From Wednesday 2 October | 24/7

Throughout October, Page Not Found’s storefront will show our third Open Letter of 2024: “Archival Queries” by Dans Jirgensons.

Dans Jirgensons: “The Letter asks two questions about conservation: what is the motivation and what drives the actions? This encourages the passer-by to reflect on their own ways and reasoning, as well as those of others, including individuals and institutions. Questioning why and what we archive, preserve, seek to possess, remember and forget, contain or contain is a relevant contemplation, especially now that we are navigating a world with an abundance of digital and physical data. These acts of preservation become essential for shaping our identities, histories and individual as well as collective memories.”

A recent graduate from the graphic design department at KABK, Dans focuses on examining and reflecting on human behaviour and navigation. His work often explores and experiments with graphic design elements that appear aged, anonymous, and ambiguous. For his graduation project, he delved into the topic of archives and archiving, investigating various methods, with a particular focus on personal archives, decay, urgency, indexing, and shareable archives. In addition to personal projects, Dans works freelance, primarily in printed matter, web design, and visual identities.

Open Letters is an urban intervention project launched by Page Not Found in March 2021. It is designed as an open call for artists and writers in The Hague to occupy our storefront with messages of urgency and vulnerability. Open Letters was inspired by the short essay “The Year I Stopped Making Art. Why the art world should assist artists beyond representation; in solidarity,” written by the artist Paul Maheke in April 2020 as a reflection and call for solidarity in response to the current global situation and art world.

We kindly thank Stroom Den Haag, Gemeente Den Haag and the Mondriaan Fund for supporting this programme.

Image: teaser for “Archival Queries” by Dans Jirgensons