therefore imply that certain
aspects of any archive will be missing because the photographer is unable to
access certain communities? While certain social groups may be reticent about
such endeavours I wish to ascertain how a diverse range of groups can be
supported to produce their own images and testimonies? I will, therefore,
explore examples of work produced by "amateurs", reinforcing the idea
of photography being the most democratic of recording mediums available to us,
or as Coleman would put it, "Photography is too important to leave to
photographers."[4]
Editing
What to
collect - and who is interested?
Widespread
access to recent technology means that an ever increasing number of photographs
are produced. The program of research will therefore attempt to outline what
tools of decision making could be developed for such an archive. I will examine
what defines photographic quality for archival purposes, as opposed to other
uses of photography.
Access
What does
access mean for an archive? The most obvious contemporary viewing platform is
the Internet and the latest thinking is that this is how the majority of us
will access information in the future. Our familiar world of photographs and
other paper documents is rapidly giving way to the eDocument. This will no
doubt give rise to questions regarding authenticity and origin. It will also
pose challenges to those in custody of the originals about how contextually the
new versions are understood.
This
research will also address how people without Internet facilities see the work.
In
summary then there have been many studies of city life made by photographers;
one thinks of Atget's Paris, Roger Maynes's London and Nayoa Hatakeyamas's
Tokyo, for example, but these highlight an individual view rather than a
community's.
I will
look to revisit aspects of McLuhan's theme of social constructionism as
described in his 1951 work "The Mechanical Bride", the core idea of
which is that truth is something people construct in the process of living in a
world that is constructing them. In a way I am asking what images of real life
mean to us and why do we keep returning to them time after time? I want to
argue that they reinforce a kind of mass interpersonal relationship, or as
touched on in my MA, a form of Stieglitz's theory of Equivalence suggesting a
link between the physical and the representational.
It is
clear that the practice of photographic documentation and archiving has changed
with each technological breakthrough. What has not changed is the ongoing need
to understand the world and those around us.
Clive
Egginton
07974
398238
info@archive-sheffield.org
---
[1] Archives for the 21st Century, ISBN978-0-10-177442-0, 2009,
p6
[2] Funding for local
authority archive services varies from £56,000 to £2.35m(£0.21to£4.69percapita)
per annum (Source: Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy,
Archive Statistics 2006-07 Actuals).
Of the archive
services completing The National Archives’ self-assessment exercise in 2008,
71.5 percent of the top scoring quartile reported over 15 staff to CIPFA in
2007-08. None of the lowest-scoring quartile reported over 15 staff. Seven
percent of the top-scoring quartile reported having fewer than five staff.
[3] (Tacchi
et al, 2003).
[4] Coleman A.D, Light Readings:
A Photography Critic's Writings, 1968-1978, University of New Mexico Press.
