Archives of Space, Sound and Material

Traces of sight, sound, smell and touch; notions of space concerning material and immaterial heritage; built and natural environments as sites of memory: These are some of the central throughlines of recent research across humanities disciplines. How do we apply them to navigate complex pasts and address the pressing issues of the present?

This event marks the launch of four pioneering humanities research projects that explore sensory, artistic, and intellectual modes of knowledge production through different archives, including ethnographic sound recordings in Dutch collections, the spatial and cultural traces of gas extraction in the Netherlands, transnational histories of antinuclear and artistic networks preserved into activist archives, and the global legacy of extractivist supply chains involved in celluloid film production.

Each of these projects, and the sources they draw upon, is distinct. In conversation, however, they explore the continued presence of colonial and contested histories in a contemporary world at risk by asking: How can current humanities research meaningfully address questions of scale (from atomic to global), of toxicity (chemical, geological, radiological, colonial) and of repair? Can new ways of looking, analyzing and listening to archival material inform our engagement with contested pasts to guide us towards more equitable futures?

The launch event will consist of a presentation of the four research projects below followed by a roundtable discussion moderated by Dr. Colin Sterling (UvA).