New Kinds of Archives: Care leavers, state archives and narratives of the self

This paper explores the relationship between state archives and trauma for a small group of Australian care leavers by outlining the development of a collaborative artwork (apart & a part 2017) made with six individuals who spent time in institutional care in Australia in the latter half of the twentieth century. It is estimated that during this time over 500,000 children grew up in or spent time in institutional care in Australia. For many of those care leavers, their experience was marked by longing, loss, and displacement, and as a result, many have inconsistent or non- existent records of their heritage, family, and early life experiences. Sequences of events are often missing due to a lack of information, the withholding of information by authorities and institutions, or the impacts of trauma and grief on the individual. The archives that do exist are often bureaucratic and impersonal. The ontological impulse to address these gaps in narrative leads many care leavers to become `archivists of the self'. Developed from several years of collaborative dialogue with care leavers, apart & a part (2017) creates an expanded archive of visual responses and narrative fragments that address the felt experiences often absent from institutional records and historical accounts. This paper proposes that communities that have experienced trauma require new kinds of archives that make space for, and give form to, affective languages and experiences. In this `archive of feelings', as queer feminist theorist Ann Cvetkovich (2003) puts it, trauma knowledge can be expressed on its own terms. Building on this, the paper proposes that care leavers require new kinds of archives that centre their knowledges and experiences beyond the authority of state and institutional archives.