Who keeps what in collaborations?
Collaboration is common in the arts sector. This is a positive thing, but it also brings specific challenges regarding archive care and management. There are project-based collaborations (e.g. co-productions), loose partnerships, one-off or long-term collaborations with freelancers, etc. – but these can lead to the risk of archives that belong together becoming fragmented. Without this cohesion, part of the (social) value may be lost. To prevent this, you can make agreements about delivering and preserving (sub)products. Think of scripts, compositions, choreographies, (set) designs, photo and video recordings...
When working with multiple parties, consider the following questions:
- What will you keep? What will other parties keep?
- Is it best to centralise the preservation with one partner, or should copies be kept in different places in some cases?
- What can the person who keeps the archive do with the archival materials obtained from another party (co-producer, freelancer, etc.), e.g. online publishing, selling, destroying or donating to a cultural institution?
- Who should you make agreements with about use and reuse?
When considering these questions, take into account not only the physical ownership but also the intellectual property of the material.
Author: Bart Magnus (meemoo), based on the guide ‘Je archief op orde’ (DEN, 2023 - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)