The Institute of Historical Research winter conference features Design Archives research.
25 Jan 2016
The 2016 Winter Conference of the Institute of Historical Research The Production of the Archive takes place on 29 January. Professor Catherine Moriarty has been invited to take part in the event which considers the agency of both the archivist and the historian. Her presentation The representation of content, context, and connection argues for greater sensibility towards the structures that shape and influence our understanding of the past. Moriarty will highlight the critical stewardship activity that makes the University of Brighton Design Archives so distinctive, including the 2014/15 AHRC-funded Digital Transformations project Exploring British Design, a collaboration between the Design Archives, Jisc and the Design Museum.
The conference as a whole seeks to consider the archivist, whose actions, including appraisal, selection, description and the operation of closure or open access, are now seen as part of the co-production of the archive. It proposes that historians and other users of the archive, rather than simply seeing the archivist as a neutral ‘servant or handmaiden of history’, are interested in the record creation and curation activities undertaken and the effect of the creating context on the production of the archive. Historians can also be seen as co-creators of the archive when they use and reuse the archive through their personal selection and interpretation and through a more conscious engagement with the archive in their work.
Following a keynote by the esteemed international archival science scholar, Professor Eric Ketelaar, the conference will offer three provocative sessions, on Text, Text to Digital and Beyond Text, in which speakers from different disciplines will present their reflections and engage in discussion. The day will conclude with a round table, including Jeff James, Chief Executive and Keeper of The National Archives.
To register for this event visit the University of London Online Store
Image: Clearing the studio, King’s Road, London. October, 2015.
