Abstract
This study examines Interference Archive, a collectively run archive of social movement ephemera in Brooklyn, as a site where archival practice and design converge in continuous public formation. Through an analysis of exhibitions, interviews, and institutional materials, it demonstrates how archives employ the design tactics of tracing and projection not as discrete interventions but as recursive practices embedded in long-term infrastructuring. Tracing reveals genealogies of struggle, enabling participants to locate themselves within shared histories, while projection transforms this awareness into forward-looking artifacts and events that circulate beyond the archive. Unlike conventional participatory design or speculative futuring, IA cultivates a prefigurative present, where the deliberate curation of socio-technical assemblages and volunteer-led programming sustains counterpublics through material maintenance rather than depoliticized innovation. This analysis repositions counter-institutional archives as alternative knowledge infrastructures, demonstrating how design’s political potential lies in maintaining the conditions through which collectives continuously articulate issues and prefigure different social realities.
Keywords
maintenance, prefigurative archiving, infrastructuring, counterpublics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1083
Citation
Han, S. (2026) Maintaining Counterpublics: Archival Recursion and Prefiguration, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1083
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Maintaining Counterpublics: Archival Recursion and Prefiguration
This study examines Interference Archive, a collectively run archive of social movement ephemera in Brooklyn, as a site where archival practice and design converge in continuous public formation. Through an analysis of exhibitions, interviews, and institutional materials, it demonstrates how archives employ the design tactics of tracing and projection not as discrete interventions but as recursive practices embedded in long-term infrastructuring. Tracing reveals genealogies of struggle, enabling participants to locate themselves within shared histories, while projection transforms this awareness into forward-looking artifacts and events that circulate beyond the archive. Unlike conventional participatory design or speculative futuring, IA cultivates a prefigurative present, where the deliberate curation of socio-technical assemblages and volunteer-led programming sustains counterpublics through material maintenance rather than depoliticized innovation. This analysis repositions counter-institutional archives as alternative knowledge infrastructures, demonstrating how design’s political potential lies in maintaining the conditions through which collectives continuously articulate issues and prefigure different social realities.