RE-ASSEMBLING THE ARCHIVE

Within our current Information Age, the archive holds a unique role in society as the building constructed to house information through the ages. The formation of the archive was closely tied to power, the archive being a critical instrument to rule territories by gathering records and compiling information. Cloaked as neutral repositories, the assembling of information within an archive was not innocent—it reflected how different societies structured their world and acted within it. To reassemble the archive today asks how the selection and ordering of information can be situated as a discourse that is inclusive to a range of voices and their orresponding forms of information. Going beyond the archive as a static container of information and transitioning the building from a site of power to a place of empowerment, Re-Assembling the Archive situates the archive as a place of discourse and public assembly. By doing so, it brings this space to the foreground of the public sphere and allows for the reordering of information to construct new histories and knowledge. Inserting the contemporary subject as a participant in assembling the archive, information can now be questioned, critiqued and reordered as an act of knowledge production.