Archival urgencies: aesthetical devices of implication within three collections in Brazil

Abstract

This article intends to bring together different research practices with archives, between public and private, in order to highlight the importance of a willingness to listen and observe, and not only to question and interrogate, in the face of document sets and their forms of organization. Questions to the archives guide us in the research by which we come to them. But the archive also has its demands, those projected by its managers and those requested by the (over)life of the images (DIDI-HUBERMAN 2013) and documents. As a pulsating body, the archive, existing or invented in the research, which can condition readings by its visibility regimes, also suggests subtle movements, between showing, listening, inventing, creating, constellation. What questions emerged in front of some files, in addition to the interrogations that led us to them? What demands did the managing subjects but also the documentary bodies present? What cities can we envision in these archival emergencies? In order to try to answer these questions, we are going to present 5 archival research situations that show 5 different investigation actions (investigation) with document sets. These 5 files - UFBA/MAP Archive (UFBA70 Meta Archive), Aracy Esteve Gomes Archive, Photodocumentation Laboratory, Arlete Soares Archive and Zumvi Afro Fotográfico Archive - made different requests due to the urgent needs of those archives and their managers, showing that, while we need to make the archive speak, it is also important to pay attention to scrutinizing it with sensitive listening.