The archive as a cognitive artefact. An analysis of the complex relationship between culture and business

The research work aims at investigating the company archive phenomenon by considering its original cultural dimension and analysing it through a parallel empiric research carried out in two different contexts: in a manufacturing design company and in a cultural institution. In both cases, the archive is an “in fieri” project. In the first case, it is the desired tool to boost the brand communication, while it will end in identifying the absence of a coherent product strategy. In the second case, it is conceived as a process of revision of the existent archive, meant to re-organise the cultural asset of the foundation in a period of change and new acquisitions, and it will become the opportunity to revise the relationship between temporary exhibitions and permanent collection. The present work then aims at analysing the complexity of the process of archive construction and interpretation, and adopts a perspective which is intrinsically interdisciplinary, both because of the researchers involved and because of the process of investigation which is based on a qualitative work of analysis where all the documentation are analysed in parallel and adopting different perspectives, in order to make sense of the archive safeguarding its complexity.