Archive of Connecting Archives
Conversation with Tomas Jonsson
Programming Director for the New Gallery, Calgary
March 17, 2004
Valerie LeBlanc: Can you tell me a bit about your background
Tom?
Tomas Jonsson: I was born in Calgary in 1975 and I
grew up here. I went to the University of Calgary, and that’s
when I started to study fine arts. During that time, I began volunteering
at the artist run centres, Stride and the New Gallery. I started getting
more involved in that community.
In September of 2001, I attended a screening of the collection of works
‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ at EMMEDIA, Calgary. Can you talk
about the experience of curating that series?
TJ: It was a project through EMMEDIA, part of their
Homegrown Series. I was given access to their archives and to various
other archives of video centres across Canada. I put together seven
videos for a screening. I was working on the idea that Artists are looking
at urban space and the possibilities or limitations that exist within
that. Underlining that was the definition of just what a city is, how
it functions, not just as a geographical object, but also as a system
of networks. I was thinking of the idea that cities don’t just
have geographical orders, but they extend beyond. They are amalgamations
of a variety of networks that happen to meet. That was the starting
point for the exhibition.
VL: I would like to ask you a question about changing technology.
There is no return to the previous technology, once a format has changed,
whatever was done in the previous format has to be converted and archived
in some way. The alternative is that it will be left on the shelf to
gather dust, never to be seen again. I want to ask you if you have any
experience with format change, with video, audio, photography, film,
anything that needs specific technology?
TJ: Well it is definitely an issue for us at the New Gallery as in our
archives we have a lot of video, a lot of tape and it is a matter of
resources available to convert that material. I think that it is an
issue for a lot of artist run centres in Canada. There were actually
discussions held at the Art Gallery of Windsor about it in 2002. (Part
of the Symposium on the Re-Presentation and Documentation of Performance
Art – Curated by: Robert McKaskell) While presenting: ‘Remembering
and Forgetting Performance Art’, the speaker Thomas Mulready,
outlined all of the costs that were associated with bringing older works
and their documentation up to date, and maintaining them. He was basically
saying that it is beyond the scope of most centres to do that. His suggestion
was to do either of 2 things: to spend the millions of dollars required
to restore these things, or to destroy them. He had a number of boxes
next to him on the stage, and a hammer. He invited anyone from the audience
to come up and destroy these archives. Of course, nobody did, but he
made his point.
VL: Yes, he did! On a more personal level, while you
were growing up, did you have any experience with video becoming the
'family format' to document what was going with the kids or whatever?
For some people, it was Super 8 film.
TJ: Yes, my family used both. I think that it has been
influential in terms of my memories; some are based on Super 8 film,
and some on video. We got a video camera very early on in our family
and so a lot of documentation took place that way. It is interesting
how it kind of compartmentalizes. I think with the 8mm, it was often
things that had happened before I was born. So it sort of filled in
gaps between, but video was something with which I was more actively
involved, through being represented in it.
VL: Any other experiences along the same lines? You mentioned
meeting with Anthea Black, (the Director at Stride Gallery) to take
on an archiving project.
TJ: Yeah, a lot of it is still at the discussion stage. We are looking
at models such as ARTEXTE in Montréal in terms of how they function
in maintaining their history. Alberta doesn’t have much representation
of that kind. When you hear about archival projects, you don’t
necessarily hear about activities that took place here. So I think one
of the first steps would be to set up an archive, to organize that material,
make it accessible so that people can realize that there has been a
history here. And from there, they can go on to promote that history.
The New Gallery has a national archive, and thanks to people like Melodie
Jacobson, it has been very well maintained. It has representation of
periodicals, and publications from all over Canada, so it is a good
resource that way. But we have limited resources in terms of staff to
maintain and to promote it.
VL: I am wondering if it could work as a collective effort. In terms
of each of the individual centres, they keep archives of their own stuff
because they all book exhibitions. No centre would want to forget about
what it has done and I wonder if it could be a kind of umbrella thing,
a collective, but branched into each other. It is a big project to think
about and most artists are interested in getting on with new work. As
individuals, we can’t be thinking about the past all of the time.
You have to make moving ahead the priority.
TJ: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. Well there are centres that
have. I think ArtSpeak has a really good system and it is an interesting
model to look at. At the end of each programming year, they make six
copies of all of their slides and their documentation, and they send
them out to libraries and universities in British Columbia. So that
they have that material out there, and they are creating connections
to other organizations, finding out how libraries are organized. Taking
the ArtSpeak system and applying it to ours, making it accessible might
work. I don’t want to get too nostalgic, but at the same time,
I think that it is important to recognize the connections between how
things have happened, and how they have progressed. Sometimes it is
good to re-explore, to see what has been done before and to build on
that.
Author’s note: Several years ago the Imago Artists’
Print shop in Moncton, New Brunswick was picking images from their archives
for a postcard and poster promotion. One person thought that they should
choose the most intriguing images. The centre’s President Herménégilde
Chiasson (now the Lieutenant Governor of that province) brought forward
the very good argument that Imago had to promote only their local members
through that project. He wisely stated: ‘If we do not promote
our local artists, you can be sure that it is not a centre, in another
location that will do it.’
There is always a problematic debate when I bring it up, but
I feel that Calgary needs its own media distribution centre. There are
distribution centres in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, and in Montreal
as well. They do a good job of including Calgary and Albertan artists
in national exhibitions when possible, but until we put ourselves on
the map, by establishing local and provincial archives and distribution
repositories, local artists will not have the publicity and profile
that is merited by the quality and quantity of work being done here.
National and International profile begins at home.
- Valerie LeBlanc
August 18, 2004