How to deal with gaps in "object biographies" belonging to collection's digital archives

Abstract

-- "Object biographies" established in collections and linked with their archives will be addressed as a concept mainly of the Global North. Current representations in online archives as well as alternative formats are discussed leading to the question of how to handle appearing gaps. --

How to trace and narrate object’s “biographies” or provenances has been debated in different fields of the Humanities (as cultural studies, ethnology, museology, archaeology, literature etc.). The framework of New Materialisms/Critical feminist posthumanism provide the basis to open up on the complex ecologies and relationalities of objects in space and time, socially, economically and ecologically by reflecting the entanglements in more-than-human contexts and hybrid constellations of agency (e.g. Jane Bennett, Rosi Braidotti, Astrida Naimanis, Karen Barad).

The archives of the collecting bodies are linked to their collections, objects and artefacts. Object biographies are part of the archives and contain different degrees of elaborated knowledge about the object’s traces and historical backgrounds.

In this talk, "object biographies" will be addressed as a concept mainly of the Global North. Constructing object biographies raises questions about the situatedness of knowledge and appearing gaps: Which kind of knowledge is saved? What is left aside, is missing?

I will focus on modes of tracing objects and artifacts, on current representations of these biographies in online archives as well as alternative formats. This will lead to the questions of how to handle appearing gaps and how a multilocal, multivocal and multisensory artistic practice may contribute.