Art and archive: memory-work on a Montana homestead

Practices of inventory and collection, intended to organise artefacts in systems of conservation and display, may be unable to cope with deposits of ambiguous or degraded matter. The article chronicles the inventory of residual material culture at a homestead in Montana, and the development of a curatorial practice sensitive to the peculiar qualities and resonances of waste things. Critical and creative resources, drawn from contemporary artists who incorporate such matter in their work, catalyse methodological experimentation with the ordering of objects and their histories. Explorations of artful inventory lead to reflections on the relation between place, memory, and the geographical specificity of curatorial practice.