Encounters in the Archive

For this issue we are pleased to partner with Autograph in London for symposium that will take place in March 2025.

The symposium will be opened to the public followed by a closed session the following day for contributing participants.

First symposium: 18 March 2025 (public event) followed by a closed session on 19 March 2025 (closed session).

Seminar Venue: TBC, London.

Successful contributors selected through this open call will be paid a fee of £156 for their presentation at the symposium.

 

With this issue we aim to reconsider ways that historians, archivists, artists and researchers have rethought, reimagined and reworked histories and experiences in their encounters with materials in archival repositories. A matrix of conversations between historians, archivists, researchers and artists and, artists as researchers or archivists as artists affords opportunities for experimentation across disciplines towards decolonial approaches and queering methods that make it necessary to highlight the iterative process of “re” – processes that invite a constant return to the archive. As Jacques Derrida has described the return to the archive is “compulsive and repetitive” as ways to “open to the future.”

Developing from the practices and scholarship of theorists (José Esteban Muñoz, Saidiya Hartman, Mark Sealy and Temi Odumuso) who encourage assemblage and polyphonic practices within archival research. The symposium will facilitate conversations between researchers, scholars, practitioners and artists who address relations and tensions between dominant and elided histories. Some art practices working with decolonial strategies are Keith Piper, Frida Orupabo, Lisa Reihana; artists engaged with queer identities for example Isaac Julian, Conny Karlsson-Lundgren and practices focused on elided histories are Lap-See Lam, La Vaughn Belle, Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert.

Rather than simply replacing dominant narratives with counter narratives, this issue seeks to activate latent experiences and make counter narratives visible as touch points between prevailing hegemonic discourses and revised histories and experiences. By revitalizing archival sources drawn from various perspectives and disciplines this seminar series and journal issue seeks to identify decolonial strategies in art practices that use archival sources as “return to commencement” (Derrida). The content of this PARSE issue will be garnered from a series of seminars and roundtable discussions with a focus on dialogic encounters and exchanges on artistic practices and projects and, scholarship that reflects on research strategies that destabilizes power in the archive. PARSE invites artists and scholars working with archive sources to describe and reflect on methods used to challenge institutional structures of power ascribed through archives.

The editors’ welcome contributions that describe and disclose strategies of research methods in the use of archives in artistic practice in specific disciplinary fields and across disciplines and/or practices and within archive practice itself. The aim of the symposia is to create interactive; dialogic formats that allow historians, archivists and collection specialists, artists, researchers and scholars to discuss their work (works in progress welcomed) towards expanding conceptions of the archive and attending to the role of archival sources as foundation from which to interrogate structures of power, the construction of histories, queering strategies and decolonial approaches that challenge histories and hegemonies.

Contributors accepted will be expected to make in-person presentations at the symposium with the aim to foster facilitated dialogue. Presentation formats will be discussed prior to the symposium with participants.

Please note that funds for PARSE activities and events are limited and participants accepted will be expected to apply for  external funding to cover travel and accommodation to supplement the budget (max 2 nights planned). A second seminar might be held in Sweden in autumn 2025, depending on the amount and quality of the proposals.

PARSE will provide a letter of support for participants applying for funding applications to attend the symposium or seminar.

Publication on the PARSE platform after contributions at the symposium and seminar are subject to the editorial process in the development of the journal issue.

Submitted proposals should include:

1. Project description: 400 words
2. Bio: 200 words (include bio link if desired)
3. Work sample: no more than 6 images and no more than 3 links

Here is the link to our online submission form. Deadline 08 January 2025.

Do you need to apply in a format that is more accessible to you? We can accept a video of up to 4 minutes instead of the above, or email Jolie@autograph-abp.co.uk to discuss other options. If there is any relevant information that you would like to share with us, such as required adjustments or access needs, please do let us know when you submit, and we will do our best to support these.

This open call is in partnership with Autograph. All data submitted to this Open Call will be processed by Parse Journal in accordance with our privacy policy, and shared with Autograph during the selection process.