Marshall, K., 2015.

Illuminating Archives: Tracing Visibility, Light & Memory

Working with the Special Collections
and Visual Resource Centre during
their Masters studies at Manchester
Metropolitan University (MMU),
artists Kristin Marshall and Amy
Thomas discovered a completely new
way to work and an endless source
of inspiration and ideas, of stories
and starting points. They discovered
people at the heart of the archives,
those that created the archival
material itself and those that activate
it: the archivists, conservators,
curators and librarians, without
whom the archive would remain
dormant.
Space became signifi cant, the archive
forming a sanctuary, a place to
contemplate and be transported into
an alternative reality. From this came
the desire to make visible the fl ow of
ideas from archive to creative output,
explored within two exhibitions that
they each curated.
In the next two articles they share
their stories.