Have you ever searched for the work of a lighting designer online? Generally speaking, there is very little you can find that will get you started as a professional. A bio, some basic information, a few photos, a critique, a mention in the fringe of a show at a theater house or, at best, the website of the designer himself. Mainly fleeting information that you know will soon disappear. And if you want to dig a little deeper and explore the oeuvre you're quickly out of luck. Archives, museums and collections hold a limited number of designers' works and they are not very accessible. The terminology in archives is not adapted to document and disclose the designers' work.

Chris has been working on this issue in Belgium for some time. He was one of the initiators of the European Canon Project. In recent years, that initiated the inventory and preservation of performing arts heritage and built a database tailored to the sector. In the next phase, they also want to inventory design. This raises many questions:

What do designers consider important to preserve?
The oeuvre? The process? The technique used? And in what form do we preserve that? And how do we do it now?

And why do we preserve a design?
As a working archive, to recreate a performance? As a reminder? From a future historical perspective? As inspiration for new work? As a career portfolio to present?

And how do we do that technically?
In a world where more and more digital information can no longer be captured on paper, and where the shelf life of digital files is limited? And what about copyright?

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