5 August - 2 September 2021
Catalyst Arts, Belfast
“A suitcase lives undisturbed in a cardboard box, a human-sized pair of yellow scissors hang on the wall, to-do lists in chalk are suspended in time, a jar of pickled carrots sits on top of the CCTV screen and a bow, without a fiddle, is constantly being moved around the room.”
Concealed in the half-light disrupts the idea of the archive as a collection of ‘inanimate fossils’, where even in its entirety is only an illusion of history and presents just traces of reality. By looking at the Catalyst Arts archive and its unruly nature, there is potential to challenge the politics and power dynamics of the traditional archive which rigidly depends on data organisation such as standardisation and categorisation. These are systems put in place to streamline the varied and eradicate difference, which ultimately erases the value of difference. So when there are multiple histories and no agreed narratives, there is a possibility to offer archive alternatives, by acknowledging the subjective, intimate and personal, essentially the ‘unarchivable’.
This is an exhibition of many voices with invited artists Alice Rekab, artist-in-residence Nollaig Molloy, Matthew Wilson, the Department of Ultimology, the Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing (DAAP) with Frances Whorrall-Campbell and the Artist-Led Archive.
The associated programme for this exhibition will soon be announced.
This programme is supported by the Arts Council Northern Ireland and Art Fund.
