Workshop: Comparative Archival Ecologies. Mapping Alternative Audio-Visual Media Collections

On 2-3 June took place the first hybrid workshop of the Work Package n. 4 Alternative media and digital activism from the 19th century to the present day (leader Université de Lausanne and co-leader CEU/Blinken OSA Archivum).

The workshop focused on the questions of the audiovisual archives’ role in the politics of preservation and presentation of countercultural, alternative media. It brought together media and audio-visual heritage archivists and scholars in the fields of sociology, film and visual studies, cultural history, archival studies, and digital humanities to explore – in historical and comparative perspectives – how audio-visual archives (in a broad definition) preserve audio-visual collections of alternative media and political dissent.

Program

June 2

1:30 p.m.

Welcome to Activate WP4 workshop series: introducing the work package timeline

Panel 1

2:00 p.m.–3:30 p.m.

Francois Vallotton (Lausanne University), Alternative media and mediactivism: a historiographical and theoretical frame

Franck Veyron (La Contemporaine, Nanterre University), Ripostes, archives de luttes et d’actions (1970-1974). Curatorial strategies at La Contemporaine

Nicole Fernández Ferrer (CASdB), Audiovisual Center Simone de Beauvoir: Archiving and Restoring Women’s Heritage [online]

BREAK

Panel 2

4:00 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

Luca Barra (Università di Bologna), Multiple Marginalities: Italian Local Television Archives and their Fragmentary Preservation of Alternative Cultures

Ieuan Franklin (Bournemouth University), The London Community Video Archive [online]

Alistair Scott (Edinburgh Napier University), Activism in the Archive – Documentary On Site Torness (1979) [online]

June 3

Panel 3, 10:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

Oksana Sarkisova (Blinken OSA Archivum at CEU), Media Monitoring as Archival Challenge

Kristian Koller (Sozialarchiv Zurich), Pirate Radio in the Swiss Social Archives: Preserving the heritage of countercultural activists turned medial pioneers [online]

Achilleas Papakonstantis, Seraina Winzeler (Cinematheque Swiss), Feminist Filmmaking and Digital Mediation: Launching Cinémathèque Suisse’s New Online Platforms

BREAK

Panel 4

12:00 p.m.–1:30 p.m.

Ioana Macrea-Toma (Blinken OSA Archivum), Are Cold War Counter-archives Activist Media? [online]

Serena Rubinelli (Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli), Collecting and preserving ‘alternative sources’ within the collections of Fondazione Feltrinelli [online]

Tatjana Aleksic (University of Michigan), Archiving Student Protests in Serbia [online]

1:30 p.m.–2:00 p.m.

Concluding discussion