Archive & Illustration Exhibition 2021

The Archive Project has been running since January 2017 and has inspired a range of exciting exhibition works that tell the stories of archived boxes stored silently in the University of Dundee Archive

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Each year the DJCAD Level 3 Illustration students are presented with a ‘mystery’ archive box curated by the Archive staff. The boxes contain materials such as records, photographs, maps, plans, books, technical drawings & objects and are opened in a new light allowing for a fresh interpretation of their themes to be reached.

This year we launched the project on 1 December 2020, and we went in a new direction, with the students using interviews from the Archive's Oral History Project as the basis for their artworks.

The Oral History Project testimonies offer an insight into the memories of people who have lived and worked in Dundee and surrounding areas. Sometimes intimate and often intriguing, the recordings look back through the lives of mill and factory workers, academics, musicians, designers, artists, poets and scientists.

This archive of lived experiences has made this year's project especially exciting for the students, providing the opportunity to explore the hopes, dreams and realities of people from all walks of life.