binder_archives_index.html

Binder Archives is a portable exhibition that is designed to travel with the greatest of ease. In Binder Archives, three-ring binders and their European equivalents are used as a mode of presenting or containing large quantities of material and information. For this project, individual artists, exhibition organizers, creative people, archivists and groups have produced binders that they have filled with photographs, drawings, documentation, photocopies, printed ephemera, tactile objects, or any other material that can be punched with three holes or stored in a binder. Each binder is a self-contained project or archive of a person's or group's work. Some of these individual binders contain as much material as one might expect to find in an entire exhibit or a book. Viewers can freely handle the binders just as they might browse through books in a reference library.

Binder Archives is easily unpacked and installed in a matter of minutes. Everything that is needed for the exhibit fits in a single modified hard foam plastic case. The case is large enough to hold between ten and twelve binders containing over one thousand pages of material. It can also store over 100 free booklets, posters, and one or two folding chairs. The case is suitable for indoor or outdoor use. It is lightweight, resistant to rust and corrosion, and made from plastic with a strength that is topped only by metal. The case can be checked into the body of an airplane as luggage. One person can wheel Binder Archives down the street and unpack as much or as little of the work as can be displayed at a particular site. A site with tables or desks is ideal, but a floor will suffice. Walls are unnecessary. As with all Temporary Services projects, free booklets about Binder Archives will accompany all presentations. A poster will be used to mark locations or advertise publicly.

With Binder Archives, Temporary Services has developed a strategy for bringing large and complete projects to different audiences in an active manner. The binders a housed in a case that can be carried, pushed on wheels or shipped. This means finding new spaces that are available inexpensively or for free, using other institutions on a short-term basis, using the homes of friends in other cities, using publicly trafficked space in new ways and finding affordable ways to present exhibitions internationally.