Paper short abstract:

What is the legacy of artist Christian Thompson’s ‘spiritual repatriation’ of Australian photographs from the Pitt Rivers’ collection? A critical evaluation of the role of emotion in contemporary engagements with archival images.

Paper long abstract:

We Bury Our Own, Christian Thompson's artistic response to the Australian photographic collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum has toured to institutions in Europe, America and Australia. Thompson describes the work as a 'spiritual repatriation' of the archive. He draws on his emotional responses to the collection of ethnographic and colonial photographs. Thompson consciously omits visual references to the images that inspired him, disrupting the classifying systems of the archive and the hierarchies of power and knowledge embedded in the collection. The popularity of Thompson's work raises the possibility that the ideas and emotions that arise out of interactions with the archive may have more powerful impacts on audiences than the archival objects themselves.

While We Bury Our Own has been displayed and viewed in diverse spaces, the photographic archive that inspired the series remains physically unchanged and unseen. This paper brings the archive to the foreground, focusing on one of the images which inspired Thompson. I ask the following questions: What is the legacy of emotional experiences that happen in the archive? What is their impact on the objects themselves and on the processes of collections management? Finally I consider Thompson's work in light of Roland Barthes' ideas on emotional responses to photographs. As Thompson's work was inspired by deeply personal responses to the archival images do these images necessarily hold any meaning for others viewing his work? Extending this does the very viewing of these photographs undermine Thompson's disruption of the colonial relationships which echo through the archive?