Paper short abstract:

The talk gives an insight into the experiences and challenges associated with the educational workshop “Decolonizing Digital Archives” which focuses on modes of digitization of collections and the discourses of decolonization by assembling transdisciplinary approaches to archival issues.

Paper long abstract:

Developed as a program for continuing education at the Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW the «Decolonizing Digital Archives» workshops created space for reflection and discussion in a network with shared interests and the possibility to address questions and projects relating to the individual professional environment of the participants.

As organizers, we offered inputs on approaches to archival issues from artistic research, art history, media studies and digital culture with the aim to bring together modes of digitization of collections and the discourses of decolonization. These inputs encompassed artistic and archival approaches to experience the incompleteness of digitization in archives; nomadic profiles in digital archives; alternative modes of representation of ‘object biographies’ in collection’s archives; confluences of efforts to decolonize and simultaneously digitize art collections; decolonizing and digitizing initiatives as a decarbonizing practice.

The discussions on the ways how post-digital and decolonizing practices may support digitization efforts that meet contemporary and future complexities were complemented by the participant’s project workshops, excursions to institutional archives and collections (Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden Basel), initiating re-examinations of one’s own conceptions, terminologies and archival practices.

In my talk I will expand on the experiences and challenges we encountered during the workshops conducted in 2023 as well as on the international network created with interested participants. In the best case those possibilities of a mutual exchange create a possibility to decompose and transform our own and the practices of the institutions involved.