Paper short abstract:

This paper argues photographs in personal archives can be understood not only as souvenirs and historical documents but also as creative catalysts. Personal, historical archives can actively contribute to what we might otherwise classify as contemporary field research.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the dynamic nature of personal archives in a contemporary context. Engaging with archives in the field has been indispensable to the research I have been conducting on masquerade arts and practices in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso since 2006. In addition to mining institutional archives, my research has benefitted from colleagues in Bobo-Dioulasso granting me entrée to their personal photographic archives. Access to them has imparted historical depth to the visual aspects of my research. And this engagement is not a one-way street, but an ongoing collaboration.

I contribute to personal archives by gifting prints of my field photographs to those depicted in them. In at least two instances colleagues have used my contributions to create new mask forms. Using these two case studies, I argue that photographs in personal archives can be understood not only as souvenirs and historical documents but also as creative catalysts. In 2008, colleagues requested I give them photographs of a particular mask from another town. They used my images to copy its form for their annual funerary mask dance. In 2016 a daytime mask that depicted a nighttime mask on its superstructure danced at the annual funeral celebration. The patron provided the sculptor two photographs of the nocturnal mask to use as a reference for the form—and I shot one of them! Such instances suggest that personal, historical archives can actively contribute to what we might otherwise categorize as contemporary field research.