Manuscript Subculture: Risk and Radical Practice in Art and Archives
Christian Julien Siroyt
Master of Fine Arts
2018

Criticism and Curatorial Practice OCAD University

Manuscript Subculture: Risk and Radical Practice in Art and Archives
presents a hand-made, one-of-a-kind artist’s book as a practical demonstration of the possibilities and limitations that arise from an engagement with manuscript subcultures in curatorial practice. The site-specific and self-referential nature of the thesis object, which includes original manuscript material embedded within its pages, enacts the concepts to which it refers through a selection of curatorial, archival and artistic contexts that are analyzed in three essays. The selections exemplify traditional and experimental modes of engagement with manuscript objects, and present strategies for integrating the radical implementation of new practices and theories alongside traditional ways of doing. This thesis argues that by actively troubling the conventions of curatorial and archival practice through experimentation with the formal properties of the manuscript object and the artist’s book, discourse in the field expands and encourages new modes of practice.