This dossier proposes an investigation on the way in which concepts such as memory, archive, and database are approached in the visual arts, in the context of the important recent changes like the dismissal of linear narratives, dissolution of gender, proliferation of interdisciplinarity and inter-mediality. In addition, the research will also probe the interferences between the role of the archivist artist and that of the historian, anthropologist, and collection curator. Our contribution – inevitably, a partial one – to this extremely wide topic debate will look at questions such as: What does the archive, as a form or medium, mean? What kind of gaze does the memory engage? How do acts of memory and archived items gain an educational, anthropological, or historical meaning? What is the often-mentioned transformation of “documents into monuments” (Foucault)?

Coordinators: Horea Avram & Raluca Oancea