Tom Finn

RCAPA is a generative online Archive catalogue, which holds several thousand posters from the last 80 Years at the Royal College of Art. Upon entering the site, the Catalogue presents the user with a new selection of images based upon predefined characteristics, which aims to allow for more of a serendipitous approach towards working with an archival collection. It will also provide current students at the RCA to upload new work to the archive, and outside visitors to edit or comment on existing posters to provide new understanding around the work. I assumed the role of the archivist in this process, working in a small team to digitise, and catalogue the entire collection. In its form the catalogue aims to challenge the perceptions of how an Archive can exist and be presented. 

The structure displayed in the RCAPA is based from a wide variety of Interviews with archivists, and critics which also culminated in the publication 
Order Reorder, Archives as Effervescent Bodies

RCA-poster-archive.co.uk