Archive Books

As a community of practitioners collaborating across regions and socio-political environments, at the core of our work lies a commitment to disrupt Eurocentric epistemologies. As a result, our work is deeply rooted in a sustained scrutiny of the role of languages, visuality, and archives in the perpetration of the coloniality of knowledge.

Our impulse to publish stems from the desire to disseminate stories for the subversive potential they can yield, creating cracks in dominant narratives, fleeing accounts of history with a capital H and turning to the power of the fragment. We conceive archives as sites, institutions, repositories of knowledge/power, systems of thought and violence, but also as counter-practices of collecting, preserving, disseminating and organizing experiences of resistance.

Through a publishing practice grounded in collective, transdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaborations, Archive is invested in un-weaving repressive narratives and reclaiming the archive itself as a tool which no longer categorizes but rather continuously un-fixes, de-archives and re-archives through non-hegemonic models.

John Akomfrah - a space of empathy, Archive Books, 2023

John Akomfrah (b. 1957) creates thoughtful video works of haunting audiovisual intensity. He tells of the radical changes and crises of the present and past on characteristic large-format screens. From November 9, 2023 to January 28, 2024, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting for the first time a comprehensive overview of the artist’s work in Germany, featuring a selection of three major multichannel installations from recent years: The Unfinished Conversation (2012), Vertigo Sea (2015), and Akomfrah’s new work, Becoming Wind (2023).

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Echoes of the brother countries. A reader, Archive Books & HKW, 2024

The Echoes of the Brother Countries Reader embarks on a rigorous reappraisal of the historical exchanges between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and its so-called Bruderländer (brother countries). Published on the occasion of the eponymous research and exhibition project at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), this reader considers the echo as a fulcrum to examine the resonant aesthetic, social, and political implications of an era from the perspectives of those who were deeply affected by the GDR’s state and labour policies, yet gravely overlooked in its histories.

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Encounters - Embodied Practices, Archive Books

What potential do embodied practices offer for emancipatory movements? How can community be created through these practices, and what responsibilities does this entail? What role does the body play in the preservation and transmission of knowledge?

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