While this pop-up Institute was ephemeral in nature, intended to exist for a limited duration, the collaborations and production of experience and knowledge left a trace in the form of publications, artwork, podcasts, discussion forums and other documents. Throughout the existence of the Edgelands Institute (2020-2026), it was important to systematically document this dynamic of collaboration and creation, as a way to leave lasting building blocks for future developments. This archive also documents the concrete effects of a pop-up institute beyond its existence.

An archive is always an archive of the future.

An archive is there for new interpretation, interaction, contextualisation and it leads us to ask the following question: What kind of future do we want? For this reason, the objective of this archive is not only to preserve the creations of the past, but to serve as a tool for future actions, experiences and development of ideas. The Edgelands Institute Archive is based on a hybrid model. It is classical in the sense that it systematically documents all items within the Edgelands fonds, providing key descriptions and information. At the same time, it has the ambition of inspiring new action, of serving as a model for future structures based on the pop-up methodology and its primary benefits for social, artistic and academic institutions.

An important question raised during the conceptualisation of this archive was to find an approach that would represent the temporary and sometimes even ephemeral aspects of the Institute and some of its activities. How do you archive an event that took place at a specific moment in time and that did not result in the production of a document (video, artwork, text)? With the idea that all events and experiences leave a trace (material or immaterial) as a starting point, it was thus important to incorporate into the archive structure this aspect of the immaterial, of the ephemeral, that which leaves an impact nonetheless and has an influence, even if that influence is not immediately apparent. These ephemeral events are thus incorporated into the archive as a collection, as references to experiences, but also and perhaps in a more dynamic way, they are represented by the network of the numerous actors who have worked together throughout the Edgelands Institute experience. The website hosting the Archive also hosts the Edgelands Network, making it possible to visualise these interconnections by different categories and to develop future collaborative projects.

More specifically, it consists of 895 documents, in several forms of media:

• Texts (articles, reports, books)
• Artwork (photography, photo documentation of installations, performances, and other media)
• Videos and podcasts
• Public events (documentation of roundtable discussions and conferences)
• Data showcases

Some of the items in this archive are a documentation of events, discussions or art exhibitions. Given their ephemeral nature, just as the ephemeral nature of a pop-up structure like Edgelands, it was important for us to find a way to leave a documented trace – namely with photographs and descriptive texts – of these collaborative moments in time.

These series represent six major benefits of the pop-up methodology and are illustrated with the most pertinent Edgelands documents. Each series contains different forms of media, produced in various partner cities, and represents the dialogue between research, art and society in general. The series are divided into several sub-series, most often by project type. Given the interdisciplinary and collaborative dynamic of the projects developed by the Edgelands Institute, many of the documents could illustrate several of the thematic series. The decision to classify documents in one series rather than another was guided mainly by thematic pertinence and representativity of form.

This archive was designed and created by Alexandre Bovey, Yves Daccord, Mateus Guzzo, Flávia Lozano, Laura Garcia Vargas and Eva Yampolsky.