At work in the archive: introduction to special issue

In the last two decades, an increasing number of artists have engaged the spectres of colonialism that continue to haunt us in our postcolonial present. Interrupting established historical narratives of colonial domination, artists have started to address the legacy of imperialism by examining the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWorld art (Abingdon, U.K.) Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 3 - 17
Main Author de Jong, Ferdinand
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 02.01.2016
Subjects
archive
decolonisation
empire
futures
re-enactment
recuperation
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Summary:In the last two decades, an increasing number of artists have engaged the spectres of colonialism that continue to haunt us in our postcolonial present. Interrupting established historical narratives of colonial domination, artists have started to address the legacy of imperialism by examining the colonial archive. At work in the archive, these artists examine the possibilities of decolonialising colonial subjectivities. Through the return, recuperation, and re-enactment of archives, archival art points to the potential of forgotten pasts and unanticipated futures lingering in the imperial archive. As the articles in this volume demonstrate, such archival interventions often serve an emancipatory agenda.
ISSN:2150-0894
2150-0908
DOI:10.1080/21500894.2016.1176391