Inward Outward, Witnessing/Care & the Archive

On March 16–17, 2023, the third edition of the Inward Outward symposium took place in Amsterdam. Initiated between the KITLV and Sound & Vision, with special support from the RCMC and in collaboration with Framer Framed, Inward Outward brought together archival practitioners, artists, academics, and researchers to explore the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race, focusing specifically around the theme of Witnessing/Care & the Archive.

Conceived as a way to further discussions that surfaced during the symposium, Witnessing/Care & the Archive: A Publication of the 2023 Inward Outward Symposium collects different contributions from the speakers of the event.

The terms witnessing and care have gained a fair amount of currency in recent times, as public institutions scramble to deal—or give the appearance that they are dealing—with calls to “decolonize” archives, to “redistribute” looted memories, to “redress” irreparable wrongs. As a consequence, while there have been some significant propositions to grapple with these words, there has also been much hollow noise. So what could one more of these conversations really do?

Rather than adding to the din, and resisting trends that propose “best practices” or formulaic solutions to complex issues, the presentations at Inward Outward stressed the persistence of difficulty. Our conversations offered no suggestions that a panacea might be found, no indication of a new pro-forma method for finding novel ways, yet again, to make visible what so many in Europe do not wish to see. Rather, we interrogated what was—and continues to be—related to the protracted period of modernity; this post-enlightenment moment in which extractivism and the “thingification” of peoples, animals, plants and vital elements is the norm.

Across this publication 9 individual texts unfold, critically engaging with conversations on witnessing, care and repair in the archive.