To Think of Our Archive!

Introduction:

As we enter 2025, the war in Sudan remains the most significant event reshaping the social imagination of Sudanese people both at home and in the diaspora. The conflict has triggered a massive and widespread exodus of Sudanese to neighboring countries and beyond, granting many greater access to the internet and enabling them to follow events through virtual connections. This has shifted their engagement to remote monitoring and the exploration of communication networks.

At the same time, there is a significant gap in the Sudanese archive on the internet, leading to a sense of forgetfulness and loss for those researching Sudan, its issues, and its diverse topics. Additionally, there is no easily accessible artistic archive, resulting in a state of fragmentation and dispersion in the realm of visual and fine arts in Sudan. There is no “artistic atlas” that one can refer to, whether for artists, artistic production, or even themes and subjects.

It is crucial to note that the visual arts institutions in Sudan are not impoverished or destitute, but there has been a lack of widespread attention or effort to archive their work. This has led to an unclear and confusing portrayal of the artistic reality and its practitioners. We feel it is our responsibility to take on this role, driven by ideas and a sense of duty as a Sudanese artistic institution with deep roots in its artistic tradition.

Thinking About the Archive: How?

The question of how to archive is a general one, but it is particularly relevant to us as active participants in Sudan’s artistic production. How can we archive our work in a way that is accessible to everyone and easily circulated? This must also consider the role of technology and alternative methods of presentation that people are increasingly turning to. It may be difficult to think about the lost archive, especially given the current moment, which has been shaped by the loss of our main headquarters in Khartoum and our subsequent relocation to various cities, carrying our “headquarters” as a memory of images and videos.

We have already engaged in a form of archiving almost instinctively, as we seek to preserve the memories of what we have created over the years in the artistic scene. Beyond the events and individuals captured in photos, there are the artworks, critical writings, and the intellectual space formed through discussions.

The institution also has its official archive, which represents it in a way that is distinct from the personal. It is not merely a reflection of the memories we have formed as individuals involved in the ongoing work. The archive is also part of the memory of others who continually return to it, given the participatory nature of our work.

Between the institutional and the personal, the question of archiving emerges as a position through which we can consider its various levels. When we look at the institution and its official website, we see a form of specialized archiving that still carries a personal connection to us. Similarly, in our personal archives, there is a kind of tension—in a positive sense—that leads us to consider the possibility of creating an artistic archive as a shared concern with other institutions, while also stemming from our current situation of significant loss of the physical infrastructure that would allow us to form an archive.

We Miss the Architecture:

The intellectual Achille Mbembe points out that the archive derives part of its power from the architecture. He states: “The archive derives its status and power from the interplay between the building and the documents. The archive has no status or authority without its architectural dimension, which includes the physical space of the building’s location, the motifs and columns, the arrangement of rooms, the organization of files, the labyrinth of corridors, a level of discipline, the dim lighting, and the austerity that gives the place a temple-like or tomb-like quality.”

For us, Khartoum undoubtedly represents part of the archive of human history. It is a city where personal histories intersect with its own history as a city founded according to a precise English blueprint but later reshaped through its social life. Thinking of it as a city founded twice (1824 and then 1910), we see it as our archive, whose architecture we miss. An archive cannot exist without architecture, and thus the loss here takes the form of the city we left behind, carrying it as a memory/images. Therefore, part of the idea of the archive is missing, which is why the question of technology raised by Reem Aljeally is crucial. We cannot access Khartoum as a physical space to create a complete archive, and so we are not just archiving the artwork but also the context in which it was produced.

Khartoum, which we engaged with in two projects “Decaying bank” and “Extended Cities“, and are attempting to address in a third project this year, is now inaccessible except through the individual perspective of the reader/viewer. This is not just about the city but also about the social memory of its citizens. Thus, the process of archiving is not abstract or driven by personal desires; in our work, it is fundamentally linked to the self and the associations we have with Khartoum as a currently lost space, as well as the temporal necessity of archiving as a compensatory act through which we express the city’s position.

If the loss of Khartoum is the primary motivation for thinking about the archive, the absence of an archive is the next aspect we turn to in our search for a clear definition of Sudanese artistic work and practice. It may be important to consider the question of the artistic archive outside the context of official archiving and to focus on the personal.

The Artist Thinking About the Archive:

In a dialogue published on Hiwarat, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Rahman Bob, a Sudanese Critic and Artist, points out that the absence of an artistic archive in this case is strange and incomprehensible. There are archives of artists and exhibitions, as well as schools that shaped different waves of artistic periods, but they did not care to archive their work. There are large groups of artists in Sudan who have no archive.

This also applies to those in the faculties of arts and social sciences, where there is an oral history that has not been documented. This is something that E.E. Evans-Pritchard, a British anthropologist, pointed out: “Sudanese must write down their oral history so as not to lose it.” But no one has paid attention to this.

Bob states: “The visual artists are the ones who betrayed art and its spirit because they did not care about artistic institutions. They were the closest to having flourishing institutions, and this is due to several reasons. First, their roles within the state were significant, as were the institutions and events sponsored by the state. There was an opportunity for visual artists to have roles within the state, as is the tradition in Egypt. I believe we have a problem with the modern structure of Sudan as a state and society.”

Bob places the responsibility on the artist, but we also see that the reality of the visual artist and thinking within their constraints may offer some excuse. Therefore, it is also important to consider the material conditions that govern the artist’s work, as there are no institutions that can provide funding to establish their archives.

It may also be important to look at the tradition of archiving in Sudan, where the Sudanese art scene lacks a connection to the concept of archiving. We see many individuals who build artistic production and leave behind a significant legacy, but the archival dimension is missing. There is no reference point to return to in order to examine their work or understand the artistic nature of specific time periods.

While the absence of an archive at the state level is impactful, it is also necessary to consider personal archiving, as well as its absence within artistic institutions.