The Matriarchive

The Matriarchive album is a 64-page hardback published work which was exhibited at the Brighton CCA Dorset place gallery at the University of Brighton in September 2021. The album was displayed as part of a larger exhibition that showcased the work created during Rachel Maloney’s practice-led Research Fellowship, also titled 'The Matriarchive' with the V&A Museum Research Institute (VARI) and the University of Brighton between 2019-2021. A copy of the publication is held in the University of Brighton Special Collections at St Peters House library (305.4/MAL).

The Matriarchive project aimed to investigate and re-frame the female narrative of domestic photographic materials in historic and contemporary family albums, uncovering the often marginalised memories, experiences, and representations of women in the home. The Matriarchive album was created in part from a series of collaborative research participant workshops undertaken during the project, and the images included in the volume are a document of the workshops, and a testament to the project and its participants.

Album contents:

Section 1: 'The Matriarchive' - essay by Rachel Maloney. The text for ‘The Matriarchive’ essay is copyright Rachel Maloney, July 2021 but all images used within the essay are copyright protected as stated in the captions below individual images.

Section 2: Research Participant Workshops - All images reproduced from private collections have been acknowledged and printed with permission.

Section 3 ‘Paper, Scissors, Glue: Doing and Undoing Family Photographs, On and off the Page’. Essay by Dr. Annebella Pollen. Essay copyright Annebella Pollen July 2021.

Section 4: Difficult Darkroom Womxn Collective: An Introduction text by Rachel Maloney, 2021. Copyright and creative content remains with the four artists for the images of their individual works: Abigail Evans, Es Follas-Shell, Ola Teper and Sofa Smith - copyright remains with the original artists, reproduced with permission.

Section 5: Acknowledgements and Thanks. This book was produced as part of a Research Fellowship output and was kindly funded and supported by the University of Brighton’s Research Office and the University of Brighton’s School of Media alongside the Victoria and Albert Museum Research Institute (VARI).

The original design and creative content of The Matriarchive album are copyright Rachel Maloney, 2021.