Archives are an invitation to meet people from the past, through the various objects, written, video and photographic records that they have left behind. Today, we bring you five exhibitions in which artists have scoured these vast historical repositories to amplify unheard voices and shine a light on unseen perspectives. For instance, artist and archivist Karol Radziszewski introduces us to LGBTQIA+ people in 1980s Poland through the trailblazing Filo Magazine. Elsewhere, Impressions Gallery presents a group show filled with creatives re-addressing the past through photography. Learn more about visual artist and video game developer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, who uses technology to expand our very definition of an archive. For her, it’s about more than preserving cold facts about an individual but an effort to represent their way of thinking and seeing the world. This is a selection of shows that spark questions: How do we preserve real life stories for future generations? Whose voices are loudest and whose are missing from history? What is the best way to make information about the past accessible to the public?
Karol Radziszewski: Filo | Edinburgh City Art Centre | Until 25 August
Part of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival is an exhibition of rare ephemera and photographs tracing the history of an iconic LGBTQIA+ periodical. Founded in 1986 by activist Ryszard Kisiel, Filo Magazine was one of the first Queer underground magazines in Central-Eastern Europe. It began as a response to Polish communist police suppression of sexual minorities and was an opportunity to open up conversations about creativity, identity and politics. The show has been thoughtfully curated by Polish multidisciplinary artist and founder of the Queer Archives Institute (QAI) Karol Radziszewski (b. 1980). QAI is dedicated to preserving queer LGBTQIA+ histories from Central and Eastern Europe and is a repository of archival material from 1980s and 1990s publications – such as Filo. This exhibition builds upon Radziszewski’s archive-based methodology, which traverses cultural, gender, historical, religious and social references.
Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights | Wellcome Collection | 19 September – 27 April
This September, Wellcome Collection unveils a new show exploring the impact of physical work on people’s health. Hard Graft brings into focus the experiences of people whose labour is often hidden at the margins of society. Attendees pass through three spaces: The Plantation, The Street and The Home. Archival material throughout the exhibition traces workers’ experiences through history. For instance, photographs from the Bouba Touré Archive show migrant workers protesting for rights and better conditions in Paris since the 1990s. From sex work and street vending to domestic work and prison labour, Hard Graft will highlight how unregulated and stigmatised practices have reinforced healthcare inequalities in the past, and continue to do so today. Over 100 objects are on display alongside artworks from contemporary artists, including Lubaina Himid, Forensic Architecture and Shannon Alonzo.
Read our feature about Forensic Architecture online, read more.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: The Soul Station | Halle am Berghain | Until 8 September
“A lot of the traditional archives contain a picture alongside a biography and writing from the person. I am more interested in capturing a sense of how the person thinks.” Danielle Brathwaite-Shirely is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist and archivist who uses video games to preserve the experiences of Black Trans people. The interactive medium allows her to capture a more nuanced representation of the individual that is more a reflection of how the person thinks rather than a collection of cold facts. For the audience, this is a way to learn more as an active participant rather than a passive observer. These concepts are at play in her first German solo exhibition, THE SOUL STATION at LAS Art Foundation. It’s an immersive installation that surveys projects from the last five years alongside the highly anticipated debut of You Can’t Hide Anything. We caught up with Brathwaite-Shirley to learn more about the new piece, impactful audience feedback and her thoughts on the future of interactive archives and artwork.
Read our full interview with Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley online, read more.
Peter Kennard – Archive of Dissent | Whitechapel Gallery | Until 19 November
Whitechapel presents a major retrospective of work from London-based artist and activist Peter Kennard (b. 1949). The show covers half a century of photo-collages that have continuously protested the status quo. Since the 1970s, Kennard has produced some of our most influential images of resistance and dissent, covering everything from the Vietnam War and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) to present wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Now, this new expansive survey takes the form of an archive full of his printed material displayed on walls, placards, in vitrines and on lecterns. “My art erupts from outrage at the fact that the search for financial profit rules every nook and cranny of our society. Profit masks poverty, racism, war, climate catastrophe and on and on” states the artist. He continues: “Archive of Dissent brings together fifty years of work that all attempt to express that anger by ripping through the mask.”
Performing Histories / Histories Re-Imagined | Impressions Gallery | Until 31 August
Co-curated by Peckham 24 and Impressions Gallery, this is a group show centred around photography that engages with archival material. Here, contemporary creatives are re-addressing the past and illuminating overlooked histories. Three approaches come to the fore in this exhibition as artists: re-enact forgotten stories from the past; use the archives to discuss fiction, truth and our present reality; and attribute new meanings to older works by challenging the gazes they perpetuate – and the limited perspective of history we receive as a result. Eight lens-based practitioners are at the heart of Performing Histories/Histories Re-Imagined: Alba Zari, Amin Yousefi, Eleonora Agostini, Emi O’Connell, Jermaine Francis, Odette England and Tarrah Krajnak. We caught up with Chen to talk about Being Framed, her process of putting the project together, approach to street photography and the camera’s power “of deception and illusion.”
Read our full interview with Laura Chen online, read more.
Image Credits:
- May 1st demonstration in solidarity to the Sans-Papiers in hunger strike at the Halle Pajol before the occupation of the Saint Bernard Church, 1996, Paris. Photographer: Bouba Touré
- Ryszard Kisiel, Filo team, 1980s. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
- Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, THE SOUL STATION, 2024. Installation view at Halle am Berghain, Berlin. Commissioned by LAS Art Foundation. Courtesy the artist; LAS Art Foundation. Photo: Alwin Lay.
- Cut Them Out and Frame Them, from the series Being Framed, 2022 © Laura Chen.
