The documentation of a city can never be complete with only the documentation of the administrative domain, and requires that of its citizens, who are living in the city in different ways. This study attempts to present the documentation of the memories of the citizens, which either have never been produced or have been damaged and thus are difficult to be collected.
From the Archival Activist point of view, this study suggests documentary as its research method, in order to leave trace of various experiences of Seoul, which are not recorded in document but are rooted in its people’s memories and their daily lives.
Documentaries are characterized by their narrative. This can be somewhat arbitrary, but it is due to their narrative that this study suggests documentaries, rather than oral statements, as a new form of method. While, due to its self-historicality, oral records are subject to producing redundant or irrelevant memories, documentaries enable the documentation of data relevant to the topic of collection.
First, the study presents the narrative-based archiving, which is the same method of collection suggested by Seoul Metropolitan Archives, and then explores the role and significance of documentary archiving. It further presents the conditions in which documentary archiving is required in the context of narrative-based collection.
The study presents the planning and implementation of documentary archiving and introduces one of the three documentaries produced by 2019 Seoul Archiving Project.