The first exhibition of the Wilderness Archive took place at the Centro Cultural La Moneda (Santiago, Chile) from October 2020 to May 2021. You can read the catalogue here.

The Wilderness Archive is a research-based project that involves the creation of new multimedia archives in different parts of the world. Its purpose is to encourage new perspectives, creative endeavours and learning opportunities aimed at redefining our relationship with nature, starting from the very notion of wilderness. As an open platform and local resource, the Wilderness Archive operates through collaborative research, interdisciplinary residencies and public engagement initiatives.

The Wilderness Archive sites are a curated selection of locations that exist within different ecosystems where wilderness (still) prevails over human intervention. This could be thought of as a distributed library or museum, where each collection of archival material is physically present in and inherently linked to its own ecosystem. Archival records refer to each site’s biodiversity as much as visible and invisible signs of human intervention. Their story is told through multiple perspectives, from the scientific to the institutional, personal or spiritual. In each site, we partner with local hosts who help us design, develop and maintain the archive.

By exploring the boundary between human cultures and untouched or seemingly untouched environments, the Wilderness Archive aims to generate debate and tools that will contest the binary perspective that sees Humanity above Nature. Ultimately, the Wilderness Archive places value upon the uniqueness of different geographies and social contexts, whilst recognising our deep interconnectedness with Nature wherever we are.