Curatorial Archive

 

The Norwegian Association of Curators is proud to present the launch of the Curatorial Archive!

The Curatorial Archive is a collective project where curators working in Norway and Sápmi contribute with their archives to a collection of documented curatorial practices. The Association’s aim is to collect, facilitate and present a wide range of curatorial processes, projects, texts, and other material for future research.

In order to do so, the Association has drawn up common guidelines for an archive model with the aim to collectively start building a rich curatorial archive. Exhibition- and curatorial histories are an important part of art history, and in order to ensure better knowledge of it, we are now asking for your contribution to the Curatorial Archive!

Art exhibitions have always been central to understanding culture; and curators have played a key role in this knowledge-shaping through their work – offering new perspectives through commissioning works of art, the production of discourse, and a multitude of cultural program formats. However, there is no comprehensive or systematic overview that can assist researchers to further investigations of the curator’s significance to the art and cultural field in Norway and Sápmi. Exhibitions, like other cultural events, create materials that belong to overlapping archives, and the existence of these archives as well as the relationships between them are difficult to consolidate without the accounts of those implicated in the material itself – creating paradoxes in the archive, as well as in the reading of the documents used for exhibition histories.

On this page you can download the guidelines and template for archiving your practice. In this first stage, we encourage all our members to start a systematic storage of their projects – that will eventually, at a later stage, be possible to upload to the collective archive.

Read on further for more information about the archive model and the background for the Curatorial Archive.


Information you will find below:
– Guidelines: How to archive for a contribution-based archive
– Archive model: The hybrid archive (topology)
– Background for the Curatorial Archive
– Further work on the Curatorial Archive

 

The Norwegian Association of Curators Curatorial Archive


Credits
Anne Szefer Karlsen & Geir Haraldseth (2011-2015)
Marie Nerland & Nora C. Nerdrum (2016-2018)
Marte Danielsen Jølbo & Nora C. Nerdrum (2018-2020)
Marte Danielsen Jølbo & Silja Leifsdottir (2020-2022)
Martina Petrelli – Archive model and guidelines (2019-23)


Thanks to: Sigrun Ask (University of Bergen Library, Principal Librarian, Fine Art and Design Library), Eivind Røssaak (PhD, Associate Professor, Film and Media Studies, Department of Scholarship and Collections, National Library of Norway), Brita Brenna (Professor, University of Oslo, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages), Karin Stengel (documenta Archiv, Kassel, Germany), Ann Butler (Bard College, Center for Curatorial Studies, Library and Archives), Michelle Wong (Asian Art Archive), Vasif Kortun, Marianna Hovhannisyan and Aslı Can (SALT Research and Open Archive), Karin Grüner Larsen, Trond Søbstad, Paula Crabtree, Synnøve Myhre, Aashild Grana, Sissel Lillebostad and Jorunn Veiteberg, Trond Søbstad (Bergen National Academy of The Arts), Karin Rydving and Tarje Lavik (University of Bergen Library), William Hazell (Bergen County), Ruth Hege Halstensen, Kari Brandtzæg (PhD, Curator Munchmuseet), Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk (Artist, Curator), Svein Ingvoll Pedersen (Director Nordnorsk kunstnersenter / Lofoten International Art Festival), Karolin Tampere (Curator Nordnorsk kunstnersenter / Lofoten International Art Festival).


Development of the archive model, including illustrations and guidelines: Martina Petrelli

VIDERE BRUK

All bruk av Norsk Kuratorforenings arkivmodell og retningslinjer skal skje under Creative Commons Navngivelse-IkkeKommersiell-DelPåSammeVilkår 4.0 lisens (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Eventuell kunstner og kurator skal krediteres i henhold til god skikk, og Norsk Kuratorforening med: «© Kuratorarkivet ­– en hybrid arkivmodell utviklet av Norsk Kuratorforening, 2023.»

Ta gjerne kontakt om du eller din institusjon ønsker å bruke arkivmodellen og retninglinjene: norskkuratorforening [at] gmail.com

USAGE

All use of The Norwegian Association of Curators' archive model and guidelines must take place under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The relevant artist and curator must be credited according to good practice, and The Norwegian Association of Curators with: «© Curatorial Archive – A hybrid archive model developed by The Norwegian Association of Curators, 2023.»

You are welcome to get in touch with norskkuratorforening [at] gmail.com if you or your institution would like to use the archive model and guidelines.

Guidelines: How to archive for a contribution-based archive

The Association has chosen what is called a hybrid archive model for the Curatorial Archive. This means that all curators contribute their own collection to build the archive. Such a contributing archive enables an open and varied archive network with room for many types of curatorial practice and a diversity of voices and stories. Through contributions from the Association’s members, the Curatorial Archive will collect and register curatorial projects that are part of the history- and current curatorial practice in Norway and Sápmi.

In order to establish a system for all contributions, the Association has developed practical guidelines for curatorial archiving. These are designed as an Excel template with lists of what can be archived in each project. The template is meant to be a flexible work tool that applies to both freelancers and institutional curators. The guidelines presented are not final, and we hope that the Association’s members will help develop the template’s lists according to their uses and needs.

The Curatorial Archive’s guidelines have been drawn up as a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. This template lists all the categories and fields under which one can sort their practice.

• The categories are: exhibitions, artists, artworks, curators, exhibition venues, projects, events, texts, publications, printed matter, reviews/press, merch, collections, contacts.

• Based on these categories, it will be possible to list most of the elements a curatorial project consists of.

• Under each category there are several registration fields. All registration fields marked with an asterisk [*] are also a category.

• All categories can be linked to each other.

The hybrid archive model is based on curators archiving their practice following the same system. The Curatorial Archive is intended to be a work tool that is accessible and easy to use for most people. In the first instance, curators are asked to save all documentation in their own folders on their own computers, and to create an overview of these documents in the form of lists in Excel.

⇣ Download template and examples here (PDF)
⇣ Download template and examples here (Excel)


Once the Association will have developed the digital infrastructure for the Curatorial Archive, it will be possible to upload folders to the archive. The hybrid model will then make it possible to map a number of connections between each curator's collection (same artists, exhibition venues, themes, theorists etc.) across the history of curatorial practice in Norway and Sápmi.


Archive model: The hybrid archive (topology)


An archive’s topology is the way the archive is configured and structured. This includes the archive's internal logic of connecting points – how to set up connections between different collections. The archive’s topology is decisive for how the archive is used and read.

An archive can be structured in many ways, and each system has its advantages and disadvantages. Some work better in some cases, especially when it comes to the degree of connections. The chosen topology must take into account the size and scope of the archive, as well as its purpose. Logical archive topology (as opposed to physical archive topology) is somewhat abstract and strategic. It refers to the conceptual understanding of how and why the archive is structured as it is, its layout, and how information flows through it.

The Association has chosen what is called a hybrid archive model. This topology makes it possible to scale the archive according to the available resources. The many voices and stories build up a diverse and inclusive archive that challenges the classic, canon-based archive practice. The hybrid archive's content and collection are dynamic and based on what each contributor chooses to upload to the archive. The archive then maps the connections between exhibitions, artists, concepts, and other elements, and takes into account that the network of connections is constantly changing.

As the ongoing expansion of categories and fields will apply retrospectively on existing archived projects, this archive model will make visible historical stratification within curatorial practices, and therefore allow for an increased understanding the development of curatorial work across time and contexts.

 
 

The illustrations show how it is possible to set up a number of connections between different archive elements and on several levels. With a hybrid archive model for the Curatorial Archive, all curators can contribute with their own collection to build the archive. It is an archive based on participation with a diversity of voices and stories. This archive model can accommodate many aspects of curatorial practice and highlights the connections in a network model. Below, from left to right, examples of "Tree Archive Topology", "Mesh Archive Topology", and "Hybrid Archive Topology".



Background for the Curatorial Archive


Since the start of The Norwegian Association of Curator in 2011, the Association has aimed to establish a Curatorial Archive.

In the period 2011-2015, curators Anne Szefer Karlsen and Geir Haraldseth carried out a feasibility study commissioned by The Norwegian Association of Curators. The study was based on research into existing curatorial archives and collections internationally. In their report from 2015, Szefer Karlsen and Haraldseth describe different models for archiving and discuss questions related to a digital versus a physical archive. Three possible models for the Curatorial Archive are proposed: a collaboration with the National Library, a collaboration with the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design Library at the University of Bergen, or a model where the Association manages the archive itself. Read Szefer Karlsen and Haraldseth’s report here.

Following the 2015 report, the Association’s board decided to work on establishing a collaboration with the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design Library at the University of Bergen. The University offers the only master’s degree in Curatorial Practice in the country and is hence a natural place to develop a research environment in the field.

Before one could proceed with the cementing of the collaboration and addressing clarifications regarding administration and management, the Association’s board saw the need to concretize what a Curatorial Archive should contain, what kind of archival material should be collected, and how the archive should be structured.

At new preliminary project, supported by Arts and Culture Norway (formerly Arts Council Norway), was initiated in 2019. Curator Martina Petrelli was commissioned to investigate how curators in Norway and Sápmi, both within institutions and freelancers, archive their practice today. Based on this, Petrelli proposed a hybrid archive model and developed a set of archive guidelines. Read Petrelli’s report 2019–2020 here.

Further work for the Curatorial Archive


• Improve the guidelines based on feedback and pilot projects.

• Clarify legal and ethical aspects of archiving.

• Develop infrastructure to be able to digitally host the archive.

• Make the archive publicly available for researchers.