IISH Collection Day Event

Join us June 18 for Collection Day at the International Institute for Social History!

How do we collaborate with archive creators? How are conservation and digitization applied to medieval materials? What are the possibilities and limitations of AI in archival work? How do you deal with the emotional burden of archives describing atrocities? What should you do if the standards and guidelines that archivists must follow do not align with your personal vision and values? To celebrate the work of the IISH Collection Processing department, a day of presentations exploring these topics, as well as an exhibition and film screenings from our collections will take place on June 18, from 12:00- 18:00. Presentations will be in English.

Presentations

Collection Processing and Conservation: Medieval and Modern Materials

Jelle Verdijk and Daniel van Heusden

Examining the history of two special archival collections: the Committee for Science and Technology for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia archive and the Velle Collection, Jelle Verdijk and Daniel van Heusden highlights unique items from each collections, reflects on the experience of working alongside archival creators and the ways in which these relationships shape professional practice, and discusses the conservation and digitization approaches applied to medieval materials.

Affective Connection, Empathic Strain: Processing Wim Go Gien Tjwan Archives

Rika Theo 

The archives of Chinese-Indonesian scholar activist and political exile, Wim Go Gien Tjwan, is one among many archives containing atrocities, injustices, human suffering, and survival that are under the custody of the IISH. Processing these archives, which are "not only the storehouse of memory and fact, but also a repository of trauma and pain…where unpacified ghosts with unfinished business await" (Murphy 2011, p.481), brings a purpose of archival activation to support truth telling, justice, healing, and reconciliation. However, it also has emotional impacts on the archivists working with these records as they witness the landscape of pain, in the text and in the context, continuously. The emotional impact intensifies and is more inevitable for the archivists who are part of that suffering, as archivists, just like community users and historians, bring in themselves their history and experiences when encountering the archives. In this presentation, Rika Theo will share the emotional labor and archival-inflicted trauma throughout the daily processing routines of these archives, to open up a dialogue for a trauma-informed practices and responsibilities at the IISH.

The Bypass Project: Developing an Experimental Infrastructure for Born Digital Archives

Alaina Rose

The Bypass Project was an experimental initiative designed to tackle the digital backlog at the IISH. Rather than following traditional archival processing workflows, the project explored whether responsible access could be provided to unprocessed, digital born archives. In collaboration with software developers, archivists, and historical researchers, search interfaces were developed and made accessible through a secure virtual desktop environment (KASM), allowing researchers to access a selection of these special collections for the first time.

Archival Work and the Ethics of Automation

Julia van der Knaap

Julia van der Knaap explores several ethical issues that arise from the use of generative AI technologies (primarily Large Language Models), with a focus on archival work. It will address how these models work and the fundamental issues that lead to, such as bias and inaccuracies, and why this is particularly important when thinking about using these models for archival description. The session connects to the other talks by drawing on their stories of human archival work and the importance of the interaction between archive and archivist to show that automating this work comes at a significant cost.

Guerra al fascismo and the Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms collection: Challenges of an Unknown Film Archive

Fidel Duran

The Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms' film production collection is one biggest and yet unknown audiovisual collections preserved at the IISH. With more than 800 cannisters of unfinished productions, raw material and unique footage of social fights, filmed between the 1960s and 1980s, the digitization of the analogue material in this collection presents significant challenges. How to appraise material that is unidentified? How to contextualize the material, once digitized? What possible strategies for the presentation or restoration of this material are there? Focusing on the unfinished film Guerra al fascismo, produced in collaboration with the Spanish anti-Francoist group FRAP, Fidel Duran exams at the inspection workflow of analogue film material and discuss challenges and possibilities when working with audiovisual collections.

Archivists Between the Hammer and the Anvil 

Hawra Nissi 

When it comes to daily decisions, Hawra Nissi often feels like she's stuck between the hammer and the anvil. Archivists, like all employees, must follow standards, regulations and guidelines. But what if these do not align with the archivists' vision and values? How do we strike a balance between the two if they clash? How can we maintain objectivity in the face of the archive's ongoing influence on archivists, and vice versa? Should triggers and traumas be shoved to the side during archival work, or should they be used as an opportunity for keeping the spirit of the archive? These are a handful of the questions that surfaced when she was processing the archive of the Committee of the Moroccan Workers in the Netherlands (KMAN). She will discuss her experiences based on these questions.

Films

Vietnam, on the screen and beyond

This short program presents the film My village produced by the South Vietnamese Film Liberation Studio in 1967. The film, which was dubbed into English for international audiences, was acquired by the Dutch militant film club Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms and screened during their Freedom Week in 1972. The film will be accompanied by filmed recordings of strikes and protests against the Vietnam War which happened in Amsterdam during the 1960s.

Happy summer, Amsterdam!

Amsterdam shines brighter when the sun is out: its streets have historically been the stage of artists' performances, neighborhood gatherings and celebrations, as well as activists' protests. To celebrate the beginning of the summer, we present this curated piece which brings together filmed performances, fragments and excerpts of Amsterdam during the summer. Inspiration to come together, take the streets again, and enjoy the sun. Features include: Jasper and the smoker, Bas van der Lecq, 1962 – 11', Feestweek Nieuwmarkt (Otto Schuurman, 1971 – 18'), The Fool (Jacques Katmor, 1979 - fragment: 34')

Exhibition

The exhibition will showcase interesting items from archives we've been working on for the last year. This includes books from the library of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, old maps, items from the Hong Kong Protest Movement collection (2019–2020), and photographs by various photographers.

Following the event there will be drinks and a live music performance by the Fernando Oliveira Trio.