The train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam passes through Schipol airport, picking up holiday- goers to complete the final leg of their journey to the capital. I made this journey on a Tuesday morning, so thankfully avoided the weekend crowds of the lad’s gearing up for a few days of debaucherous exploits, and rather a more wholesome crowd looking forward to seeing the city. Their anticipation enveloped me in agitated excitement, moving me to opt out of taking public transport to Bab’s house and instead fulfilling my inner flâneur fantasies by strolling through the Amsterdam streets to get there.The entranceway to Bab’s apartment block has the interesting feature of the individual lights turning on and off as you walk through, invoking a sense that I was walking to my impending doom in some sort of sci-fi movie. Thankfully, I was greeted at Bab’s door with a mug of warm green tea instead. The apartment is similar to the studio in terms of being naturally illuminated by large windows, with engrossing artworks of different shapes, sizes and forms interspersed throughout.
We got down to business straight away, spending the succeeding hours discussing the items that would need to be archived, both manual and digital, and conceiving an initial plan on how to begin to structure the works. As we confirmed the initial equipment I need to purchase, there is a reassuring mutual sense of determination to begin the project and work on it in a way that does justice to the career of Babs. Stored in the apartment are many physical pieces that will need to be archived, including documents, catalogues, film negatives, and even VHS tapes. Further to this, Bab’s was clear in her idea of how the existing digital files should be organized and archived. Showing me through the documents on her computer, we navigated through different folders to get a sense of how and where to find what we would need to complete the information on whatever was to be archived.
At one point, it all became a blur
My mind had not been fully dredged from the succeeding weekend, and after a number of hours of going through physical materials and creating a plan for the digital beginnings of the projects, I had reached my full limit of information intake. We said our goodbyes, and I left the apartment building armed with the knowledge of how I can get the wheels on the project turning.
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