SPECULATIVE
ARCHIVE

An Experimental Project

The speculative archive is an experimental project that highlights the lived experiences of marginalised folk within Newham and the wider east London community, resulting in contemplative digital offerings in the form of oral histories and audio-visual methodologies of storytelling, through the integrated use of filming techniques and audio recordings. 

Remembrances and Speculative Contemplations

The project intends to utilise memory as an organic conduit for archival remembrances and speculative contemplations. It draws from the rich geographical and socio-cultural history surrounding Alice Billing House and Newham, the archive will acknowledge the prevailing spirit of the area’s historic roots.

Non-Traditional Methodologies

It draws upon non-traditional methodologies, indigenous practices of storytelling and the collation of stories to create a body of work that utilises experimental formats of archival and artistic outcomes. Rooted in feminist and anti-colonial epistemologies, the intention is to unearth the rhizomatic connective tissues between past, present and future.

Cumulative Creative Contributions

This speculative archive is made up of a series of cumulative creative contributions from a network of artists and local communities to reimagine a digital archive that rejects traditional forms and structure, to better resist colonial and hierarchical archival frameworks by adopting care-centred methodologies of practice as intentional and restorative resources implemented throughout the archive.

The project is led by artist and programme facilitator, Sandra Falase, part of a year-long engagement programme at Alice Billing House, supported by the Creative Land Trust and Heritage Lottery Fund.