‘An inventory of loss (ongoing)’, 2024 – (mixed media stitched onto scrim), is a meditation on lost archives, the fragmentary nature of what has been preserved and what Derrida (2017) describes as the “unknowable weight” of the archive. Archiving anticipates loss, and the archived object is “defined by its own partiality, which stands for everything else that has been lost” (Palladini and Pustianaz, 2017). ‘An inventory of loss (ongoing)’ emerged through thinking about the process of archiving as Barbaresi observed the work of Dolcie Obhiozele, Osmand Charles and  the Oxfordshire African Caribbean Community Archive (OACCAG), whilst volunteering practical support for the process of growing their archive alongside the research group ‘A Place for We’. Their work to create an archive is born out of the wish of the community to write their own history, and responds to a lack of representation in official records. This is a critical moment for the community to record its history as the memories of arriving in Britain to support the post-war rebuilding and recovery of the country are held by an increasingly small and aging group of elders.

The works shown here are a reflection on both the potentials and the limitations of the archive in recording a rich and complex history. There is a sense of the rupture or disconnect in “the attempt to remove the object from circulation and to fix it within a given framework” (Cranfield, 2014), and the possibility that this could result in a loss of the meaning and power in the archived material. But there is also the potential for the archive to be activated through its use in creative, healing practices and collective activities to forge meaning and relevance for the community as a ‘living archive’ (Hall, 2001).

Barbaresi works with material processes to explore these ideas, layering, stitching, cutting, drawing and re-assembling using ephemeral and found materials. Offcuts from the creative process have been re-purposed into these works, which are presented as assemblages of disparate unknown fragments. The use of stitched fabric brings together ideas of sewing as a healing practice, and continues an ongoing enquiry into ways of questioning and extending painting as a form.