This talk is part of the contributions by members of the Academy in Exile and will be introduced by Prof. Vanessa Agnew, one of AiE directors.

In this talk Tazreiter considers new ways of creating archives and thinking about archiving in distinction from the ‘archive of dust’ manifest in the libraries, museums and galleries of Western modernity. Traditional archives are a constitutive part of the state apparatus of power. Importantly, the histories and practices of colonisation and racialisation embed certain practices of archiving, arguably embedding singular and exclusionary visions of life, priorities and difference. In distinction, Tazreiter highlights new, alternative archives that are material but also immaterial, analogue and digital, archives that are constituted through the experiences of resistance to forms of violence and power. In this talk, she focuses on art and visual culture in the production of alternative archives produced by people of refugee backgrounds in response to experiences of exile, displacement and the violence of borders and bordering practices. The talk is impressionistic and speculative rather than conclusive.