The archive has long been a form of collection, preservation and communication. As the internet and social media reshape what, why and how we record information, whether for personal or institutional means, the nature of the archive itself is also in flux. How does the archive mediate the relationship between public and private space? How to archives shape individual and collective memory? Should the archiveist preserve without intervention? What will the archives of the future look like? And in what ways do other mediums – bodies, places, cultures – act as their own kinds of archive?

This edition of Griffith Review goes on the record to reveal the spoils and surprises of the archive.

_{Cover image: Joan Ross, M’lady’s Ikebana room (2014), hand-painted pigment print on cotton rag paper, 91×71 cm}