DOROTHEE RICHTER - CURATING DEGREE ZERO ARCHIVE

In the dictionary sense of things, the archive is public office or record of government. A place, in which collected or corporate records are kept, a repository for documents which are the underpinnings for orders of knowledge and government. Especially in the twentieth century the archive became an operational field of total knowledge with the idea of a total control of the body of people. But this idea of governmental administration was clearly mocked by artists or other cultural producers who wanted to put up there own cultural memory containers, which may include subversive practices, diverse knowledge and which fostered ideas of shared knowledge production. Richter presents the example Curating Degree Zero Archive, which existed as a travelling archive from 2003 – 2008 and which was displayed and made accessible in different ways. So the question if and in what ways the archive could be a platform of shared knowledge production became a crucial issue.

Dorothee Richter, art historian, Fluxus expert, writer, curator, editor of www.on-curating.org, co-initiator of Curating Degree Zero Archive www.curatingdegreezero.org is at the moment director of the Postgraduate Program in Curating at the University of the Arts, Zürich.

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This event is part of MEDIA, MEMORY, HISTORY - CURATORIAL LECTURE SERIES