r:CEMES - A digital archive for Ernesto de Sousa

The Visitor’s Profile
A digital archive for Ernesto de Sousa

A dozen of photographs of found objects remind the signature style of a few foreign artists. The humour and light-heartedness of this type of documents are often the reason why they are discarded as minor archive material. But what if we consider them while reading other consensually important material such as the "Documenta" exhibition?
The visit to 'Documenta 5', in 1972, allowed Ernesto de Sousa to get in direct contact with what he would call 'a real climate of modernity'. This exhibition would suit him perfectly to translate the ideas of vanguard he had been rehearsing and introducing in Portugal since the previous decade.

Even if he had travelled with a set goal in mind, the digestion of the parallel events of the journey was part of making sense of the experience. Travelling can hardly only being-in-transit: it is also a thing of the mind, it is the possibility of being surprised with the past and an openness to an ever shifting present. The state of the traveller (not to be mistaken with the tourist) is a permanent 'travelling'.

Ernesto de Sousa’s documental archive includes over 7000 slides, produced between the late 50s and the 80s. Among correspondence, notes, texts, photographic prints and negatives, they're only a very small part of his estate.
The future of his estate seems to be the donation to public institutions. After that, it will take years until the whole of the estate is newly available to the public, until all documents are inventoried and eventually, if there are enough human and financial resources, catalogued. Digitalisation is a tendency Portuguese archives and libraries try to keep up with, but it is still a heavy load and a second rate priority. But none of this is inevitable.
Since last January, the constitution of a digital archive of the documental and artistic estate of Ernesto de Sousa has been in progress. The first step was to develop a digital database that collates the documents, allowing information to be systematically compiled and revised. This is already done. The second step is to involve the universities – in fact, this will be an important research tool and only the proximity to the artistic and academic community can ensure that the estate carries on a live organism, meaning that the readings of Ernesto de Sousa’s life and activity continue to be many, different and new.

Ernesto de Sousa Intermedia Research Association (CEMES)
www.ernestodesousa.com

Colophon
Slide photographs by Ernesto de Sousa. Views of exhibitions visited in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark and Yugoslavia, during the 60s and 70s, and iconography with reference to a few artists artwork.

Selection by Ana Baliza, August-September 2014.
© The estate of Ernesto de Sousa, CEMES, the artists and the author

Index of archive reference numbers in this selection