@aparadise27@gmailcom
Archives codify history through hierarchical binaries. In these
spaces, lived experience is reduced to qualitative “proof” of what
occurred. Suddenly, preserving the human footprint becomes
a task of categorizing the official/unofficial, curated/organic, or
canon/apocryphal. The consequence of cataloging the past in
such a way is the flattening of history. If a document does not
conform to this logic or support a linear narrative it is relegated
to the margins or rendered invisible. Nevertheless, I see the
archive’s potential as a space to embrace neglected history and
reverse the violence it enacts on those who would otherwise be
delegated to footnotes and annotations.
Drawing from Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever and
Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge, I wish to de-serialize
and demystify the archive through both form and content.
My thesis, Archive Fever, resists institutional rigidity to cultivate
deliberate intimacy. By designing a digital and physical space
that is both inviting and self-determined, I destabilize the authority
of the archive and empower others to construct their own,
reaffirming that our personal histories—no matter how seemingly
insignificant—are worthy of preservation. If we don’t remember
them, who will?