Creating, Documenting and Using Archives of Spontaneous Memorials: Building an International Network

This project will investigate the practices, agents, outputs and impact of creating, documenting and using archives of large-scale spontaneous memorials that appear after violent events, such as in the recent cases of Manchester Arena (May 2017), Barcelona, (August 2017), and Las Vegas (October 2017). Through a 2-day International Network Initiation Workshop in Manchester, it will explore conceptual, practical and ethical challenges in archiving spontaneous memorials, including the preparedness of cultural authorities to respond to the speed, timeframe and public expectations of these memorials; issues of public participation and co-production; and the expansion of the spontaneous memorialisation on digital and social media. It will also identify methodological challenges, develop cross-disciplinary research directions and plan for a long-term research programme. The intended outcomes are the formation of a community of practice and the co-production of a multi-partner research project on rapid response, emergency documentation and long-term archiving and use of spontaneous memorials.