As part of the workshop The Elusive “Global”: Potential Histories of Art and Media, Ruhr-University Bochum, Anja Sunhyun Michaelsen will talk about “Archive Interventions”.

Academic writers (e.g. Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe), poets (e.g. M. NourbeSe Philip, Layli Long Soldier) and visual artists (e.g. Sung Tieu, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński) intervene directly into the documents of the historical archive, with the aim to “sense it more”, “to really see”, to take “revenge”. They redact, cut out, “kill” the instruments of colonial oppression, text and image. I want to highlight the affective urgency of these interventions, not in opposition to but also not identical with an analytical interest. Archival violences here are felt ‘personally’, they demand a ‘personal’ response. These interventions, I believe, are less oriented towards institutional change, but rather take seriously the immediate effects of the material. What can be learned from the way artists and scholars inscribe themselves ‘personally’ into the text for post-colonial or de-colonial studies? I will present examples and discuss mostly visual strategies.

More information here https://das-dokumentarische.blogs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/the-elusive-global-potential-histories-of-art-and-media/