Abstract

Documenting community art collaborations is valuable to those who participate in the project, to the future of the communities involved, and to art history in general. Community art is generated from a creative process based on inter-subjective exchange and conceptual exploration. Therefore, documents can provide a tangible trace to the ephemeral aspects of the artwork’s evolution. However, identifying documenting methods that are respectful, practical and participatory can prove challenging. This analysis of the Skol-CEDA project archive suggests that documenting the co-creative process can involve producing a combination of media that, as they are juxtaposed, can be activated discursively in the archive. By employing forms of auto-documentation, such as participant interviews and evaluations, the resulting archive becomes imbued with a spirit of shared authorship. The individual and group evaluations are instrumental in providing a vehicle for constructive criticism and for measuring how well the participants’ aspirations were met. Furthermore, as participants bear witness to their personal experience, they recognize their stories in future representations of the project and their contribution to public memory becomes a meaningful act of social agency.