In this lecture we compared looking at the physical object/image and looking at a digital copy of the object/image. We also learned about the process of archiving documents. During the class, we were given documents from a collection. We had to examine the documents and to archive them. The documents where a series of educational and entertainment magazines from the collection from one of our teacher.
To archive the documents, we had to look through the magazine to find the information we needed. It wasn’t always clear what we were looking for. We had to find the common point across all the documents and determine what kind of collection they could belong to.
I was wondering the link between the collection and the collector. Why create a collection and what are they collecting?
In that case, the collection was entirely composed of British published comic books and magazines for kids. They were all starting from the beginning of the 20th century to now. Though the collection was composed by single issues, it seemed to be mainly education mixed with entertainment. The Collector has a PhD on the codification of British education in the late 19th and early 20th century. The magazines are from the same time period and later. The UAL website mentions also that the collector has published papers about multiples subjects including colonialist stereotypes in European comic books. This shows that the collection is part of a real passion the collector has.
The act of collecting and archiving is important none the less to keep a trace of human activities, discoveries or creations, and to advance in our own time, by being able to go back on what has already been done. Being able to hold a document from the past allows us to understand more about the humans before us. We can see the similarities between our society and the ones before us.
But also it seems that individual people collecting are often driven by sentimental attachment with the things they are collecting. It is often an emotional drive that motivates people to build a collection. As if they were seeking comfort in the possession of material objects.
Though physically holding a magazine that was published more than fifty years ago was an unique experience. With the ads and the content of the magazines, it was amusing to imagine who was reading this before.
References:
– UAL Website (2018) London College of Communication – People. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-communication/people/ian-horton
– Kathy Michelle Carbone (2017) Moving Records: Artistic Interventions and Activisms in the Archives, University of California
– Brien, Ciara, O’Connor, John, Russell-Carroll, Deborah (2018) ‘Meaningless carrying-on’: A psychoanalytically-oriented qualitative study of compulsive hoarding’, Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 35(2), Apr, 2018. pp. 270-279.