This consultation was a response to the need of Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, a partner organisation in the first round of the project, in the field of archive keeping – including what this process entails, covering the training of the Foundation staff in working with archives and how to preserve them, as well as holding supervision meetings to oversee the process of archiving.
The intervention was executed by consultant Baha al-Jubeh and looked at the archiving of the different kinds of artworks and the collections owned by Al Mamal, which include visual, audio and text works. The consultancy spanned three months, beginning in November 2018.
The consultancy provided advice on the special materials necessary for the keeping of and protection of the archive, catagorising the archive, and the varied methods of storing books and photographs as well as posters, large prints, publications, digital disks and videotapes, and how to handle the space allotted for its storage, finding solutions for humidity and electricity problems, and the best materials to be used for preservation. It also included supervising the documentation of the library and overseeing the data programme related to it. This included the organisation, categorisation and indexing of the books and library resources, and the establishing of a digital archive and database.
Baha al-Jubeh holds a BA in History and Archaeology from Birzeit University, and received his MA in Jerusalem Studies from Al-Quds University’s Jerusalem Studies Centre. He also completed studies in Museum Management at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, which included training in collections registration and restoration as well as the management of outreach and educational programmes. Al-Jubeh has a diploma in the German language from the Herder Institute in Leipzig, Germany. He currently works at the Palestine Museum.