Encountering the Unruly Archives of contemporary art at DJCAD

This artist commission was conceived by Bodor and developed in collaboration with Adam Lockhart as part of What is a Living Archive? Curating the Unruly Materiality of Contemporary Art and run between September 2021 and January 2022. The commission was set up to explore archives of ephemeral, processual, networked or multimodal artworks online through an artist’s practice. The commissioned artist, Cardiff-based Holly Davey, was selected through an Open Call that was open for artists at any stage of their careers and from any field of practice (including visual art, design, theatre, dance, music). Judit Bodor and Adam Lockhart, as curator/commissioners worked with the artist to develop new work for online audiences. Davey worked in particular with female artists' works in the Rewind video art collection producing a new body of digital artwork comprising of a written script, a performance, and a series of digital collages under the title 'A Script for and Archive: Women'. The new artwork will be launched on the project website in January 2022 and will then remain displayed there alongside research material, and an interview with the artist. The master copy of the artwork will be accessioned into DJCAD collection. The work readdresses the gender balance within the archive revealing voices currently unseen. The artwork will be launched as part of a public Zoom-event where audiences will experience the only ever live performance of the work. The artist will also give a presentation to share the research project.