Artists in the Archives: Community, History & Collage

September 2, 2022 – January 7, 2023

How does one create a visual representation of history? What is retained and what is forgotten in historical repositories?

Local history museums and archives are vital to building healthy communities and to anchoring our understanding of the world around us. Collage artists have unique skills that are particularly useful in our historical moment. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Sheldon Stewart-Swift Research Center, an international network of collage artists was invited to engage the Sheldon archival collections. Under the curatorial direction of Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour, and with the support of the Research Center staff, twenty-three artists from seven countries created collage prints that reflect upon the idea of community in the 21st-century world.

In this exhibit, artists from Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Ukraine, and several US states created collages to explore how the archival material expresses an aspect of a community. The resulting artwork offers commentary on how community ties formed around food, local industries, and social activities; on how the natural environment fostered social connections; and the intimate lives of women. Artists also probed the Eurocentric character of the local community and the marginalization of people of Asian, African, and Jewish descent largely absent from the Sheldon’s collections.  

The exhibit offers an opportunity to better understand how we see one another, who we notice and who we ignore, and who belongs and who does not.