Socially Engaged and Activist Art: new forms of archival practice in the contemporary art museum

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[16:15] Sarah HaylettThis doctoral research seeks to examine the nature, significance and collectibility of the traces left by programming and exhibiting activist and socially engaged art in the contemporary art museum. .This research will be rooted in the work of Tate Exchange who collaborate with artists and communities (especially those underrepresented in museums) to explore where art and society meet. While these collaborative processes do not necessarily make it into Tate's art collection, they create and leave traces. These traces include tangible material objects and intangible processes and experiences; they are records of these interactions and interventions, but are not recognised by Tate's established recordkeeping and archival structures. This leaves these items statusless and these moments of practice at risk. New forms of archival practice centre the record maker, rejecting 'epistemic totality' in favour of a model of pluralistic knowledge production and materiality outside of the archive. An important part of this research will include exploring what is lost and gained when activism becomes an artwork and is potentially fixed upon acquisition into the museum. Can the traces, if archived, extend the life of the activism? If we think of the Tate Exchange archive as a living archive, can the material continue to be used, researched and reactivated as new forms of activism? And by whom, how and where?