“The Gallery is Ephemeral”: Exploring the Intersection of Archival Practice and Technology in Artist-Run Initiatives.

Artist-run initiatives are relatively small-scale, locally based, grassroots groups, normally led by and formed of a group of artists themselves. Through various activities, such as exhibitions, workshops and residencies, they seek to provide alternative space for artists – mostly those considered ‘emerging’ or otherwise at the early stages of their career – to create and present artwork, build their personal and professional networks, and contribute to increasing their overall visibility in the art world [32, 35]. By providing a space to create and exhibit work outside of the mainstream realms of galleries or museums, artists are able to embrace a more accessible culture of experimentation and learning that is perhaps not as well-served by larger conventional galleries. Alongside long-term commissioned exhibitions, ARIs have diverse programming which might include artist residencies, workshops, screenings, as well as archive shows where artists create new work from previous exhibitions.

The term artist-run initiative tends to be the most encompassing within a UK context, however other terms such as artist-run space, artist-led space, or artist-run centre are also considered correct terminologies, with use varying internationally. Historically, the philosophy of ARIs can trace its roots back as far back as the late 19th Century with the Salon Des Indépendents, a group of artists that sought alternative modes of exhibiting work in opposition to the rigid standards of the time through self-organisation of their own shows [38]. More recently, literature has examined the impact of specific ARIs throughout the 1960s and 1970s in places such as Geneva, New York and Budapest [13], demonstrating the distinct influence of each in their country of origin. Others provide more contemporary accounts of artist-run practice, through extensive indexing of currently operating spaces [32] or through autobiographical narratives of a particular initiative [35]. Academic literature has focused on the construction of unique cultures and identities within these spaces [10], their contributions to wider culture as ‘alternative’ spaces [19], and the advocation for drastic changes in policy in order to ensure these creative spaces can still exist in the future [11].

Within the UK, Edinburgh-based 57 Gallery historically pioneered the challenge to institutional hierarchies through their approach to collective practice and embracing of alternative methods; however, this is commonly mistakenly credited to Glasgow-based ARI Transmission, which continued to spread this influence after 57 Gallery's dissolution in the early 80’s [6]. Despite this misattribution, Transmission is still considered one of the most seminal ARIs in the UK, having played an important role in Glasgow's cultural revival during the 1980s, as well as influencing other spaces throughout the country and beyond [6, 27]. Throughout its history, Transmission has exhibited the early work of notable artists such as David Shrigley and Martin Boyce, the latter winning the Turner Prize in 2011, demonstrating that artists who exhibit work in such places may go on to present work in larger spaces, eventually leading to considerable commercial success in art prizes and competitions.

This model and organisational structure are key to the core values and success of many contemporary initiatives. Self-organisation, a DIY motivation, and a desire to showcase the unconventional and experimental are what fundamentally separate these spaces from conventional galleries, museums, and other arts-based institutions, and allows them to champion these values. Two relatively recent publications articulate the importance of sustaining these practices, providing insightful perspectives into the artist-led experience both through autobiographical narratives and thought-provoking discussion [32, 35]. Therefore, there has been tangible resistance to the act of ‘professionalisation’ – the transformation from a grassroots collective to a more official, registered organisation – which many argue would fundamentally change the nature of these initiatives and what they can achieve. A statement released by Transmission Gallery after losing significant funding illustrates this well, with an explicit suggestion that funding bodies are increasingly reluctant to fund non-institutional spaces [44]: “Transmission believes that Creative Scotland have chosen to cut our funding because they are no longer prepared to invest in an institution that refuses professionalisation, and yet by virtue of its unique history operates at a scale comparable to more professionalised institutions”. The vulnerability of arts and cultural funding in the UK has been continual since 2008 [48], and more recently the financial impact of rising inflation in the UK has led to higher living costs for individuals and operational costs for organisations.

Within academic literature, there are a handful of publications which explore the impact of ARIs. These include how unique cultures are constructed within these spaces [10], their contributions to visual arts and wider culture as alternative spaces [19, 30], their precarity within modern societal organisation [8], and the advocation for drastic changes in policy in order to ensure these creative spaces can still exist in the future [11]. Whilst these works offer great insight from the perspective of the humanities, HCI has yet to explore interactions with digital technologies within this space and to understand the impacts and challenges these might create. This is despite a long history between HCI and art practice that has had a profound impact [37], both through the inclusion of artistic techniques in research practice, and the tensions this creates within the discipline [25, 40]. Despite the overlap between these disciplines and the prominence of art within HCI practice, very little work has explored the communities in which artists themselves create work and collaborate, and the role that technologies play in creating, maintaining, sustaining, and perhaps nurturing them.

Despite the importance of archiving within contemporary art [36], documentation of how this is practised within ARIs is sparse. Shannon Lucky has documented the difficulties which artist-run centres in Canada face when archiving their collections [28, 29], proposing web archiving as a potential solution. Whilst noting the use of websites and social media by these spaces as ‘public archives’, Lucky acknowledges the precarious nature of archiving this content through platforms that may cease operations suddenly. In addition, a lack of expertise or experience in these spaces leads to archiving, digitally or physically, becoming a much more arduous and time-consuming process.

In this sense, we understand archival practice within ARIs to share many similarities with other types of community archives. When situated within communities, archival collections are likely to be set up, run, owned, and funded by the members of that community themselves, and may represent members of society who are otherwise under-represented or marginalised [3]. Studies of community archives have demonstrated their benefit to autonomy, ownership, and the way they challenge to dominant methods through post-custodial practises [46]. Therefore, it is essential that these communities are able to retain their sense of identity, and how it is represented, through the control and ownership of archives themselves, rather than through an external party or other organisation [4]. In pursuit of retaining this ownership, combined with the difficulties of keeping a purely physical collection, the creation of digital archives is a desirable solution for small communities, allowing them to explore alternative and diverse ways of sustaining their heritage [16, 41]. Access to the internet has allowed communities to develop unique archival practices, such as through the use of social media platforms and other interactive technologies [34]. However, these approaches are not without their problems, particularly when there is a reliance on volunteers who lack the appropriate technical skills and unreliable sources for funding [20, 34], as well as the inherent obstacles that come with sustaining long-term engagement with designed technologies[42].

There is evidence of similar practices on a personal level, where prolonged use of websites and social media transforms them into de-facto tools for personal archiving [9, 26], and a shift in which the objects we inherit, the memories we create, and our collective histories are increasingly born-digital. This leaves us to contend with the potential long-term consequences of this [31], such as ‘link rot’, where older hyperlinks no longer point to an existing website, or the information once accessed through that link becomes inaccessible. Such occurrences of digital decay are considered aspects of the ‘digital dark age’ – a phenomenon that describes the impact of obsolescence on our ability to successfully preserve and retain access to digital data over long periods of time [24]. Avoiding this is imperative for libraries, archives, and museums, who understand the difficulties in preserving digital artefacts over a long period of time. These issues, combined with ongoing efforts across these institutions to digitise their physical collections [3,27,35], only increase the risk of further ‘digital decay’. However, this problem is not unique to just large-scale or otherwise established institutions: small-scale, community-led archival projects, operating outside of conventional realms, will lack the resources, knowledge, and experience easily available to larger institutions, which are required to create, curate, and manage archives successfully. These circumstantial parallels between community archives and ARIs provide us with a helpful frame for our research.

There are many examples of HCI research situated in unique community settings, e.g. [22, 43, 45], with some work utilising archival content to develop methods of civic engagement within communities [12], whilst others have explored the importance of ‘home-grown’ digital archives for under-represented communities [15]. Adjacent subjects to archiving and archival practice, such as memory, heirlooms, and preservation, have been investigated, through the design of interactive devices that allow families to preserve digital artefacts, work through bereavement, and the inheritance of physical and digital artefacts [33]. Further to this, other work has explored the concept of digital legacy, and how existing digital systems and our interactions with them profoundly shape this [17, 18, 23]. However, these examples focus on an archival practice within a familial or individual context. To our knowledge, there are no works that explore archiving within ARIs.

Suitable ARIs were identified through a combination of internet searches and snowball sampling. We searched for ‘artist-run initiatives’, and variations upon this, including ‘artist-led space’ and ‘artist-run space’. This, as previously mentioned, was due to variations in how such spaces choose to identify or describe themselves. In addition to these terms, we noted that ‘DIY’, ‘non-institutional’, and ‘non-profit’ were common terms used by ARIs to describe their activities on websites and social media profiles. As such, these terms were included as criteria in further searches to help further narrow down search results. Alongside this, we constructed a short list of characteristics that, though not exhaustive, were helpful in identifying organisations that fell into the scope of our study. These included:

• A focus on platforming ‘emerging’, ‘early-career’, ‘graduate’ or otherwise marginalised artists as part of their exhibition and events programming.
  
• An identified commitment to non-hierarchical practice or organisation.
  
• Multi-faceted use of exhibition space; for example, through the organisation of workshops, events, or other community projects.
  
• A focus on platforming local artists.
  
• A reliance on voluntary, unpaid labour, or otherwise precarious labour.
  

We focused on North East England and Scotland primarily to retain the option to visit sites and conduct interviews in person, although the majority of interviewees ultimately opted to be interviewed by videoconferencing. Considering regions outside of London was also interesting due to funding developments in the UK, in particular, the ‘levelling up’ policy for cultural spending on regions outside of London [49] and a proposed cut to Creative Scotland's funding [50] Further ARIs were identified through snowball sampling at the end of each interview. We utilised this technique to gain access to the interpersonal networks of ARI members and be made aware of otherwise ‘hidden’ or ‘hard to reach’ members of this community [7]. This helped to identify initiatives that otherwise did not appear in our initial search.

After this process, 29 potentially suitable ARIs were identified. We aimed for a heterogeneous group, ranging from small, relatively newly established collectives in remote locations, to larger, fully-fledged initiatives in cities. For this research, it was important to include diverse examples of ARIs, so that we could understand what collective and common challenges were, as well as ones that are more specific to each space, respective of their characteristics and environment. We emailed each ARI an invitation to interview, specifically requesting to speak to committee members or any other suitable chosen representative for that space. Each participant who agreed to be interviewed was sent a consent form and an information sheet which informed them about the purpose of the study. In total, representatives from nine of the initiatives responded to interview requests. The study was approved by our institution's ethics committee, and informed consent was received from all participants.

A total of 17 individual participants were interviewed from nine ARIs. This was due to some initiatives choosing to conduct their interview with a single representative of their committee, whilst others included their entire team. Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the most appropriate method, as it was practical to conduct approximately one-hour-long interviews with the size of this study group. To guide our interviews, we chose to use a topic guide to facilitate a pre-determined line of questioning, whilst also allowing room for open-ended discussions to happen organically [1]. We structured our topic guide around three main areas of interest. Firstly, we aimed to gain knowledge of day-to-day activities, key responsibilities, and understand how success was measured, Secondly, we intended to build a picture of existing physical and digital archival practices and discuss any concerns each ARI may have with retaining their legacy. Lastly, we sought to understand any habitual or prevailing uses of technology and establish the challenges or opportunities these create. Interview lengths ranged between approximately 45 minutes and 1.5 hours. Seven of the interviews were conducted online through video conferencing software, due to geographical distance and the preference of participants, with the remaining two conducted in person. All interviews were recorded and transcribed.

After each interview was transcribed, a process of reflexive thematic analysis [5] was conducted by the lead researcher independently, with additional input from the co-author afterwards to develop and refine themes. Codes and themes were developed in an inductive and experiential manner, whilst examining the qualitative data set through the lens of critical realism, as we felt that this was the most appropriate approach for highlighting participants' individual and situated experiences. 345 unique codes were created from the dataset, through which overarching themes were developed. Both researchers then engaged in a process of refining these codes and themes, through reflection, discussion and subsequent reorganisation. This process occurred multiple times until both researchers agreed that thematic saturation was achieved.

As researchers, we acknowledge that our position is not neutral, or value-free. Our identities, beliefs, and backgrounds have a tangible impact on how we conduct research and analysis, and what we take forward with our research outputs [21]. With this in mind, we reflect on what each of us brings to this study, as researchers and individuals. The lead author, with a background in product design, has spent a considerable amount of time participating in various art and design-related cultural events and maintains close relationships with active members of the art community. Therefore, the first author brings to this study an awareness of the social, economic, and political circumstances that surround and define artist activity within the UK. The second author has a background in computer science and HCI, but has spent significant time working in art and design schools in close proximity to the forms of communities studied in this research. Both authors therefore approach this work from the position that cultural activities are fundamentally worthwhile and that supporting and preserving them is important.

“The archive that exists on the website is, I think, something different to the way that it exists in hard drives on our computers. And the way that our physical archive exists is that some of them originated as physical things, objects, or files or whatever, and some of them are printouts, or physical things that came as digital things originally […] there might be a digital work that is archived, and it stays digital, that we create a physical version of. The two sort of get interchanged between each other, which makes the project of archiving more complicated as well.” [P13]

Archiving is a core activity for any arts organisation – not only does the practice allow their work to be preserved for future generations, but also creates a rich resource for practising artists to be inspired by, and even to create new work from [14]. However, this is also an area that poses unique challenges for ARIs in comparison to more established organisations, due to their more ephemeral nature. In this section, we discuss findings around the processes and practical matters of archiving for ARIs and the ways in which technology can both support these practices and present new challenges.

“We used to have everything on a big Google Drive, but we lost that completely… And it was really terrifying, because all of our accounts, all of our funding agreements, and everything was on the drive. All the documentation of shows, contracts, everything. And all of our emails and our kind of communication was just cut off.” [P15]

Availability of resources is a considerable point of pressure for ARIs, and the ways that both physical and digital resources are utilised have a profound effect on archival capacity. Typical physical resources encompass everything from the physical space an ARI occupies, to exhibition equipment such as projectors, speakers, or lighting, as well as printed promotional material. Digital resources we might consider include online productivity tools, cloud storage, and social media use, as well as the equipment used to access them, such as computers and mobile phones. In the following section, we discuss our findings which demonstrate the various uses and application of these resources within daily practices in ARIs, and the importance of maintained access to these resources.

“I think all the different spaces have very different curatorial interests. And I think that's quite nice. So, it's not like we're competing for getting the same artists to show or something. I feel like everyone has their own voice and so do we. So, in that way, I feel like we sit nicely amongst each other.” [P15]

Evident throughout our interviews was an advocacy for ARIs distinct characteristics, and making sure this identity is retained through methods of organisation and practice. In this section, we discuss the various considerations ARIs make concerning their governance, as well as ruminations on the importance of identity. Whilst this might not directly involve any digital technologies or archival processes, matters of governance and identity impact these activities indirectly.

The challenge of accurately presenting archival content across two different modalities – physical and digital – and the difficulty this creates during archiving and when making curatorial decisions was apparent across our interviews. Participants were particularly aware of the significance of how their archive is presented and accessed, and how this might change how it is perceived and understood by those that interact with it. In addition, participants acknowledged disparities between archival content that was accessible physically, but not digitally, and vice-versa. As born-digital artefacts become much more common, combined with a pursuit to digitise archival content, we must consider how ARIs might appropriately articulate the connection between physical objects in an archive, and their online or digital equivalent.

Previous HCI work has explored this area, demonstrating how archival practice is made more complex with regards to passing down technological artefacts and heirlooms [23, 33], as well as how our increasing use of digital technologies on a day-to-day basis creates important questions regarding our digital legacy [17, 18]. Whilst these issues have begun to be explored in a familial and individual context, we are interested in exploring what these processes and interactions might look like in a community context, and whether these two separate modalities could be brought closer together, or otherwise interacted with in novel ways.

It was clear from our findings that archival practice varied greatly between ARIs. Whilst some participants talked of their physical archives, and their attempts to digitise them, others talked of the fractured, unorganised, and distributed nature of theirs, and their efforts to put them in order. To circumvent these difficulties, some advocated the use of social media, using Instagram as a kind of ‘alternative’ archive, with the application layout allowing content to be presented chronologically, and in an easily accessible manner. Previous research supports this, having demonstrated how social media has effectively become a personal archival tool for individuals, albeit without sufficient awareness or planning of long-term preservation strategies [9], and the potential consequences of this. Within HCI scholarship, there has been some work that has examined this paradigm, suggesting guidance for how to design social media that considers these future archival needs [47]. However, we must still consider the precarious nature of relying on these platforms, acknowledging that social media platforms and accounts are in no way permanent, and may undergo dramatic changes that make them unfit for purpose, or even cease to exist in the long term. Further work could examine how prevalent the use of social media and other online platforms are as archival tools within these communities, and to further understand to what extent these are used.

Beyond the use of social media as archives, we might consider other ways in which ARIs can be better supported in creating archives that are non-institutional, through alternative approaches, strategies, and the design of tools to support this. While existing technologies have been appropriated for the purpose of archiving, they are not designed with ARIs’ varied forms or archival practice in mind. Future research might work with these organisations to imagine technologies that meet their unique needs and speak to the DIY, non-hierarchical and non-institutional nature of their practice.

Alongside the influence of various technologies, our research also found various instances of uncertainty that impact archival practice within ARIs. Our findings demonstrate how funding was a consistent uncertainty, with participants expressing how securing long-term funding was difficult and that budgets tend to be stretched thin, with money allocated to only the most essential obligations. This leads to archiving being deemed much less of a priority than other tasks, creating archives that were unorganised, incomplete and in some cases, inaccessible.

It was also clear from our findings that space and environment are uncertain. Whilst some participants have occupied the same premises for a number of years, this does not necessarily mean permanence. During one interview, we were told of how one ARI, despite being given their space in-kind by a local housing association, was suddenly forced to find another space after a reassessment of assets. Another ARI lost their space entirely due to planning and development and has since become a ‘nomadic’ space – operating through online events and temporary use of other spaces. Whilst some may argue that ARIs are inherently temporary and short-lived, we reflect on how this is largely influenced by factors that are out of their control, more so than a decision that has been made by the initiative themselves.

With this combination of circumstances, we consider how we might develop strategies and tools for ARIs to navigate and build resilience in the face of precarious circumstances and be better prepared to respond to situations that present significant administrative and logistical challenges. Finding new ways for ARIs to demonstrate their value within the communities they are situated may be a possible strategy for building resilience, and established institutions, such as libraries, museums and universities are in a position to collaborate with ARIs to provide them with the knowledge, resources and expertise they might otherwise be missing to achieve this.

On the other hand, we suggest that the nature of precarity within ARIs is something inherent to their identity, and that eliminating this may fundamentally change the nature of their practice. As previously discussed, there is a distinct opposition to spaces becoming institutions [39, 44] and the suggestion that this is an inevitable outcome. Aligning with intuitional methods of archiving could be seen as part of this transformation. We consider the importance of exploring methods of archiving that might be flexible and reactive to the fluid circumstances of ARIs that are not so strongly bound or influenced by traditional institutional structures. We might consider how we could approach the design of tools that consider and nurture these precarious circumstances so that ARIs might continue to challenge these expectations and find ways of expressing the value of their grassroots origins without needing to sacrifice them to survive.

Finally, we acknowledge that our research only highlights a part of the wider picture of ARIs and is not intended to paint a comprehensive picture of their activities. It is limited primarily in terms of geographic scope to ARIs based in North East England and Scotland. It is reasonable to assume that challenges faced by ARIs will be similar across the UK, with some variation across the regions (due to, for example, local funding conditions). Internationally, there may be much greater variation. However, this research intends to create an initial understanding of the way that the broad challenges faced by ARIs overlap with technology; providing firstly a more nuanced understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of increasing technology use, but also possible directions for future research and design work to better support ARIs.