The spectres of biography: archive as artwork
Date
2014-06-20
Authors
Partridge, Matthew Duke
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Abstract
In an attempt to understand the multiple lives of an object - specifically a death
inquest register from the year 1976 - this dissertation examines five moments in the
objects life (referred to as the Ledger) that invest it with ‘capital’. They are;
• The Cillié Commission of Inquiry.
• Sam Nzima’s photograph of Hector Pieterson.
• The destruction of apartheid documents in the early 1990’s.
• Kendell Geers’ appropriation of the Ledger.
• Museum Africa’s purchase of the Ledger.
By applying a biographical methodology to this object, this dissertation examines how
the shifts in the multiple lives of the Ledger address the different roles that the archive
plays in the construction of memory in South Africa.