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Workshop
Substance Data
Insertion into a Collection Database

Hotel Charleroi, M HKA Reopens
28 – 30 April 2017
Antwerp, BE

With Substance Data (Insertion into a Collection Database), TMML proposed to Antwerp’s M HKA to archive a work according to the accepted standards. The museum supplied the ensemble of the work The Possessed Can Witness in the Court (2015) by Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan. Together with Christine Lambrechts, conservation and collection management officer at M HKA, they set to work on the complex installation.

In a public workshop organized by Hotel Charleroi and during the reopening of M HKA, TMML showed the different steps involved in archiving. The visible actions included unpacking all the boxes, installing the metal shelves on which the ensemble of works was to rest, itself also part of the installation, measuring the various elements, describing/checking the state of the work (and taking care of repairs if necessary), encoding the various pieces, and so on. The museum kept track of that information in an Excel file, and TMML created a parallel file alongside that official archiving document. This often created amusing situations: for example, TMML described a little white sculpture in their document as Little Jesus/Between A Bird and a Sex Toy. After the correct processing of the data and the installation of the whole set, the pieces were then disassembled, packed, encoded and put back into their conservation boxes according to the rules of conservation.

The workshop was visible to the public, but the participants were specific in nature: a photographer, an architect, a draughtsman and a writer participated – as well as the artists’ daughter Jeanne. Christine Lambrechts explained the procedure and modalities for archiving a new artwork.

Substance Data (insertion into a collection database) culminated in a relatively small publication and at the museum, TMML also screened Game of Stones, a film (2016, 00:12:48).