Imperfect Archiving, Archiving as Practice: For a Love of Softness

Imperfect Archiving, Archiving as Practice For a Love of Softness is printed in conjunction with the opening of Imperfect Archiving/Archiving as Practice a reading room by GenderFail Archive Project at Center for Book Arts. The exhibition is on view at CBA’s Manhattan location from July 9th- September 18th 2021. This manifesto talks to core of GenderFail collecting and archiving practices that looks to the softness of the collected and archived book as a metaphor for the type of content that are housed within. The GenderFail Archive Project is a socially engaged reading room that looks at archiving as a social activity. The project stems from GenderFail’s desire to share the publications from their personal library and give a platform to other publishers that they cherish. Imperfect Archiving/Archiving as Practice shows its full collection of over 1,000 art books, artist books and zines for the first time. GenderFail will also be showing GenderFail Archive Project Bookcases, which are collaborative sculptures made with artists that reimagine how books can be displayed in reading room installations. The GenderFail Archive Project has installed reading rooms within various institutions such as MoMA PS1, The International Center of Photography, The Studio Museum of Harlem, EFA Project Space and many others.