Keeping/Discarding emerged quite spontaneously out of a series of parallel and crisscrossing dialogues. The idea of a multimedia exhibition to reflect on the transgressive potential of storytelling in engaging with archival (or perhaps unarchivable) records was first planted during the workshop “Permeable and Performative Temporalities”, organized by Sjamme van de Voort, Evelien de Hoop, Erik van der Vleuten, and Timothy Moss in Amsterdam in 2024 as part of their Soy Stories research project.
These initial conversations among some of Keeping/Discarding contributors -- namely Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, Sandra Manickam, Ruy Blanes, Jonathan Tjien Fooh, and Pauline Münch – were quickly picked up at the informal reading group on archiving at the hosted by Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) where three research projects on arts, archiving, and belonging are hosted: Re-presenting Europe — Popular representations of diversity and belonging, funded by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) with grant NWA.1389.20.076; City tales: an art-based participatory framework for studying migration-related diversity ( ARTIVES), funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with grant number 101117068; and Preserving Memories, Bridging Gaps, funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation.
This collaboration led to the organization of a seminar “Keeping/Discarding: Critical Reflections on (Un)Archivability” in Leiden in 2025 which furthered our original discussions and created a platform for inviting other contributors and other perspectives and experiences. The collection curated here by Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, Sanne Rotmeijer, bram ieven and Bareez Majid is by no means our last dialogue, but an opportunity for continuing discussing and reflecting together.
Infrastructure support was provided by Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities. Website developed by Diagonal Solutions.
