7 minute read
Artist’s Self-Archiving Toolkit
Erin Brannigan
This is a practical introduction for artists getting organised for self-archiving. There are many excellent online tools which are listed at the end of the document that I have drawn from. Whether you are chipping away in stolen moments or have some dedicated time for archiving, the most important thing is to have a plan and an end-game: what’s important to you, what’s useful for the broader community, and what you can feasibly manage with your resources. Also be prepared for the emotional journey – that was a message that has come back from the artists involved in the Dancing Sydney Archive Project.
1. WHERE WILL YOUR ARCHIVE LIVE?
There are likely to be materials already out there in the world that refer to your body of work. Researching yourself online reveals where most of these exist and might give you a sense of where your more complete archive belongs. The primary homes for dance-based collections are libraries and museums. Some larger companies also have their own foundations and trusts, and with the passing of many giants of the contemporary dance world recently, these are innovating rapidly (eg. Merce Cunningham Trust, Trisha Brown Archive, Pina Bausch Foundation). Australian companies are following suit and turning their attention to their archives, including Lucy Guerin Inc, Sydney Dance Company and Chunky Move.
As an artist, you should identify the most suitable repository for your materials and enter into dialogue with them before you put too much work into organising your materials. They can appraise your collection and advise on its appropriateness for their holdings. This will also save reworking data into new formats, and clarify what a given institution will take.
In Australia, museums have been slow to acquire dance-based materials, but our libraries and universities have been dedicating resources to this area off-and-on for many years. In Sydney, the State Library of NSW (SLNSW) has been committed to collecting materials relating to New South Wales (NSW)- based artists such as Kai Tai Chan, Gideon Obarzanek/ Chunky Move, and historical artists such as Irene Vera Young, Margaret Barr and Beth Dean. They also have a comprehensive holding of reviews of NSW shows published in major papers such as the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and street press such as Sydney City Hub. The National Library of Australia had a dance curator position for some years and developed a substantial collection including Gertrude Bodenweiser’s archive, an important figure in the development of modern dance in NSW. Universities can also be repositories of performance related materials. University of Sydney holds the archive of photographer Heidrun Lohr and the Peter Oldham video archives of dance and contemporary performance work across the 1980s and 1990s, and UNSW has the ReelDance collection and the archives of Martin del Amo, Vicki Van Hout and Branch Nebula. They are also involved in research work for the Performance Space archives and the Wolanski Collection. The online RealTime Dance archive is important for Australian dance history as the journal reviewed many works not reviewed elsewhere. They have listings of key artists and links to some non-RealTime reviews and interviews.
The Dancing Sydney : Mapping Movements : Performing Histories project works with several of these institutions and hopes to both map and grow resources that will ensure the legacies of NSW dance artists, both past, present and future. But our primary partner is the SLNSW who is supporting artist self-archiving workshops, collecting new oral histories that substantially expand their current holdings on dance, and are working with the research team to identify artists suitable for collection.
2. WHAT WILL BE IN YOUR ARCHIVE?
As stated, each institution has limitations around what it collects. For instance, the SLNSW notes that they collect “material that documents life in New South Wales, from the earliest times to the present day. The intention is to create a collection that reflects the history of New South Wales in both the Australian and international contexts.” They also note:
We’re interested in receiving offers for a wide range of material, such as:
- manuscripts
- books
- newspapers and magazines
- photographs
- organisational records
- pictures (such as paintings, watercolours, prints, drawings, framed works)
- maps and plans
- ephemera (such as posters, postcards, pamphlets)
- digital publications (such as websites, blogs)
Costume and set elements are not collected by the SLNSW (The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences has some such materials) but they will take audiovisual materials under some circumstances. The donation of any A/V items should be discussed with SLNSW staff at the time of the offer.
The tricky thing is deciding what is worth keeping. As Julie-Anne Long asks in her contribution to this journal: “How do I decide what to keep? How do I decide what goes with what? Why do I still have this stuff? What does it matter to me and/or to others if I keep it or not?” Amanda Card argues the case for the importance of dance archives per se, and you can contribute your legacy to Australian cultural memory during your lifetime and control how it manifests. Your decision might balance the ‘top-heavy’ existing materials with representations from important independent Sydney-based dance artists. Think about what materials best illustrate your body of work and write a narrative that you feel comfortable with. Having a peer or colleague that you can talk this through with can help get perspective on what can be an intensely personal journey.
The primary materials dance artists are likely to be dealing with are press and marketing materials related to shows, photographs and video documentation, dancescreen work, costumes, sets, journals/workbooks, company records, websites and blogs. Like all archives, the SLNSW request that material received is in excellent condition, that data is correct, and “if supplying heritage material” they request that the supplier “can effectively describe the material on offer and provide factual information about provenance and condition.” This is standard for all archives. Other things to consider are where there are multiple rights holders for your materials, and if there are any culturally sensitive materials that require you to attend to relevant protocols.
3. IDENTIFY, ORGANISE, PRESERVE, ACCESS
This section is drawn largely from the Artist’s Legacy Toolkit, an online resource created by Dance USA. It is an excellent tool and is recommended by the librarians at SLNSW.
a. Logging and inventory
The creation of records relating to your materials will form the metadata material stored in catalogues. Most archives will not accept materials that have not been sorted and logged. For example, the SLNSW requests, “do not include material which is unidentified, or for which you can provide no context.” The kind of information they will require for each item might include credits, authorship, dates, venues, performance seasons, videomaker credits, photograph credits, and funding sources. If you can use the collecting institutions templates for data collection this will save a lot of time down the track.
b. Labelling, Packaging and Preserving
Organise physical materials by kind and chronology and deliver in archival boxes (SLNSW can supply appropriate archival boxes on request). Your audiovisual materials are some of the most fragile material you might have and there is excellent advice on how to preserve your tapes and digital files at the National Film and Sound Archive site:
- DO store materials in an environmentally controlled climate, a room where the temperature and humidity are stable (68° Fahrenheit and 30% humidity are the ideal numbers). Windows and outside walls affect your ability to control those factors, so if possible, store your items in an interior room. Lights can also damage materials, so keep items in darkened rooms, closets, boxes, or cabinets.
- DO use steel file cabinets and shelving. Keep folders upright and don’t overcrowd drawers. Beware of wood shelving – the gasses let off by wood may damage materials. DO raise materials off of the floor to avoid damage from flooding and leaks.
c. Acquisition and Access
Once your collection has been accepted by an institution there will be paperwork including agreements and donation forms. You will have to decide on degrees of access for end-users that you feel comfortable with and accept that there will be limits to your own access to your materials as well.
Access for end-users also includes reworking your archive into new material. Dancing Sydney : Mapping Movements : Performing Histories is interested in how you can transform your archive into other material such as performances, exhibitions, other art works and publications. The artists included in this journal, Dean Walsh, Kay Armstrong, Narelle Benjamin, Julie-Anne Long, Vicki Van Hout and The Fondue Set, have produced all of this and more, and this kind of work insists that your archive lives on through audience or reader engagement. It also multiplies your body of work with self-reflexive practices that provide commentary on your legacy.
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REFERENCE SITES:
State Library of NSW: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections/building-our-collections/ what-library-collects https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections/building-our-collections/ acquisitions-and-donations https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/collection_acquisition_policy_v2.0_ april_2016.pdf https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collectionsbuilding-our-collections-acquisitions-and-donations/ collection-offers-form
National Library of Australia, National Dance Collection: https://www.nla.gov.au/what-we-collect/dance
Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences https://collection.maas.museum/
National Film and Sound Archive, Technical Preservation Guide https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/guide
Artist’s Legacy Toolkit https://www.danceusa.org/archiving-preservation-artists-legacy-toolkit
Archival research project at Oxford University, UK https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:116a4658-deff-4b06-81c5-c9c2071bc6d0
University of Sydney – Contact: amanda.card@sydney.edu.au
UNSW, ReelDance Collection https://digitalcollections.library.unsw.edu.au/nodes/view/5
UNSW, In Response: Dialogues with RealTime https://digitalcollections.library.unsw.edu.au/nodes/view/1
RealTime Dance Archive http://www.realtimearts.net/realtimedance