La Sala de les paraules', an exhibition cycle dedicated to archival science
The installation located in the Casa de l'Ardiaca showcases instruments, documents and words that form the basis of documentary work.
Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona presents a new exhibition cycle dedicated to archive studies, which aims to bring documentary work, normally reserved for researchers, closer to the general public. Sala de les Paràules invites visitors to explore the archives, in a departure from the use that exhibitions usually make of documents. It is an installation that exhibits five display cases with different definitions where you can see various instruments and objects that are part of the daily work of the workers of the newspaper library of the Historical Archive of the City.
The exhibition, located in the foyer of Casa l'Ardiaca, is a review with punctuation marks and illustrative dynamics of the archival and documentary disciplines that are normally hidden from the usual museum exhibitions and displays. The aim of the exhibition is to recognise the great importance of these two bases of knowledge by taking a journey from the verb ‘to exhibit’ to ‘to archive’, in an inversion of the natural cycle of exhibition creation.
In addition, each of the definitions collected in the exhibition can be associated with punctuation marks that the visitor has to connect in order to give coherence to the whole. The words on display are not random, but rather the most representative ones have been selected for the areas of the archive, the library and the newspaper library. Sala de les paraules records the most familiar words, such as ‘description’ or ‘brochure’, as well as the stranger and more niche ones, such as synopsis or ‘desidiratum’. The same thing happens with the objects exhibited in the room which, contrary to what would happen in a conventional exhibition, have been chosen not for their historical value, but for their representative capacity in relation to one of the concepts.
If you want to find out more about the hidden world of archival sciences and documentation... Don't miss this illustrative exhibition! You will find more information on the website of the Arxiu Històric de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona.