Of Dust and Rubies, a Film on Suspension

The volume Archives on Show. Revoicing, Shapeshifting, Displacing - A Curatorial Glossary (edited by Beatrice von Bismarck) focuses on the connection between archives and exhibitions. 22 contributions (including by Kader Attia, Rosi Braidotti, Marion von Osten, Eran Schaerf) bring together curatorial practices and strategies that carry out a critical reformulation of the relevance of archives in society. What is on show when what’s inside an archive is brought to the outside in exhibitions? As process-oriented, collective and relational forms of meaning production, the contributions show concrete examples of the curatorial (re)shaping of archival logics, structures and conditions. The book itself can be read as a curatorial exercise that forms constellations of texts, images and concepts in a printed exhibition format. In the “space” of the book, ideas of curatorial constellations between archive and exhibition are created which produce new relationships between spaces, times, narratives and disciplines – like the connection between cinema and discourse: OF DUST AND RUBIES, A FILM ON SUSPENSION by Tamer El Said (2020) will be shown, which makes reference to a panel event as part of Forum Expanded that explored an unfinished film by Sudanese director Hussein Shariffe.  

The volume is part of the three-part series The Nomadic Curriculum – A Manual Series published by Archive Books as part of The Whole Life – An Archive Project at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2018-2022). All the editions in the series can be downloaded here as as cc license.