Who Needs Art Archivism When We Have Instagram?
Caught within the matrix of the Instagram algorithm, searching for inspiration, it is easy to lose yourself. Sometimes, while scrolling past four identical pictures of Kate moss holding a cigarette, shots of ballet pumps paired with legwarmers, or bleached eyebrows, it is hard to feel fulfilled. The internet is a lawless wild west when it comes to image dating; such aforementioned images whip around the theoretical high school cafeteria, becoming the inspo for aesthetic-orientated cults; heroin chic, ballet-core, fairy-core, Y2K, whimsy gothic, lolita-core: ad infinitum. In Techo-capitalism, the past appears flattened - trends from disparate periods emerge simultaneously, easily accessible through the Instagram algorithm.
In his essay The Archival impulse, Hal Foster describes how the function of the archive has mutated alongside the age of digital information. As information becomes increasingly commodity-orientated, relating solely to the production of capital, the archive concedes to the database. But the archive is, by definition, an accumulation of historical records or materials. The Instagram archivist preserves historical moments rather than data, which seems alien in an app like Instagram. In an age preoccupied with nostalgia, these new online libraries present a new and refreshing mode of engaging with a history that breaks from the disjointed perspective afforded through social media.
By presenting specialised, highly specific knowledge through an easily accessible, open format - these misnomer accounts are the solution for doom-scrolling aesthetes.
In the Fruits Magazine Archive (@fruits_magazine_archive), over twenty-five years of Harajuku youth subculture is documented. The account curates the work of Shiochi Aoki, a street fashion photographer working since 1985. In over two-thousand posts, Aoki steadily documents fashion shifts and individual experiments of Japanese youth from 2001 until the present day. While these outfits range from the quotidian to the statement, goth to lolita - Aoki presents a definitive style bible for today’s youth. In 2017, Aoki announced that Fruits would stop publishing - citing that “there are no more cool kids to photograph”.
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Other archival accounts curate content that matches the moods of Gen-z’s appetite for past trends. Your Fashion Archive (@yourfashionarchive) is run by designer and artist Oliver Leone. Bringing to light the unnoticed, esoteric elements of underground subcultures - Leone produces visual essays of transgression from across the world. ‘Scans of the 1999 8th Wave Gothic Festival in Germany, from the Japanese tattoo magazine BURST Vol.22’ is just one example. Other’s feel more familiar; providing source material for many a Depop hashtag; Kawaii fashion, Hysteric Glamour and Cyberpunk aesthetics. As long as micro-trends have existed, so has the fashion archivist.
Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of the online archive is that it does not overtly, or even covertly, try to sell us anything. Any social media literate individual will know the near impossibility of navigating the digital sphere without feeling the pressure to spend. The influencer economy is able to sell to us in a way that looks, and feels, unobtrusive.
As noted by Emily Hund in her 2023 work, ‘The Influencer industry’, Instagram is created for ‘producing, evaluating and marketing content relied on a positive association with authenticity’.
In a world where authenticity is constructed by the rules of online engagement - it may feel far-fetched to describe any Instagram account as genuine. The Westwood archives (@westwoodarchives) dedicated to the late, great fashion designer is one exception. The account owner runs meticulous documentation of Westwood’s oeuvre - a refreshing view into an icon who has recently been distilled into her orb necklaces and rings. Overlooked elements of Westwood’s history appear; images of The New Romantics runway, the designer’s fascination with pirates, and the pieces featured in the cult-classic anime ‘NANA’. Considering Westwood’s fascination with the outmoded, unfashionable and ridiculous - it feels suitable that her work be showcased through an archival lens.
The celebration of a life’s work is one of the crucial tasks of the individual archiver - as demonstrated in the James Baldwin dedicated collection (@jamesbaldwinarchive). Administrated by Egyptian-American writer Fawzy, the archive is described as a place to focus on the life and work of the Black queer genius. The archive curates images of Baldwin throughout his life, accompanied by quotes from his writing - compiling images, interviews and facts to shape an easily accessible online portrait. Fawzy includes links to Baldwin’s writing: A report from Occupied Territory, Letter from a Region in My Mind, and his dispatches from the civil rights movement. These sources may not always appear totally unfamiliar: while they have been drawn from the archives of mass culture - their act of retrieval represents something crucial in our present moment.
“By undermining the Instagram algorithm’s focus on the monetary, the online archive may be the one positive side effect of our visually-saturated cultural moment.”
John Tagg, in his essay The Archiving Machine; or, The Camera and the Filing Cabinet writes how the archive becomes the repository of collective memory. As the archive mutates, from the rules of scientific documentation to a community-led act of remembrance - the importance of accounts such as Alayo Akinkugbe’s becomes clear. A Black History of Art (@ablackhistoryofart) is dedicated to highlighting overlooked Black artists, sitters, curators and thinkers from art history and today. Alayo Akinkugbe, an art historian and curator, presents an archive that is notably absent from the curricula of traditional art institutions and universities. Works by Deana Lawson, a contemporary American photographer of Black lives in the public and private sphere, coincide with the portrait of Katherina, by Albrecht Durer, painted in 1521.
More than any other archival example discussed here, this account demonstrates the ability of the archive to produce strands of connection between the past and present, and foster new trajectories.
The Archival Instagram impulse presents an exciting new future for the online sphere. By undermining the Instagram algorithm’s focus on the monetary, the online archive may be the one positive side effect of our visually-saturated cultural moment. They are reminiscent of the non-commercial orientation of Web 1.0, the history of which is now preserved by digital archivists in projects like text files and WWWTXT, and foregrounds a hopeful beginning for Web 3.0.
Words: Lydia Wilford
