“Hi Paulien, remember this?” my iPhone asks me. Today, 25,325 photos and 3,118 videos are floating around in my cloud. (Yeah, I know. I could pretend that this number has only gone up since I started working at MAP — and started taking a gazillion pictures of every WIP and sharing session; the biggest share of these past two years is undoubtedly of my — you guessed it: two-year-old — son.) When my phone bundles a series of photos from ten years ago into an album with a cheesy generic tune playing in the background, I remember.
Each WIPCOOP year (from April to April), MAP focuses on a theme that we conceptualize,weave through our work, and try to share with our network. And 2026–2027 will be all about archives and memories. Because we noticed that there are a few things missing from our collective memory — and also, just a tiny little bit, because our own archive could do with a thorough clean-up. So I, Paulien, the newest MAPpy decided to dive in. I started thinking about what an archive actually is. What belongs in an archive? What’s in MAP’s archive? What’s in my personal archive? And what is missing?
I dove into our history and soon realised that memories can live in three kinds of archive:
The Home Archive — also known as the Analog Archive — that which we have.
My Home Archive is the drawings on the walls, the crockery I collected piece by piece, the stains on the Danish wooden table. The musty diaries in the basement, the clothes in the wardrobe that no longer fit, the monstera that grew from a tiny cutting into a monster plant. It’s the bananas I keep forgetting to eat, the amethyst bracelet I never take off, the scratches on the plastic kitchen countertop, my boyfriend’s Crocs, and my child’s Crocs.
MAP’s Home Archive consists of hundreds of flyers from the Murgas, the Mestizo Clubs, MAF Festivals, and WIPCOOP. The stickers and pins featuring the three MAP characters, the city of Antwerp beer coasters with advertisements printed on them, and the newspaper articles featuring a very young-looking Gerardo in all his glory. The zines we publish every year and the 2016 MAPPING booklets… which actually still need to be put together. It’s the coffee mugs in our shared kitchen, the little flags above Charlotte’s desk, the giant basket belonging to Lou Bas — Tine’s dog, Mulanga’s stack of notebooks, and the glitter stickers on my second monitor.
The Pocket Archive — also known as the Digital Archive — that which we carry with us.
So, in my case, that means those 25,325 photos and 3,118 videos in the cloud. But also a very public database of over 15 years’ worth of embarrassing social media posts (like this enlightening 2011 Facebook poem “Swag”), endless conversations in the comments section of status updates with my high school besties, and a lot of drawings. An archive of old Instagram-stories about wild parties, plant-based meals from when I was still vegan, and calls for a ceasefire… all in vain. Emails to teachers with urgent questions about an assignment and receipts of stuff that I don’t need.
MAP’s Pocket Archive consists of our new website (and our old website, which is no longer publicly accessible but which we still occasionally use as a source). Our social media channels: the common ones we’d rather swap for the less common ones, where we (okay, *I*) do tend to forget to post. Our email exchanges with colleagues, artists, and partners; our shared calendar filled with meetings, performances, and deadlines. It is the WIPCOOP recordings, the thousands of photos, and the artists’ applications.
The Head Archive — also known as the Intangible Archive — that which we remember.
These are memories that never took tangible form, but that we recognize, know, and sometimes share with others.
It’s the smell of my grandparents’ house, the route I bike to my girlfriend’s house without even thinking about it — it’s the dance I learned when I was eight and just can’t seem to forget. The hands I shake, the three kisses I give on my mother-in-law’s birthday, the anything but Italian spaghetti Bolognese that I make just like Mom does.
MAP’s Head Archive consists of the stories told during the lunch break. It’s the encounters with creators that linger , the karaoke sessions that (thankfully) weren’t recorded, the meetings where collaborations begin. It’s the smell of vinyl in our office, the tears during a performance, a standing ovation.
These three archives already map a great deal of memories and, in doing so, help shape our identities and histories. And yet, they don’t seem to tell the whole story… An immaterial archive is, by definition, difficult (or impossible) to capture, so how do we know when it is complete? Accurate? What about lost memories? What about lost memories? The ones that simply disappeared into the mass of moments, that were too painful to hold on to, or that we carefully tucked away ourselves. Like that one person I could literally ban from my memories on my iPhone by clicking “Don’t include this person in my memories.” A ghost in my phone.
Not everything that disappears disappears voluntarily.
Having an archive is a privilege. Some people left with one backpack. Had to leave their archives behind. Collections were destroyed. Languages forbidden. Names changed. Customs disappeared. Some stories were never told; others were not allowed to be told.
But maybe those memories still exist, too … somewhere?
In a body that remembers what words have forgotten. In someone else’s archive. In the rivers in the sky (as Elif Shafak so beautifully writes).
And what about people who never had the chance to build an archive? The memories that never had the chance to become memories. Ideas that were never voiced. Loves that were not allowed to exist. Languages that could not be learned. Plays that were never produced. Lives that were cut short before they could write their own stories. They, too, leave their mark.
The Phantom Archive — also known as the Missing Archive — that which haunts us.
The memories we are not allowed to, cannot, or do not want to recall … Perhaps they are the ones that shape us the most.
This year, we want to explore our collective memory. We know we can’t undo the past, but we can choose what we make room for today. We want to open boxes — literally: unroll the old posters, dust off the hard drives, and retell the stories. But we also want to look at what isn’t in our boxes. Who’s missing? Which stories were never written down? Which voices were lost along the way? Which memories live on only in someone else’s mind?
And voilà, there we are… now, right here.
This text is my starting point. Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing what I come across in those thousands of photos, posters, flyers, emails, videos, notes, program booklets, press articles, and digital folders — the ones that nobody even knows why they exist anymore. At the same time, I’m trying to archive something that by its nature can’t be archived. Thousands of conversations, encounters, doubts, ideas, failures, friendships, impromptu coffee dates, late-night brainstorming sessions, artists who found each other.
I’m curious what we’ll find along the way… Keep you posted!
x
P
