Reframing the Archive

Notes from the Woodford Academy Residency

When I began my residency at Woodford Academy, I expected the work to pull me toward the deep history of the site—into its colonial past, its architectural remnants, the layered stories of early settlement in the Blue Mountains. I imagined the visual language of the project would be shaped by that historic atmosphere, grounded in pioneer aesthetics and heritage textures. Hand written letters and sepia photos.

And while those traces are definitely present—and important—they haven’t been the primary thread of my work so far. What I’ve found myself drawn to instead is a quieter, more recent layer of the Academy’s history: a collection of administrative ephemera that spans the past two or so decades of the site’s life as a museum.

Early in the residency, I was generously given a box of paper material—items no longer needed, but preserved before being discarded. Raffle tickets, cheque books, brochures, photocopied meeting minutes, receipts, tour group itineraries, handwritten rosters. There was even a booklet that gave instructions on editing digital images—complete with Windows 95-era screenshots and formatting guides. At first glance, these may seem like the ordinary paperwork of any small organisation. But taken together, they’ve become something else: an inadvertent archive of a particular moment in time, one that’s already beginning to fade from view.

As someone whose practice often explores themes of obsolescence, disruption, and the life cycle of systems, I found myself responding immediately to the overlooked beauty of this material. Barcodes, account numbers, serials, spreadsheets—relics not of the distant past, but of a world just recent enough to feel familiar, and just dated enough to feel ghosted.

What’s been surprising is not that I’ve found meaning in this material, but that I’ve found continuity. I assumed that working within a heritage setting would push me into unfamiliar thematic territory. But instead, I’ve discovered that my usual preoccupations—analogue decay, techno-administrative aesthetics, the invisible infrastructure of everyday systems—are all still here. They’ve simply taken on a different surface texture.

The work that has so far emerged from this residency isn’t about rewriting history, or critiquing the institution. It’s about listening carefully to what’s already embedded in the material—what’s been filed, copied, faxed, and set aside. It’s about recognising the deep care and commitment that has gone into sustaining a place like this, not just across centuries, but through the often-unseen labour of recent decades. And in that respect, I feel incredibly lucky to be here—not only as an artist, but as a witness to the quieter forms of preservation that keep history alive.