Collecting Otherwise 2021 in Review
4 January 2022
Collecting Otherwise structure diagram, in progress, 2021.
1 of 2
Every year, the multi-year Collecting Otherwise project works within an 'iteration'. In 2021, the focus was Seen/Unseen: Intersectional Feminism and Gender Queer in the National Collection of Het Nieuwe Instituut. For this iteration, Collecting Otherwise departs from both old, rediscovered archives and new acquisitions -- emphasising the importance of tracing the genealogy of Othering, and viewing different roles designated for female, queer, Black bodies and bodies of colour in the National Collection.
Collecting Otherwise proposes alternative methodologies to read the collection and to collect otherwise, in an attempt to reflect and even ameliorate the historical gaps in the collection and to acknowledge those actors and practices that were excluded by historical and traditional collecting policies and practices. With that goal in mind, it focuses on a series of case studies as models through which to give continuity to past projects and include their methodologies within the future heritage practices connected to Het Nieuwe Instituut's collections. One of the prerogatives of the project is acknowledging that it is fundamental to engage society at large in how to define and deal with heritage.
The project's external working group, collaborations, commissions, and public programmes are all devoted to this goal. Collecting Otherwise approaches heritage as a public and collective negotiation, one that happens beyond the archive rooms and the expertise of archivists. Rather than understanding heritage as a neutral and objective inheritance, Collecting Otherwise questions how certain choices are made and the consequences these have, and how heritage practices have developed. It is inspired by the notion of and discourses around immaterial heritage as a carrier and context of material culture. Collective histories constitute archives and vice versa; together they define the places, spaces, and objects we find valuable enough to keep for generations to come. The National Collection as such is also the site where a wealth of immaterial heritage is preserved.
The past year was filled with learnings and tools that we will develop over the coming years in artistic archival research and in advice and additions for the collection policy of Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rethinking the Collection, and the ambitions of Disclosing Architecture. We saw Collecting Otherwise and its functioning within and outside of the institution as a testing ground, to enact the project's motivations in multiple ways.
For our next iteration in 2022, Collecting Otherwise will focus on case studies with intimate links to an architecture practice in the colonial 'abroad' from about 800 architecture archives held by Het Nieuwe Instituut. Our interest in 2022 lies in the complication of 'here-there' and the export and import of design and archival sentiments within a globalised reality. This includes often overruled, exoticised, extracted and Othered indigenous practice and labour. Collecting Otherwise also considers the current and future potentials of decolonial agency within the diasporic condition, narrating a self empowered by reclaiming (im)material heritage and design languages surrounding this heritage.
In this, we especially take into account herstories/histories of architectural design and urban planning surrounding former Dutch colonies and affiliations in Suriname, the Dutch Antilles, South Africa and Indonesia. In addition, we are working on the international exchange of current archival practices around architectural and design heritage. Working group members have been encouraged to start parallel cells with local research groups and institutes, in the context of knowledge exchange.
As Collecting Otherwise looks at new cases, others from this past year continue to be relevant, in the ever-present intersectional lens through which we view the collection, untying more layers of meaning, access, and his/her/theystories that a single object or archive can tell. In the coming year, Seen/Unseen remains present as we research the colonial ties of some of the same archives.
So what is the role of institutions today in rebuilding heritage? How do we think -- and most importantly, enact -- redress? Throughout this year, we will continue to actively question, regenerate and resituate archives and collections, access, gestures. This means recirculating knowledge back to communities, making space for other archive practices and thinking about how they can cross over to institutional practices and archives. Highlighting decentring and communal learning then allows for new visions and reclamation. Quoting the TBD-THC Cell, /"Collecting Otherwise thus passes through habilitating (ex)colonial peripheries and bodies to collect for themselves, according to their own interests and needs. This needs to happen in a situated and re-situated way./"