A Continuous Project: Artists’ Books and the Catalogue
This project uses the cataloguing process at BAS, an Istanbul-based collection of artists books and printed matter, to explore how artists’ publications and the collections that hold them can trouble dominant theoretical models currently used by archivists and in archival studies. A Continuous Project examines the relationship between the form, function, and “use” of the catalogue, proposing a shift toward understanding cataloging as an ongoing, continuous process. This process can inform a reading of the catalogue as a social document that illustrates the relationality of knowledge and theory-building. It further offers the opportunity to make these processes open to public inquiry and participation.