Introduction: Materiality as connective tissue

This introductory chapter frames the rationale for the publication, as a contribution to bridging the gap between archival and non-archival bodies of knowledge. Positing materiality as a framework for analysing, interpreting and engaging explicitly with archives of creative practice, it contributes to the mapping of a shared terrain at the intersection of archives, material culture and creative practice. Noting some key points of connection and commonality across these and other related disciplines, it highlights themes that underpin the volume. In doing so, it seeks to connect the object-based ontology of material culture with the text-based ontology of the archive. While drawing on some considerations of materiality already enriching archive studies from other disciplines, it expands this connective potential of materiality in the other direction, outwards from the archive, a concept which is articulated in the structure and arrangement of the individual contributions in four parts: In, With, About and Beyond the Archive.