Archival activism and mental health: being participatory, sharing control and building legitimacy

The research underpinning this thesis takes a practical approach to engaging with the concept of a ‘participatory archive’. It uses the process of constructing the Archive of Mental Health Recovery Stories (https://mentalhealthrecovery.omeka.net) as a basis for exploring and challenging participatory rhetoric. The disentangling of ‘control’ running through the participatory process has emerged as a dominant theme: who has controlled the construction of the archive? Who has controlled the resulting knowledge production? To what extent can either the construction, or the research around the construction be seen as ‘participatory’? ‘Legitimacy’ is also a central theme: how has legitimacy in and for this work been built, negotiated and contested? How does the grounds for legitimacy alter across different contexts and situated positions? Another strand emerges around the question of ‘activism’ in archival frameworks: to what extent is deep engagement a necessary pre-requisite for archival practice that seeks to embrace social justice as a central aim? To what extent is archival activism possible in mainstream cultural institutional contexts? The narrative leads to a final unraveling of the central contradictions inherent in practices underpinned by participatory discourses, with an articulation of what unraveling these contradictions means for me as I move forward. Whilst beginning from ‘I’, my writing draws directly on reflections from the contributors to the archive, as well as reflections from staff at my host institution (Wellcome Library). As well as addressing the central themes outlined above, I use this thesis to explicitly surface the process of self-negotiation that I have entered into as part of the process. I seek to disentangle the roles and relationships that I have embodied as I have undertaken this research, and I address the discomfort that I have experienced in the collision between my professional, academic and collaborative ‘selves’. In summary, this thesis is about the ‘we’ of participation, but it also seeks to explore how this ‘we’ has affected ‘I’

Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Aesthetics, Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media

The Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade and the Society for Aesthetics of Architecture and Visual Arts of Serbia (DEAVUS) are proud to be able to organize the 21st ICA Congress on “Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics: Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media”. We are proud to announce that we received over 500 submissions from 56 countries, which makes this Congress the greatest gathering of aestheticians in this region in the last 40 years. The ICA 2019 Belgrade aims to map out contemporary aesthetics practices in a vivid dialogue of aestheticians, philosophers, art theorists, architecture theorists, culture theorists, media theorists, artists, media entrepreneurs, architects, cultural activists and researchers in the fields of humanities and social sciences. More precisely, the goal is to map the possible worlds of contemporary aesthetics in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia. The idea is to show, interpret and map the unity and diverseness in aesthetic thought, expression, research, and philosophies on our shared planet. Our goal is to promote a dialogue concerning aesthetics in those parts of the world that have not been involved with the work of the International Association for Aesthetics to this day. Global dialogue, understanding and cooperation are what we aim to achieve. That said, the 21st ICA is the first Congress to highlight the aesthetic issues of marginalised regions that have not been fully involved in the work of the IAA. This will be accomplished, among others, via thematic round tables discussing contemporary aesthetics in East Africa and South America. Today, aesthetics is recognized as an important philosophical, theoretical and even scientific discipline that aims at interpreting the complexity of phenomena in our contemporary world. People rather talk about possible worlds or possible aesthetic regimes rather than a unique and consistent philosophical, scientific or theoretical discipline