The Infrastructure of Archives

Part of Archipelago of Artistic Practices, a Research Summit organised by Jubilee and M HKA. The programme and exhibition are built around Eavatea, a digital infrastructure for mapping research-based and transdisciplinary practices. Archipelago of Artistic Practices take place in conjunction with M HKA’s major exhibition The Geopolitics of Infrastructure and includes the participation of many of its exhibiting artists.

Sunday 15/6/2025, 14-18h

Location: M HKA 6th floor

The subtle rules and pathways of archives enable our connections to the histories that they safeguard. While the aesthetics of the archive may be perceived as neutral, objective and administrative, they govern our relationships to their contents. These repositories of research are a natural terrain for artists to activate, cultivate, challenge and transform.

Eavatea was conceived as a dynamic archive. Inspired by Tupaia’s wayfinding with its attention to a pluriverse of changing perspectives and narratives, Eavatea was never considered as a fixed archive of practices. Uploaded projects, images, documents can be reactivated and shared. The tool especially aims to open up new connections between its uploaded content and thus generate new narratives.

Content uploaded on Eavatea becomes testimony of an agency that goes beyond one artist or one organisation. They are part of and generate multiple narratives rather than being merely one document in a database, which in the end is merely an accumulation of autonomous documents. The documents in Eavatea become ‘relational’ objects.

14h / Julie Van Elslande & Louise de Bethune – Drawing a Framework for Eavatea. Collectively addressing legal questions on Eavatea in conversation with Agency’s ‘list of boundary things’.

15:30h / Åsa Lie & Merzedes Sturm-Lie present Panagia Gorgoepikoos – a multicultural billboard. This artist book and exhibition was produced in 2021 and based on a 1991–1993 project by Åsa Lie & Jadran Sturm. The work has since been activated by various artists, art students and academics, including Laura Puska, who will introduce her activation-in-progress.

16:30h collective reflection with Camille Françoise on Eavatea as an archive
Participants: Jubilee artists, Louise De Bethune and Julie Van Elslande, Jesse van Winden, Evi Bert, Åsa Lie & Merzedes Sturm-Lie (Jadran Sturm & Åsa Lie Private Foundation), Raphaël Pirenne (Agency). Digitalisation is reshaping artworks, and hybrid environments make access and participation possible.
Together with Camille Françoise we will discuss the challenges and opportunities for artists in the digital world. How can digital spaces and archives be shaped into an inclusive and sustainable cultural ecosystem?

Camille Françoise is a policy advisor and programme manager, specialised in digital and cultural heritage. A long-time advocate for the Public Domain and Open Access, she is passionate about human rights, especially equitable access to knowledge in digital environments. Camille is currently pursuing an LLM in Digital & Technology Law at the Université Catholique de Lyon, focusing on GDPR, AI ethics, cybersecurity, and platform regulations. Additionally, she is member of the board of trustees of Wikimedia France, a Councillor of the Europeana Network Association and a Software Heritage Ambassador.