Archive Stories

Marta Dell’Era never goes to work without her 24-karat gold-plated paperclips, which she owns in different sizes. She considers them indispensable for archiving documents: Over time, common steel ones may leave traces of rust and damage the paper. The golden clips are the quintessential incarnation of an idea she holds on to in and outside her job: Functional means beautiful, and vice versa. There’s also a sentimental reason she cherishes the pins: her father’s family business has been producing them – together with a range of other fancy stationery items – since 1850.

Golden clips appeared on our shared desk for the first time one year ago. They were encased in little, transparent magnetic boxes from which they peeped out lusciously. I was immediately fascinated. ‘What is this?’ I asked. I never thought a cheap, purely functional thing like that could look so cool. I wanted one very much. ‘Take it!’ said a girl in Gramicci trousers, fancy glasses, and a long, blondish braid as she materialized into the room. Later on, I became familiar with the paperclips as the unmistakable sign of the presence of my new colleague (and friend), Marta Dell’Era.

We were just beginning to organize Laguna~B’s journey into a proper archive with the help of Promemoria when she emailed us saying she wanted to help. An aspiring archivist and researcher, she was about to return to Venice after a semester in Stockholm. She’d read my essay Archiving Through Loss, and since she was focusing her master’s degree thesis on archives, she thought a collaboration would be a good match. It was. One year into the Archive project, it’s fair to say we couldn’t have done it without Marta Dell’Era, our in-house archivist.

Her first day, she says, was an emotional challenge. She hadn’t met the team yet, and had only exchanged a few words with Marcantonio. The first impact with Laguna~B happened in the most intimate, unexplored place: Marie Brandolini’s apartment, where our founder had established her company’s early headquarters and amassed documents, photographs, postcards, and paper cuts, left untouched for over 10 years. “My first finding, and the most significant to me, was Marie’s 2000 resumé, which ended with her declaring her favorite occupation was spending time with her sons, Guido, Marcantonio, and Gioacchino, reading or inventing stories for them.” After only a few hours into the job, she recalls, “I was so moved that I cried.” The resumé is also significant because it represents a most distinctive trait of Laguna~B – “one I would have to confront constantly while creating this archive:” Marie's (and her family’s) private life was tightly interlaced with the work she was carrying out at her newborn glassware company. The first – and the most disruptive – decision Dell’Era had to make while selecting the material, she says, was defining the boundaries between ‘personal’ and ‘professional’, and dividing the items accordingly. “A lot in Marie's apartment still hasn't been archived. But I decided to leave out what I considered too intimate and perhaps nonessential to the company’s history.”

Marta Dell’Era, who doesn’t have traditional training as an archivist, likes to approach the discipline her own way. She compares building an archive to creating an installation.

She sees archivists as “authors” or “curators” and thinks they should embrace the responsibility of their choices as curatorial acts. “Archiving requires a constant decision-making process. I think the archivist’s authorship isn’t usually properly conveyed and has yet to be acknowledged by institutions.” Obviously, every decision implies excluding something, exposing one story over another. “In Laguna~B’s case, consequences may be mild, but if you take historical archives, principles of exclusion and inclusion heavily influence social narratives.”

While there’s poetry in seeing archivists as artists, there’s a downside to it: “If something is subjective, then it’s also inherently biased.” The solution is to give up the ambition of neutrality, and embrace the process as subjective. “When you do archival work, you put so much of yourself into it. Archivists should be aware of that [subjectiveness], and always provide reasoning and make their decisions explicit.” Objectivity might be the ultimate goal for some, but we know that no human being can be completely neutral. Working at Laguna~B’s Archive, she says, “I tried to make the best choices, always acknowledging that they were my own.” The process illuminated previously unexpressed aspects of the company and brought out inspiring stories – some of which have found space in this newsletter.

As we speak on the phone, Marta Dell’Era is in Oslo, where she’s spending three months as an archivist and guest curator at the International Library of Fashion Research, an immense collection of fashion paper magazines and documents open to the public. Working at ILFR has strengthened another fundamental belief of her original approach. “To me, archives are utopian spaces where anything can be imagined,” where the past lives as the building blocks of the future. “I love the idea that spent, exhausted objects or visions will turn into new projects, new aesthetics. Potentially, also new social and political scenarios.”

That truly happens at the ILFR: “Designers consult the library, get inspired by past collections [they see in the magazines], and design new ones.” Her job there is less that of a researcher and more of a mediator, whose main task is to make the material accessible and inspiring for a broader audience. She has recently curated an exhibition – No Junk Mail: Fashion in the Post – exploring the fascinating role of postcards and other mail-based communication in the fashion world from the 1990s onwards. “Before brand imagery was instantly broadcast to millions via smartphones, the postal system offered a tactile, intimate way for brands to connect with consumers,” the curatorial text recites. Her theory is that the 90s fashion postcards participated in the spread of fashion imagery across society. “According to the postal service’s rules, postcards must travel without the envelope. So even if they’re addressed to one specific person, many people get the chance to see them. Think of the mailpersons in the 90s, who constantly had these beautiful pictures in their hands. It was this romantic idea that inspired me to do the show.”

Her fascination with Mail Art originated at Laguna~B. The annual postcards Marie used to send to friends and clients are, according to Dell’Era, among the most significant items in our Archive, and they form a nourished, evolving research corpus. “They exemplify the intermingling of personal and commercial relationships. An approach that continues even today.”

Wherever she goes, Marta Dell’Era brings her style (and her golden paperclips) along. She’s passionate about her job, but she has a personal mission, too. “I’d like to unhinge the stereotype of the female archivist as an old, nerdy lady who dresses poorly. Here at the Library, we’re a team of four talented, cool young women. And we always wear great outfits. Just like Marie – a rare female presence in a male-dominated industry.”