Unfolding Chives Archives
Freja Kir and Celina Yavelow
December 2016, Amsterdam
Freja: First and foremost, Chives Archives began with a simple interest for collections and collecting. An open approach led the way to clandestine collections and unforeseen treasures that people hold dear. These collections are inspiring in themselves, but what turned out to be even more fascinating was, and still is, the unpredictable stories that unfold from the collection.
This, I find, is also my approach when introducing Chives Archives: I let it unfold through the stories collected from the collections we work with. A good example is the slang which we developed for Shinalized, showing David’s collection of Italian 20 cents. It really illustrates how we actually approach our work.
Celina: Yes, we’ve definitely always gone straight off-course with the side-stepping. It was also during the time that this idea of a Google bandwidth evolved. We were constantly comparing our Google search results because we figured out that they were being affected by algorithms based on our earlier search tags. In the long run, of course, this meant that you’d end up going in circles: the whole mechanism would nullify the chance of bumping into something completely otherwordly because you would never really search for something you weren't already looking for. I think that breaking this mechanism was an important motif in formulating what we wanted Chives to become. So yeah, the lateral plays the main role once the collection is defined.
F: That said though, the internet has had a huge influence on our relation to collections and archives in general. And as data, images and information have become easy accessible online, I actually think it effectively has helped bringing the concept of collections back into fashion. Where collecting naturally had an offline and analog nature, the physical collection of today can now be valued for the mere gesture, the effort. Considering our background in graphic design makes this renewed appreciation extra relevant or at least an important theme. In many ways I do find it beneficial that nowadays we have the option to communicate without print, but on the other hand it makes me increasingly aware of the value of something printed. Despite that we still have a lot of useless print around of course, which is probably a downright waste of paper and ink, like supermarket advertising. The scale to balance excess and value, material and virtual, physical space and bandwidth, seems more present in our daily lives and practice. For Wat nu, Koetsier?, we’ve also had many moments where we were weighing these issues. Especially when discussing the fact that a newspaper — printed, material, physical — which is the medium Hans Koetsier used for his advertisements, is now in fact considered close to old-fashioned for communicating news.
C: Advertising, on the other hand, is more present than ever. Companies still pay a lot of money to have their advertisement placed in the physical paper. The nice thing about Hans Koetsier’s advertisements and the advertisements for Wat nu, Koetsier? is that it links two worlds together: the commercial and the cultural, a paper full of short-term content with a page that could be considered valuable ‘art’, something worth keeping and collecting. The fact that something primarily artistic or cultural is put into an everyday medium could sort of tremor the smooth circle of expectancy, proposing that side-step that’s becoming more difficult to come by, so to speak. And there’s the website of course, which makes some of these ink and paper advertisements function as an actual advertisement for something else — a digital version of itself, an event, a typeface, a video work…
F: Yes! And of course we’ve been hoping that this side-step would lead people to a whole new path of interesting facts. Or multiple paths, actually: the wild seventies, the rise of conceptual art in the Netherlands, Hans Koetsier as a person, his collection of advertisements, but also the voice of graphic design today, communication, print versus non-print… Every time we receive a new advertisement, it potentially raises a whole new set of topics to discuss. I like the unpredictability in that. In a way, the little Wat nu, Koetsier? frame works as a stepping stone towards any kind of direction.