Retrospecting the collection: recontextualising fragments of history and memory through the Alf Kumalo Museum Archive

Abstract

In 2012, the Johannesburg-based artists’ collective, Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), presented Fr(agile), a social sculpture and public intervention, following a threeday residency at the Alf Kumalo Museum in Diepkloof, Soweto. The Fr(agile) Residency intended to reimagine the archive by searching it for points of interest related to visual artmaking. This research dissertation aims to revisit Fr(agile) in order to explore new ways of engaging the photographic archive, and artist-led processes and methodologies within this archive. The archive was never completely sorted although Kumalo had, had intentions of properly cataloguing his archive and had begun the process of digitising his photographs at his museum. With the archive closed for legal reasons, this research will draw on memory and account, and this dissertation will be presented orally. I feel it is necessary to remember what the archive was like during the residency, but to also propose ways to activate the archive through contemporary visual arts practice. The research further proposes ways in which archives can occupy a space within contemporary visual arts, how they can potentially function when looked at as contemporary objects, and begin to question the ephemeral relationship between the photographic medium, archive and memory.