Archiving as Resistance and Radical Pedagogy

Fernando Birri’s commitment to creating and preserving memory—grounded in his anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist values—took shape in the 1990s, when he began systematically archiving his work to safeguard his creative legacy.

Having endured exile and periods of political repression, Birri was acutely aware of how easily artistic and personal records could be lost, suppressed, or deliberately erased. His films and artworks channeled this urgency, offering poetic and critical responses to authoritarianism and societal conformity. Many of these materials carry an explicit emotional and sexual dimension, articulated in ways that resisted censorship and often unsettled mainstream sensibilities. Preserving them without alteration was a deliberate act of resistance, encompassing both political and personal dimensions. As he expressed in an interview with Argentine filmmaker Carmen Guarini, in response to her statement that “life is always resistance,” he replied: “Especially when lived from our perspective, right? For others… it’s a form of concealment, and ultimately, of self-betrayal.” ¹

Over more than a decade, Birri developed a meticulous and self-devised archival practice, creating a unique classification system organized by series, subtopics, formats and year of creation. He designed his own finding aid to facilitate navigation of the collection and encourage its use. Reflecting his long experience as an educator, Birri conceived the archive as an extension of his teaching, informed by the same attention he devoted to preparing a lecture or leading students through cinematic projects.

Rather than treating the archive as a protected insular domain, Birri conceived it as a democratic space where preservation and open exploration coexist. In this sense, the archive functions as a record of artistic production and as a pedagogical instrument, inviting future students, artists, and researchers to interrogate conformity, resist repression, and explore alternative forms of expression.