In this workshopwe will approach the archive as a space of negotiation. We aim to investigate practices of recording and archiving that are open, responsive, and dynamic within collective processes. Over two days, participants will engage with a constellation of materials from damdam collective of collectives, to experiment with building an archive for a collective project. Sketches, texts, traces of conversations and symbolic objects that came from damdam’s archive will serve as raw material to be rearranged and interpreted through the participants’ sensibilities and their engagement with questions of archival accountability. Collecting, mapping, and composing a collaborative history or manual of the archive will be among the activities undertaken during the workshop. What emerges will remain in the space as part of the Harvest Festival: an evolving landscape of how we hold, share, and make sense of collective archive and memory — together. The archive created during this time is not fixed; it is open to change, interpretation, and contribution, and is meant to shift alongside the collaborative process itself.

This workshop is facilitated by the damdam Archive and Documentary working group, and Arash Dehghani, an artist-researcher whose work explores creative approaches to the archives and the social lives of extracted materials.