Conversation with Julia Meltzer, Los Angeles, 2003

In this conversation, Julia Meltzer discusses the project, The Speculative Archive for Historical Clarification, which she began in 1999 together with David Thorne. The project was initially inspired by newly released files from the Clinton administration about U.S. involvement in Guatemala. It investigates the reasons behind the government’s public acknowledgment of its covert activities in Central and South America in relation to recent events and the war on terrorism. As Meltzer puts it: “What we try to do is employ the past… to talk about the current political moment… to think about the procedures and processes of how we come to know some of the things that the government keeps secret.”

Meltzer is working on a documentary based on interviews with key figures in U.S. intelligence and information management, conducted before September 11, 2001. These interviews included high-ranking officials from the CIA, the State Department, and other federal agencies. Despite her extensive research and interviews, Meltzer faced challenges in documenting these conversations due to the classified nature of the locations, relying on transcription rather than recordings. She explains her approach to presenting these complex issues through an artistic lens, focusing on how to recount a history without its recordings.

Meltzer also touches on her relationship with feminism, noting that while her mentors were influenced by the feminist movement, her work does not explicitly focus on feminist themes. She values collaborative processes but points out the limitations of consensus-based decision-making. Meltzer has shifted from working directly with activist groups to exploring more intricate representational strategies. She underlines her intent to address political issues in a way that transcends simple, black-and-white narratives and expresses her interest in engaging a wider audience, wondering “how the sort of visual approach that we’re taking in this project might play out in the field of human rights law.”

Meltzer concludes the interview by reflecting on why she makes art: “It’s because I think there are ways to represent and discuss ideas that can be in some ways open-ended, more complicated, and can produce a different type of conversation than just, say, publishing a book. And perhaps, there are ways that different audiences could respond in different ways to seeing visual images about ideas around secrecy.”