Ethics of Archive Material

There are surely ethics involved in searching through an archive for the study of the Holocaust and Genocide for other reasons. Of course I'm very aware of the context, but I am not making work about the Holocaust. The photos I'm working with are not the direct images, but evidence of the lives which would soon be devastated. I'm looking at them to get that feel of a world faded in time, and the fabrics, textiles, streets and attitudes people lived in.

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-weiner-library-archive.html

14th January 2014

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I am planning to do this course about Open Research:

https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2377/open-research/
(Completed October 2014 http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/open-research.html)

It starts in September, and so it is yet another thing to fit in, but I think it's a great opportunity to explore both research and issues of ethics. In PhD applications there is a section to fill about research ethics, and I filled those in to date as best I could, but really without totally grasping what was wanted. I understand the leap between MA and PhD research, in that in an MA, at least in Fine Art, I am relatively free to choose the research materials and compile references as I come across them, whereas in a PhD there is a cluster of core materials at the heart of a subject, even though the researcher brings in new material around the edges.

I learned a lot about the approach and the language of research while working on the PhD applications.

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/phd-application.html

As yet I don't know if I will perhaps reapply for a PhD at some point, or some other research opportunities such as the Winston Churchill Memorial Scholarship:

http://www.wcmt.org.uk/

I'd like to be able to work as an artist in archives and institutions. I realise that when writing applications, it helps to speak in the language of the people looking at the application, so in that case, other researchers. I remember Les Bicknell talking about that:

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/research-process-and-practice-les.html

I also realise that I don't have as yet much language to express issues of ethics, other than self evident and obvious things about morals and respect, not being exploitative and owning the new associations you are adding to provenance. Research ethics are to do with methodology.

As to my own ethics in using research material, I hope, even at this late stage in the MA, to be able to add some more coherent thoughts about my intentions and responsibilities. I think that is also very much in the work, as I have deliberately avoided signposting and directing interpretation.

10th September 2014

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As an option in the recent Open Research course, http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/open-research.html

I completed the Protecting Human Research Participants certification by the NIH Office of Extramural Research. https://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/login.php
This is an American medical ethics standard which is widely used in research in other disciples internationally. Each institution will have their own ethics policy document.

As an overview of ethics in action, it's very useful to have the basic standards, and the course also cover the history of the evolution of research ethics following the violations during the so-called medical experiments during the Holocaust, and other cases such as African American men injected with syphilis during the 1930's.

All research - science, humanities arts, may have similar concerns about informed consent and anonymisation etc.

Again, it's a good and useful grounding in ethics for research projects, and what other researchers understand.

Of course, it turns out that besides using the archive and anonymous old school photos from Eastern Europe, I have another ethical issue in my piece Embedded which is much closer personally.
My mother Ellen is 91 years old, and after going great, had rather a decline a last year. She now lives in a home and has what they call "wandering dementia" What the really means is that her concept of time and place has floated away. She seems to have completely forgotten the family home where she lived for 50 years, and now largely inhabits her youth in Ireland, populated with her mother, her sisters, and various daughters as changing members of the cast. She is floating away. She took to singing a couple of years ago, and echo of the farm in Ireland where everyone came round to play music with her father who played the violin. Even the singing is now floating away from her, but she listens intently to music, and greets each face in her family with a welcoming recognition or knowledge. Last year I recorded her singing, and use that in Embedded - In sunshine and in shadow. I use her sweet vulnerability, and layer it in my work. There can be no informed consent with my mother any more, and as her daughter, I both protect her and expose that vulnerability.

I am keeping and sharing the secret. If I imagine back a few years and think what Ellen would say about it, I conclude she would go along with it, although would probably want a better recording of her voice. She was quite adventurous at life, my Mum, and had an appreciation of art.

I have sisters - five sisters. I've invited them to the show, and various nieces and nephews and so on. I don't know how many will make it to Bank Street - but let me imagine they all come, and what response they might have to their mother's/granny's old lady voice. I am telling them anyway that I am using a recording of Ellen. One thing I do know about coming from a large family is that there is never a consensus - some may find it comforting, or exploitative, or unprivate, or appropriate. Perhaps for every family member there is a response, even a strong response.

I made a work, Echo, a few years ago using snatches of piano recordings made by my dad the year before he died in 1980. http://www.eleanormacfarlane.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=176184497 (due to update website - adding crucial sound to that). I remember the response from many of the viewers was that it is an almost universal experience that there was someone in the family who had played the piano - it spoke of their father or grandfather or uncle, or someone they knew, or at least could imagine by ascribing certain characteristic of amalgamated older men from life or remembered TV and film. The idea of the older man playing in a vanished style was part of most people's heritage, perhaps a collective memory or archetype.

Similarly, I believe that many people will relate in some way to my mother singing. Perhaps a mother, a grandmother or aunt, or some old lady that used to be in church or lived in the same street. This, is a way, is my response and my justification for using such an intimate recording of an old lady singing in her sweet wavering voice which betrays that a lifetime adds layers of time to the girl. One way or another decisions are made, and I am aware of what might be called ethical issues in this choice, and I am prepared to be questioned and challenged about it, while maintaining that I have used the material sensitively.

13th October 2014