What traces are there of work by women in traditional archives?
On 10 November we had the pleasure of welcoming our PhD students to the practice and politics of archival work. We had access to the collection of landscape architecture drawings at Copenhagen University Library on our campus in Frederiksberg.
In this workshop, focus was on critically examining the archive, beginning with the search function, finding aids, and the way in which content is then organized in specific archive, how you find things, how they shape your inquiries from the start. The exercise was not about content, but rather about the way archives structure our access to content.
Students present in the physcial archive were researching The Collection of Landscape Architecture Drawings, University of Copenhagen while our online students explored the digital archives of
Our day ended with a discussion centered around the questions
- What is an archive?
- What can you do when you don’t have an archive?
- What might a feminist archive be?
Our workshop was co-led by our international partners Catharina Nolin and Barbara Penner.
“I found that searching in the archives was an entirely bodily experience. Feeling the texture of the paper between my fingertips and seeing the different styles of handwriting in the notes in the margins of the drawings. Studying the materials offline gave me a completely new perspective on archive work.“ – course participant
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