Archives, Memory, and a Child-Centred History: an insightful discussion with Dr Victoria Hoyle
Words by Lizzy Jones
As part of my role as gallery assistant with Belle, we are in charge of decoration. When conceiving of how we were going to transform the space into a childhood haven for our current exhibition Child’s Play, it encouraged me to think more deeply about how what we perceive as being associated with childhood is intimately linked with our own experiences growing up, and how that varies immensely. My historical curiosity was thus piqued, and I set upon my task to understand how growing up, one of the few experiences that can be said to have been shared by everyone across time and space, has been viewed both throughout history and by historians. I found Dr Victoria Hoyle, a historian of childhood at the University of York who works closely with archives and communities of lived experience, particularly studying histories of trauma and abuse. Throughout my time talking with her, she provided fascinating insights into child-centred histories and her work with memory, archives, and childhoods spent in care.
Peter Barker’s installation piece ‘A moment lost, a moment gained’ at the Norman Rea Gallery Child’s Play exhibition, wooden blocks.
When summarising the relationship between childhood and archives in her work with the Project of Memory-Identity-Rights in Records-Access (MIRRA) at UCL, which will be discussed in more detail later on, Dr Hoyle raised the intriguing question of the importance of constructing child-centred histories. She highlighted the challenges of firstly studying children, and what makes a child-centred history and archive necessary. It has been well-acknowledged that children are a marginalised group, with their experiences being disbelieved, possessing very little agency, and suffering through trauma and broken families. Dr Hoyle also mentioned that being compared to a child has often been derogatory, as they are not living up to adult standards. This specifically resonates with a question that our Child’s Play exhibition has raised, why is it bad to be likened to the mind of a child? Moreover, it is particularly related to 19th century colonial narratives about non-western peoples, who it was said had an ‘inner-child,’ which was used to justify imperial control over them. This rings true with, I’m sure, many art historians who are well-aware of the categorization of non-western art in the western-centred art historical canon as more ‘primitive’ and ‘less developed’.
Birch bark drawing of a Russian boy Onfim, about 1260, Novgorod By Onfim of Novgorod, copy by http://www.gramoty.ru - http://gramoty.ru/prorisi/bb200.gif
Finding this to be an intriguing topic, I asked Dr Hoyle to expand upon establishing a child-centred history. The key lies in the archive and a focus on ephemeral culture. We must seek out the wealth of materials that children use and produce, from toys to drawings. The material culture of children is a particular focus of Child’s Play, emphasised in works such as Peter Baker’s ‘A moment lost, a moment gained,’ featuring a number of wood blocks lined up in a way in which children are often inclined to play with them. However, what has typically been the challenge for a child-centred history is that archives have been filtered through adults and their determination of what is significant. This places a barrier between the historian and the child, with their voices being erased or censored in favour of an adult’s perspective. The solutions for this are to create an archive in which children can determine what is preserved, and Dr Hoyle drew my attention in particular to an archive with which she has worked: the Swedish children's picture archive. A collection of children’s artwork which began in the 1970s, with the earliest pieces being from the 18th century. There is no criteria for collection, only that children deem it important, thus taking seriously what they value. While retrospectively building an archive presents a more daunting task, any objects that survive today have been determined by those who have the money, space, and resources to preserve it (namely adults), it’s certain that we can learn much through studying what comes from the minds of children and as such centre them in their own history. Dr Hoyle also mentioned the pioneering work done by folklorists in the study of children, bringing particular attention to the oral history constructed by Iona and Peter Opie, who recorded the children’s games, chants, etc, on school playgrounds. You can read more about this in the Opie Archives.
Screenshot of the digital Swedish children’s picture archive. https://www.eskilstuna.se/kultur-och-fritid/bibliotek-arkiv-och-lokalhistoria/arkiv-och-samlingar/svenskt-barnbildarkiv.
Ideas of memory and identity are ones that are key to the exhibition, from Matilda Philips’ ‘Baby Blues,’ to Lillian Tagg’s oil paintings which explore found photography and salvaging what has been forgotten. These ideas are also relevant to Dr Hoyle’s work with archives, particularly her postgraduate project MIRRA at UCL referenced above, which was incredibly inspiring to her academic career. We began by discussing the role of memory more generally. It is an active process, shaped not just by the experiences that we are remembering but by our lives more generally. We often rehearse certain memories, both what is prominent to us but also in the context of what our families remember about us. The composition of what we do remember constructs our identity. Our memories are also shaped by what is confirmed around us, which can also lead to certain groups or the same generations having certain themes within their memories. One example Dr Hoyle provided of these collaborative memories was an oral history project conducted on memories of school meals and it was found the same stories arose, recalling similar smells, noises, and atmospheres of the canteen. Trauma is also highly impactful on memory. It can bleed out to tinge all of the childhood memories or reversely the traumatic memories can be hidden in lieu of positive ones. The primary message that emerges from this is that the memory process is malleable, creative, and constantly changing.
Lillian Tagg’s artworks ‘Ugly Girls Birthday Party’ (Left) and ‘Untitled’ (Right) at the Norman Rea Gallery Child’s Play exhibition, oil paintings.
The MIRRA project focused on adults who grew up in social care, their constructed narratives of childhood, and allowed them to interact with the archives to help their memory processes. It was found that the childhood memories of adults who spent time in social care, primarily during the 1960s and 1970s, were fragmented. They did not have the resources to confirm their own memories; neither parents or family members to discuss stories of growing up nor childhood photos to look back on. The project looked to help these adults gain access to the archives and records of their time in social care to attempt to fill in the gaps. However the relationship between history and memory is never easy, and several problems were encountered. Many of the records from their social workers were racist or classist, describing the children in a harsh and derogatory light, and didn’t resolve the questions looking to be answered. Yet Dr Hoyle also highlighted how these records were also empowering. They confirmed and evidenced their feelings of being isolated and demeaned in their childhood, and validated the traumatic memories they held. This project was also incredibly important to answering questions such as: how to help children without the infrastructure of memory making, how to help other adults formerly in social care access their memories, and how to help children currently in social care? I would encourage you to explore the MIRRA project in more depth and look through its research archive. The valuable insights it provides into understanding memories and archives are vital in making a difference in people’s lives.
After such an insightful discussion on a topic on which I previously knew very little, I asked Dr Hoyle if she had anything that I hadn’t included in my questions that she thought was important. She emphasised that children are not homogenous. The answer to what is a child is not a fixed concept and the marginalisation of children intersects with many other identities. Children appear in all other histories, and are nearly always a subset. It is easy for us to focus on the Euro-centric definition of a child and the history of white childhood, however, children exist everywhere. From the typical school playground all the way to slave plantations of the Antebellum American south. They must not be forgotten.
