Archive of technology, entertainment and everyday life
The Museo Universitario del Chopo opened in 1975, and its Information Centre and Media Library holds materials useful for researching musical cultures and practices. Available documentation places it as a landmark for Mexican underground cultures in the 1980s and as host to the first Tianguis de la Música.
Open storyA reading of film heritage that goes beyond the movie as an artwork: prints, negatives, posters, equipment, documents and exhibition contexts help explain why conserving cinema also means enabling access and interpretation.
Open storyThe appearance of Rattan Body, by Issey Miyake and Koshige Shochikudo, on Artforum’s March 1982 cover provides a way to examine a broader change: the gradual arrival of contemporary fashion in museums as cultural expression, while acknowledging the material and curatorial limits involved in exhibiting and preserving garments.
Open storyStickers did not begin as isolated toys. In Spain, the evidence gathered places their antecedents in commercial wrappers from the late nineteenth century, their spread through consumer products in the 1920s, and the sale of packets in the post-war period. This history explains why the album, the duplicate, and swapping form a cultural system of their own.
Open storyBetween the second half of the 1970s and 1990, magazines were a decisive route for adult comics in Spain. This piece examines their expansion on newsstands, their editorial diversity, and the reasons attributed to their later decline, distinguishing available evidence from interpretation.
Open storyAn analysis of The Food Timeline, the project associated with reference librarian Lynne Olver, and what it reveals about documenting food history without reducing it to a simple list of “inventions.”
Open storySix sources make it possible to outline, with explicit limits, several landmarks in Spanish toy history: the electric train of 1931, the interruption caused by the Civil War, Scalextric’s presence from 1952, Nancy in 1968, Madelman in 1968, and Geyperman in 1975.
Open storyA critical reading of the available evidence on the Museu del Còmic i la Il·lustració and the value of magazines, booklets, press material and original art as documentary heritage. The article separates what the sources support from what still requires cataloguing, provenance and institutional consultation.
Open storyCollections in Turin, Berlin, Madrid and Argentina show that a historic vehicle is not merely a design object: it can be a technical document, a working tool, a public memory and a starting point for making spare parts. The available evidence supports comparing these approaches, but not turning them into a complete history of motoring.
Open storyThe case of Oscar de la Renta dresses in a National Museum of the American Latino display explains a core principle of textile conservation: removing a garment from light does not mean hiding it, but extending its ability to tell a story.
Open storyThe Museo da Conserva’s #ComidaViejuna campaign invites us to read household recipe books as objects that preserve recipes, visual habits and cultural memory. Drawing on that initiative and sources on food heritage, this piece examines what can—and cannot—be documented when collecting, describing and interpreting everyday papers.
Open storyThe 2006 opening of Modena’s Museo della Figurina offers a way to examine the sticker as a printed object, a domestic collection, and a cultural document. This guide proposes a careful approach to viewing, cataloguing, and preserving it, while separating established evidence from questions requiring further research.
Open story
