Perverse Collections

Description

"Precar(e)ious Archives: An Exploration" examines the possibilities and limits of queer-ing and trans-ing ethnographic research and the concept of "creation for the archive" through BDSM frameworks. The paper introduces the project Transmissions, which is conceived primarily as a history-writing of three transgender film festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin and Sheffield.The filmic potential of this project is being captured also through a short documentary about the film festival TranScreen in Amsterdam. The creation of this documentary is also especially important to the project because of the frequency with which so-called minority film festivals "disappear" on account of great financial precarity but certainly also activist exhaustion.

Outlining the uses of film-making as archival practice and artistic endeavour, this paper also pays special attention to the concerns of bringing frameworks that may in some instances – although certainly not all – be associated with sex into spaces where bodies have historically been hypersexualised or de-sexualised, or suffered (sexual) trauma. The paper further explores what alternative forms of caregiving or BDSM influenced models could serve the projects of archiving festival work, and how further to navigate the power-imbalances that exist in encounters with the archive.

Period	3 Nov 2023 → 4 Nov 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	Amsterdam & The Hague, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International