the archive that i imagine to unlearn the archive by Melina Scheuermann

The "archive that i imagine to unlearn the archive" is an exhibition of the interventions produced as much as the structure of an archive. I borrow the concept of unlearning from decolonial and postcolonial theorists who discuss it as a practice that challenges the value-based, hegemonic apparatus of knowledge production such as the archive from the inside. There is a slight irony, seemingly a paradox in name of this archive: The archive that I imagine to unlearn the archive. Unlearning something while repeating, practising, constructing it? The idea is not repetition, unless it is always considered repetition in variance and in motion, never settled, never fixed.The method of constructing an archive to unlearn archive imperialism and historicism is a self-reflexive move that embraces and inhabits a problem by playing it out and finding the moment and movements of change and transformation from within. By inhabiting the archive as my research problem, I was faced with the challenge of archiving differently. I developed a performative-archival practice as an artistic research methodology in the history of education. I departed from the proposal to take up archival documents of my study within the history of education as performative scores for arts-based engagement. In particular, I studied two picture book series of the pedagogical object lesson method (Pt. lições de coisas, Germ. Anschauungsunterricht) that circulated across Europe in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The picture books are traversed by several intersecting discrimination based, amongst others, on gender, race, sex and class.

PerformArquivo

The workshop PerformArquivo: uma prática performático-arquívistica took place in May 2024 at Teatro Ferro in Porto as part of the theatre company’s formation series Laboratórios Animáteria 2024.

In total, fourteen participants joined this two-day workshop in which we tested several of the strategies that form the performative-archival practice. It was for the workshop and through the layers created during PerformArquivo that the first version of the archive that I imagine to unlearn the archive was constructed. Since then, it has undergone major, structural and content-related changes.

The participants included students, professionals and researchers from the fields of visual and performing arts, filmmaking, music and arts education. Five scholarships of accommodation and travel reimbursement were offered, which allowed persons from outside of the Porto region to join the workshop.

Artistic direction: Melina Scheuermann

Communication: Pedro Barbedo/Teatro de Ferro

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Melina Scheuermann - the archive that i imagine to unlearn the archive - 2025