THE MEMORY OF THE VOID AGAINST THE VOID IN THE MEMORY
The archival method in the artistic investigation of an erased place
Paper published in PIXO - Journal of Architecture, City and Contemporaneity, v. 7 n. 24 (2023): Architectures of Abandonment, pp. 204-221.
Resumo: The archive method in contemporary art is approached to problematize tensions underlying the records of memory, especially urban memory. We depart from the genealogy of the archive concept, following theoretical contributions inspired by the archival turn observed in the social sciences and humanities since the 1990s, and the analysis of two artistic projects that investigate stories behind a wasteland at Porto/PT. On this vacant lot used to stand one of the oldest public housing estates of the city, erected in the 1940s, on a former peripheral urban area, and demolished in the 2000s. Given the place destruction and its underrepresentation in official archives, it is worth to discuss the tensions between urban restructuring operations and the bias of dominant records about the past. We highlight the potency of artistic practice to work within the gaps of hegemonic archives to amplify other stories, regarding places targeted by physical and symbolic operations of obliteration. [Flora Paim]
