Archive and Documentation

In common parlance, the archive is a large repository of paperwork no longer in bureau cratic circulation.1 Archives can be seen as active nexuses of unique documents that bear marks, objects, images, and inscriptions and enable researchers to recall and revisit individual and shared memories and histories.2 Archives confront the impossibility of storing everything. Traditional archives are usually organized by dominant powers, able to decide what is preserved and what is excluded.3 The archive often occupies a physical space where documents are gathered and organized; a space whose dimensions and systems of access often stagger the imag ination; a space that becomes comprehensible only when destroyed (as happened when the municipal archive of the city of Cologne was partly damaged in 2011). The nine teenthcentury objectifi cation of linear time and historical process prompted a shift in the purpose of archives from legal depositories to institutions for historical research that were rooted in public administration.