ARTIVES
arts as imaginary archives of urban diversity
ARTIVES is an ERC-funded project that studies imaginaries of diversity portrayed by artists in Lisbon and Rotterdam in their films, performances and (oral) literature. How do their stories reflect upon the lived experiences and mainstream portrayals of these multicultural cities shaped by past and present migration histories?
How do they open up possibilities of thinking differently about migration-related diversity without reproducing essentializing binaries such as ‘local’ vs. ‘foreign’? And how do they function as imaginary, living archives of the city that capture but do not keep fixed transnational networks of belonging embodied in the local cultural scene?
Artistic practices and stories by authors with affective ties to Angolan and Mozambican communities in Lisbon; Surinamese and (Dutch) Caribbean communities in Rotterdam; and Cabo Verdean communities in both cities will offer inspiring case studies for our analysis and co-creation.
Imagining and diversifying archives
ARTIVES builds upon recent debates in the field of Critical Archival Studies to address the pressing issue of how urban diversity is experienced and imagined. Reflections on the role of affect in building community archives, explorations of possible intersections between archival and performative ways of linking past-present-future, and the dynamics of remembering and forgetting in the shaping of cultural memory and heritage are central to our inquiry.
The archive is approached thus not as a fixed material repository but rather as a complex process of meaning-making and storytelling. As such, the concept of urban artives addresses the symbolic, affective, and material aspects in artistic narratives that portray transnational (un)belonging. Combining cultural analysis with participatory research methods and co-creation, we are building a framework that is attuned to the frictions, tensions, silences, and encounters experienced in urban life.
In this way, ARTIVES aims to explore the possibilities and limitations in relating to stories of living together in superdiverse cities, furthering the state-of-the-art in the fields of qualitative culture-oriented Urban Studies and Migration and Transnationalism Studies.
Alongside conceptual explorations, ARTIVES also engages with local archival institutions that are committed to diversifying their own collections and making them more relatable for the local communities.
Knowledge exchange and different forms of collaboration with archivists, artists and academics working directly with archival records are an important source of inspiration for our reflection on the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the imaginaries of urban centers that are being formed through migration histories.
With the aim of contributing to fostering more inclusive cities, ARTIVES’ academic and creative outputs will in time become publicly available as archival records.
Creative participatory research
ARTIVES is developed in close collaboration with local artists and tested through a creative process to allow for inclusion of a variety of voices and perspectives and make the results relevant and relatable.
Our researchers include academics and artists to open up a dialogue between approaches and perspectives rooted in arts-based research and such disciplines as literary studies, cultural studies, and cultural anthropology.
Two creative outputs – one in Rotterdam and one in Lisbon – are central to the building of our theoretical framework of urban artives and reaching insights into the possibilities and limitations in disseminating, preserving, and categorizing urban artistic production in a way that would cherish the (self-)represented cultural heritage without the risk of othering and exoticizing depicted communities.
However, participatory research continues to raise both ethical and practical challenges within academia.
Since collaboration with artists in all steps of the project’s implementation is a prerequisite for a successful completion of ARTIVES’ objectives, the team will critically assess existing standards and develop recommendations and best practice for scholars in the Humanities and Social Science to facilitate creative participatory research that is meaningful for all research actors – both academics and artists.
Thus, this collaborative practice will also address the limitations of the idea of “including the other” and work towards other possibilities that may be more attuned to listening to a plurality of voices.
