Contribution short abstract:

A challenge for tradition archives is to document the sensory and embodied experiences of everyday life. Would the archives benefit in adopting methods from practice-based research? Would, or should, creative archiving imply keeping, bending or breaking the established rules of the archive?

Contribution long abstract:

The role of Tradition archives is to collect, archive and disseminate evidence of material and oral folk culture, everyday life practices and cultural heritage. In order to document the often ephemeral and intangible aspects of folk culture, the archives have employed a multitude of techniques such as fieldwork notes, sound recordings, photographs, drawings, video, online ethnography etc. But is this enough?

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in immaterial folk culture, not least due to the widening of the Unesco definition of Cultural Heritage to include traditions and living expressions. Importantly, when it comes to intangible cultural heritage the Unesco emphasis lies on safeguarding rather than preserving. Simultaneously, many researchers have questioned or expanded established academic frameworks in areas such as artistic research, art-based research, craft science and practice-led research. These endeavours are typically concerned with sensory and embodied experiences i.e. aspects that not easily conveyed in archive records.

Whereas there have been some attempts on the part of the tradition archives to document performance and craftsmanship in multifaceted ways, this does not always extend to the sensory and embodied experiences of everyday life practices. Would the archives gain in adopting methods and perspectives from art- and practice-based research? Are we bold enough to venture into creative archiving? This paper raises the question whether creative archiving would, or should, imply keeping, bending or breaking the established rules of the archive