This month, the exhibition preview “The Archive in Progress: Behind the Scenes of Alternative Archives in the Netherlands” can be seen at Atria, institute on gender equality and women’s history, in Amsterdam.
The exhibition was curated by FASoS PhD candidate Noah Littel.
Archives and documentation centres are often seen as neutral institutions, which simply conserve and make accessible tangible traces of history. Nevertheless, there are always processes of selection behind the process of archiving, which can lead to the exclusion of marginalised groups, such as LGBTI+ people, women, disabled people and people of colour. In response to this exclusion, “alternative archives” emerged. The initiators of these archives dedicated themselves to preserving historical sources of groups whose heritage was rarely represented in traditional archives. The exhibition preview “The Archive in Progress: Behind the Scenes of Alternative Archives in the Netherlands” features several snapshots from the history of the International Information Centre and Archive for the Women’s Movement (IIAV), showing the history of what is now Atria.
The exhibition shows that archives and their ever-growing collections have always been evolving, by examining the behind-the-scenes considerations: what choices and decisions were made concerning the collection? Which terms were used to make sure the materials could be found? And how did these choices influence whose history was included in the collection, and thereby made visible?
This preview at Atria provides a sneak peek into the exhibition “The Archive in Progress: Behind the Scenes of Alternative Archives in the Netherlands”, which will be featured at IHLIA LGBTI Heritage in Amsterdam, in January. Through snapshots, this exhibition provides insight into the history of the Dutch lesbian archives, the gay and lesbian documentation centre “Homodok”, and the IIAV.
