The Art of the Archive
University Museum archives gain wider accessibility with new online exhibition

The University of Pretoria (UP) Museums manage and curate two unique archives: The Mapungubwe Archive and the UP Museum Archive, under the auspices of the Office of the Registrar. Both the archives contain rich historical primary records comprising of both documents and photographs spanning decades. These rich research resources recently launched their first online exhibition on the UP Museum Google Arts and Culture (GAC) platform titled, Art of the Archive: Monochromatic Portraiture.

The online exhibition features 33 carefully selected curated historical sketches and photographs of only black and white portraits from the museum archival collections. The monochromatic selective portraits and sketches are not only important from a historical perspective, but are appreciated for their artistic value and making some material available on GAC will hopefully open new avenues of research and new enquires to gain further
knowledge.

Portraits of people making compelling narratives. The images digitised for the online exhibition were selected to showcase black portraits, some with unknown identities hinting into current research themes of oral history, communities historically associated with Mapungubwe and those marginalised individuals largely left out of scholarship. The exhibition begins with these portraits from the Mapungubwe Archive are then juxtaposed, curatorially with an assortment of rare portraits sketched by the South African artist Anton Van Wouw of named historical figures, also a selection of works never researched before.

The photography in black and white 80 years ago was a quintessential artform that delivers stark, almost serene, and timeless quality, incomparable to the modern digital versions of converting images to manipulated greyscale. The title ‘art of the archive’ suggests primary material such as historical photos are forms of art and the subject matter presented will garner research interest or back stories into the archives for interested scholars.

The Art of the Archive: Monochromatic Portraiture online exhibition deliberately does not distract with colour, and allows the viewer to look into the eyes of the subjects, suggesting an emotive connection to. Archival historical photographs are rarely perfect, light and age effects their condition and although at first glance appear sanitised, the subjects chosen and faces reflect deeper meaning.

“While the aim of the online exhibition is to bring greater attention to the valuable primary archival materials in university archival collections and to garner research interest, not only in South Africa but from around the world” said Michelle de la Harpe, the UP Museum Archivist. “This global GAC platform features over 2000 museums partners and is currently the most popular go-to online resource for art and museums which is available 24/7 from anywhere around the world, and access is free”. A more strategic aim for the UP Museums using the GAC, is that it serves as an active and creative opportunity to directly contribute to the University of Pretoria’s Digital Transformation Strategy and efforts to digitise both museum and archival collections is a critical drive within their future strategic planning.

“While the GAC first began as a digitisation initiative to move our museum collections online in partnership with the Google Cultural Institute in response to Covid-19 pandemic when the museums closed. We have since found that GAC provides immediate accessibility to not only the museum collection, but we are now exploring adding our archives to share select material to generate research interest and as a research tool beyond curatorial needs”, added Dr Sian Tiley-Nel, Head of the UP Museums. “This is a strategic and deliberate move
to use the GAC platform when other options and resources are not simply available to us and has been so successful in informing our curated exhibitions, QR coding in the museum galleries and drawing statistical data to measure our global engagement, extending its usefulness to research and our archives was obvious”.

To view the online exhibition, click on the link https://artsandculture.google.com/story/gQUhEpVldGEQEQ

The UP Museums encourage all departments and faculties to actively use these resources for potential postgraduate research topics as the contents and possibilities using the UP Museums from a range of disciplines is wide in scope. For more information or questions about research use and access to the Mapungubwe Archive please contact [email protected] or Tel: +27 12 420 3100 or the UP Museum Archive at +27 12 420 2291 [email protected]