Artist talk: Hiba Abdallah - Digging into Archives
Image: Hiba Abdallah, 100 years then and hereafter (still), digital video, 2021, made in collaboration with filmmaker Alyssa Bistonath.
Join us on Zoom for an intimate discussion with artist, Hiba Abdallah, and archivist, Tamara Rayan. Moderated by curator, Sandy Saad-Smith the discussion will touch on some of the most compelling issues around the nature and meaning of the archive.
Digging into Archives
Thursday, April 22, 6 pm - 8 pm EDT / GMT-4
Looking at the archive as a conceptual and physical space in which memories are preserved and history decided, the talk will explore questions around the ways in which we create, store, and circulate information.
Guest Archivist: Tamara Rayan
Tamara Rayan is a Palestinian settler, ARL/SAA Mosaic Fellow, and recent University of Toronto Masters of Information Studies graduate specializing in archives and records management. Anti-racist action and BIPOC representation within the archive has always been at the forefront of her archival work. She is the former co-chair for the UofT iSchool's Diversity Working Group and is a current Steering Committee Member of the Society of American Archivists - Archivists and Archives of Color Section. Her research interests are focused on the ways in which minority and marginalized groups document and preserve their cultural heritage in the face of social pressure, colonialism, assimilation, and political oppression.
About the exhibition
100 years then and hereafter is an exhibition of new works by artist Hiba Abdallah. Inspired by her excavation of Clarington’s historic archives, Abdallah looks back 100 years into the municipality’s documented history, finding diary entries, political documents, and newspaper headlines with uncanny similarities to the present moment. With her findings as the grounds for the exhibition, she examines social and political cycles, while exploring ways to disrupt the archival process when looking to the future.
The exhibition brings together text works based on archival headlines and tools that have been altered from their historic context to offer different imagined purposes. In collaboration with filmmaker Alyssa Bistonath, Abdallah proposes alternative archival practices and invites community members to contribute to future historical records adding to a more complex narrative of our times.
Messages to the Future
In conjunction with the opening of 100 years then and hereafter, the VAC is launching access both in the gallery and online to members of the public to write messages to the future and contribute to a new historical record project created by Hiba Abdallah. The messages will be collected at the end of the exhibition and placed in buried time capsules to be opened in 100 years.
* Please note that printed messages will first be displayed as a part of the exhibition 100 years then and hereafter at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. The messages will then be placed in a time capsule for burial.
Installation shots of Hiba Abdallah: 100 years then and hereafter at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, 2021, images by LF Photography.
