Abstract
This chapter provides case study two on the archive as catalyst for remembering; in this case, climate protest and the forgetting of urban water. Drawing upon the work of the arts activism group Platform who since 1983 have campaigned on climate-related issues, the chapter covers one strand of their activism focused on London’s rivers, polluted water and provocations for the regeneration of the city’s watershed. The chapter analyses two museum re-exhibitions of Platform’s Still Waters (1992) campaign, and Platform’s sustained reflections on the campaign and the acquisition of Platform’s collection into an archive. A key consideration in this remembering and archiving of Platform’s activism is the inclusion of informal, lay or activist memories that serve as grassroots intermediaries and paratexts. The connectivity of this process of archiving climate protest with official media archives (television, film and journalism) and the socially mediated memories of protesting river neglect has significance internationally with other urban river daylighting campaigns.
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Chidgey, R., Garde-Hansen, J. (2024). Activist Memory and the Archive. In: Museums, Archives and Protest Memory . Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44478-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44478-4_5
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