ACAHUCH Symposium 2020 : Afterlife

ACAHUCH's inaugural Labour Day symposium featured a multitude of speakers from a variety of institutions, museums, galleries, practices, discourses and universities across Australia and around the world.

Speakers included:

• Asa Letourneau, Public Record Office Victoria
• Deb Tout-Smith, Museum of Melbourne
• Sarah May Ryan, Transport Project NSW
• Chantalle Yarrow, Yuncken Freeman Archives
• John Macarthur, University of Queensland
• Noni Boyd, Architectural Historian and Heritage Specialist
• Matthew Devine, Australian Institute of Architects, NSW
• Harriet Edquist, RMIT Design Archives,
• Jenny Grigg, RMIT School of Design,
• Paul Mylecharane, Public Office
• Chris Burns, University of South Australia
• Scott Woods, University of Melbourne
• Aaron Cayer, University of New Mexico
• Fran Edmonds, University of Melbourne
• Richard Clenhall, University of Melbourne,
• Maree Clarke, Independent Artist
• Mitch Mahoney, Independent Artist
• Heather Mitcheltree, University of Melbourne
• Mitchell Ransome, University of Melbourne
• Andrew Yip, University of New South Wales
• Ben Waters, Siii Lab and University of Melbourne
• Meher Bahl, University of Melbourne
• Martien de Vletter (Keynote), Canadian Centre of Architecture

The symposium was broken down into the following sections. More information on individual presentations can be found in the program booklet below.

Museums and Archives

This session explores themes of innovation led by museums, institutions and governments using new platforms and applications to re-think how visual archives are accessed and

Australian Architecture Archives

This session analyses community engagement strategies by Australian archivists, institutions, academics and practitioners that engage and enlist local and State Governments to broaden scope and establish protocols for aid a more holistic approach to historical and heritage records and archives.

International Architecture Archives

This session discusses the approach taken by cultural institutions and architecture firms internationally, across a continuum from the 1980s pre-digital era to now, as well as methodological interventions by historians, historical ethnographic tools, and the influence that the uprising of ‘archival secrecy’ and classification of information has had on digital records generally.

Innovations in the After-Life of the Archive

This session explores the role of innovative technologies in the realm of the digital archive, discussing issues of archaeology, Indigenous heritage and history, and the creative role of cultural institutions in the changing landscape of visual archival collections.

Keynote: Don’t be afraid of the Digital

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal received born digital material in the late 1990s, not knowing what to do with it. Since 2012, the CCA started a program to investigate, acquire, preserve, exhibit and publish born digital material. We asked ourselves how the digital technology has changed and shaped architecture. The curatorial approach led to success: the CCA is now able to preserve its born digital collections, to access nearly all files, and to make it accessible for research. Martien de Vletter will talk about the successes and the failures, as well as the context.

Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, our Keynote speaker presented via Zoom to a captive audience.

A PDF of the program can be found here.

Recordings of the keynote and other presentations will be posted in due course.