Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Graphic Design
First Advisor
Bethany Johns
Second Advisor
Nancy Skolos
Third Advisor
James Goggin
Abstract
Building an official archive, a comprehensive depository of cultural memory, is an impossible pursuit.My work centers around the question: what gets lost in the capture ? Responding to this problematic, I create “speculative archives”— setting the practice of archiving against the archive. In doing so, my display systems (including photography, film and writing) reveal countless ruptures, even blind spots, in the smooth surfaces of the archive: the invisibility of the archivist, the challenge of capturing ephemera, the inherent value bias in collecting, and the inexhaustibility of documenting a subject.
Speculating on the archive has consequence for design practice. From the subjects we chose to represent to the formats we present them with, we can crack open assumed narratives, celebrating the problematics which pour forward. Through my work, unexpected archives become inexhaustible, buried archives become dignified, and hegemonic archives become self-reflexive and un- stable. It is a practice that helps us identify the richness of our own lives, so as to not let our experiences, during our time, slip through our fingers.
Recommended Citation
Farooq, Sameer, "Speculative archives : an index" (2014). Masters Theses. 330.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/330
Creative Commons License
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