Seven promises and letdowns of urgent image collections of violence: The curse of the archive

Taking a point of departure in archiving practices related to digital images that document human rights abuses and other grave violence, the authors explore what they refer to as the curse of the archive. The article is based on years of collaborations and research with people who archive and work with a vast variety of small and large digital image archives to support human rights, accountability and reconciliation. The authors argue that despite – and at times because of – the promises of the archive, the archive is a curse. By this they mean that people working with the archives are at once driven by their importance and potential while simultaneously knowing that their potential for accountability and reconciliation are unlikely to be realised.