Living Archives and The Social Transmission of Memory

Abstract

Living archives refer to practices and environments that connect the organisation, curation and transmission of memory with present-bound creative, performative, and participatory processes. Recent trends in the democratisation of arts and cultural heritage and the advent of digital media have provided living archives with new creative valences, making them potent means for the performative celebration of the past through contemporary acts of creation and transmission. In this article, I argue that living archives perform a function of social sharing of memory that contributes to building social bonds, community and identity. This potential resides in the capacity of living archives to bring together an archival function, concerned with memory preservation and transmission, with a present-bound artistic, performative and creative function. I use the term ‘archival performativity’ to denote this dual nature of living archives, and will exemplify this concept by drawing on the analysis of living archives through the twin lenses of performance studies and archival science.