PerformArquivo is an artistic research project that seeks to question and to conceptualise understandings of the archive and explore artistic research methodologies as archival practices in the history of education. The project was realised in three main moments: a 6-week long artistic residency, a workshop for professionals in the field of arts and arts education and this very publication.

The artistic investigation departs from the following questions:

• What could a performative-archival practice be as an artistic research methodology in the history of education?
• What knowledge is enabled through such an artistic research methodology?
• What shapes might an archive resulting from such a practice take?

Through the format of the report, I aim to make public disclosure of the research process and expand the possibilities of its findings within and past the original intersected framework of visual culture, arts education, artistic research and the history of education.

A chief concern in the elaboration of this report has been the possibility and challenge to write from the inside of my artistic research or to “stick closely” to the work as a writing method, to borrow Annette Arlander’s concept (Arlander, 2022). This report, thus, attempts to speak from the artistic research as an echoing register, sticking closely to the questions and concerns that drove the research process, the strategies I employed and the choices I made.

This artistic investigation was realised as part of the project PerformArquivo hosted by Corpo Raíz – Associação Cultural in partnership with Teatro de Ferro, Sekoia – Artes Performativas and the Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS).

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Investigation and text: Melina Scheuermann
Edition and translation: André Alves
Design: Thiago Liberdade