Walking and the Living Archive

• In Event: Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Walking as Sensory Methodology

Abstract

Objectives
While scholars have increasingly turned to sensory and walking methodologies in qualitative research there persists challenges to documentation and archival processes and of sensory and ephemeral data. Traditional practices of documentation and archiving operate on a model of passive storage of containable data. Given the ephemeral and multi-modal nature of “sensory data” this paper develops theoretical and empirical methods for a “living archive” reflecting the dynamic, proliferating, and mutating forms of sensory research. Specifically, I examine British artist, Barbara Steveni’s “I am an archive” project whereby she re-visits sites from her public performances and actions of the 1960s using a walking methodology.

Theoretical Framework
The Artist Placement Group, APG, created in 1965 by Barbara Steveni and founded a year later by Steveni and her former partner John Latham influenced the shift in artistic practice away from solitary studio production (Hudeck, 2012). The APG placed artists in industry and later in government departments, as a way for artists to relocate their practices away from the studio and gallery, and to redefine the role of artists in society. The APG fostered the belief that artists have a “useful contribution to make to the world, and that artists can serve society – not by making works of art, but through their verbal interactions in the context of institutions and organisations” (Bishop, 2012, p. 164). The model developed by Steveni insisted that art was a valuable research and educational practice for these organizations. Today the APG work exists as extensive archival material, much of which is housed in Steveni’s own home and at the Tate Gallery in London.
Steveni continues to work with the archive of APG work through a project she calls “I am an archive,” an ongoing series of artist walks and conversations, where she re-visits sites from APG public actions. The walks gather together memories, urban space, and audience responses to generate a “living document” of the APG. The walking methodologies are a way of keeping the organization alive, but also materialize its political relevance today.

Methods, or Modes of Inquiry
The focus of this paper is to develop walking as a methodology of a living archive. To do so I couple historical methodologies (Davis, 2011; King, 2011) of examining archive material and oral histories from living people, with sensory walking methodologies particularly those developed by Pink (2009; 2011) and Springgay (2011).

Data Sources or Evidence
I have consulted the archives at the Tate Gallery, interviewed Barbara Steveni, and participated in some of her walks.

Significance
The history of the APG is of particular value for education, particularly in examining creative research practices. The implications of my research suggest how the APG work might be used politically today? How the APG impacts practitioners today? And beyond the legacy of the APG as a historical archeology located in the archives at the Tate, what is the value of re-examining this work as a “living archive”?

Author

• Stephanie Springgay, OISE/University of Toronto